I grabbed this issue at the toy show, but didn't love it at first read. Will it improve looking at it here? Well, stranger things have happened, maybe. From 1979, World's Finest #257, cover by Jim Aparo.

"The Innocent Who Hated!" is a nice title, but this one feels like Denny O'Neil trying to inject some social consciousness into a Bob Haney-type story: a refugee scientist is working in the zoo, nursing a strange lizard creature back to health, when he's accosted by some goons who want to drag him back to his old country. Batman stops them, but the guy's lizard escapes, and flies to Metropolis and takes up with Maudy. She's what used to be called a 'bag lady' and more than a bit off; but she takes to the creature, naming it 'Fred' after her brother. Fred turns out to be pretty helpful, granting Maudy the ability to alter reality; which would be great if she just wanted a house or something: first, she causes a cop to go bouncing away from her, then tries out looking like a uptown model for a bit, before getting into an argument with a construction worker about there being too many too buildings and it was too crowded. (Superman saves the cop, but misses Maudy while she looks different.) Maudy is more than a little...what used to be called, "opinionated," and after another argument with a Chinese restaurant owner decides the problem is too many foreigners, so maybe they shouldn't let anybody else into Metropolis. As the bridges collapse and tunnels block, Batman barely makes it in himself, having been told that Fred might be telepathic and then leaping to the correct conclusion.

Superman does his best to mitigate the disaster, until Maudy starts turning anyone she considers foreign to stone, including him! Batman was alright by her, so he's not affected, but is maybe freaking out a bit. Eventually, Maudy seems to decide change them all and let God sort them out, turning all of Metropolis except her, Fred, and Batman into statues! Thinking quickly, as Maudy settles down for a nap in the park, Batman breaks into a costume store, makes himself over as a George Washington statue, and gives Maudy an after-school special speech about America was all about everyone working together. Maudy changes everyone back, and Superman grabs Fred and hustles him out of there, while Batman takes the crying Maudy away for help. It kinda feels like the World's Finest team just gave the business to an old lady, but she was kind of a jerk, so...The scientist thinks Fred was too dangerous and would need to be killed, but Batman wishes he was safe and back where he came from, and Fred disappears. Presumably back where he came from, and not to nothingness: there's no reason why Batman's wish would have precedence over the scientist's, his was first! (Written by Denny O'Neil, pencils by Dick Dillin, inks by Frank McLaughlin.)

Denny writes the next story as well, Black Lightning in "Death Ransom!" Confronting his archfoe Tobias Whale, Black Lightning is captured; which Tobias intends to put to good use. No, not powering his house: he blackmails his former organization, the 100, to either pay twenty million, or he would turn Lightning loose with all the information he had on the 100. Savvy plan, somewhat undermined by Tobias' moll Tabby, who offers the 100 his location, for the bargain price of 500 grand! Lightning and Tobias are forced to work together to escape, then have to find Tabby and bring down the 100...to be continued! (Written by Denny O'Neil, pencils by George Tuska, inks by Bob Smith.)

"Time Keeps on Killing" brings back old Green Arrow baddie the Clock King, who's back for revenge, and it feels somewhat justified? Diagnosed with only six months to live, he had turned to crime to try and leave some money behind for his sister. She had some ailment, referred to rather insensitively by Ollie; and Clock King had been willing to sacrifice himself to keep her out of a nursing home. But, either the diagnosis had been in error or he beat the disease, and while he ended up in jail, his sister had been sent to a state home and died there. CK tries to blow up a clock tower, Green Arrow, and himself, but fails. He would be played strictly for laughs in the Giffen/DeMatteis Justice League; I think they leave the dead sister out of his origin now. (Written by Paul Kupperberg, pencils by Jose Delbo, inks by Frank McLaughlin.)

"Attack of the In-and-Out Invaders" sounds mildly risqué, but it's Hawkman and Hawkgirl trying to help some birds affected by unexplained sonic waves, that leads to alien thieves robbing the Midway City Museum. The thieves are "in-and-out" in the sense that the Hawks can't touch them, seeming to pass through them like they were erasing them. Like a lot of their stories, the bad guy had seemingly found sophisticated alien technology, somewhere, and immediately decided to use it for robbery. (Written by Gerry Conway, pencils by Rich Buckler, inks by Romeo Tanghal.)

Finally, everyone in the world seems to be listless and tired--yeah, tell me something I don't know--as Captain Marvel faces "the Invincible Man!" (Written by E.Nelson Bridwell, pencils by Don Newton, inks by Kurt Schaffenberger.) The big green meanie explains, he was tapping directly into the soul of the universe, which made him as mighty as Captain Marvel; and "the spawn of Shazam!" couldn't cut off that power without killing everyone on earth! But, CM realizes, his foe seems to know a lot about him, which makes him think it was actually one of his old foes...and he's right! I probably would've enjoyed this story more, if the next issue blurb wasn't for "The Courtship of Captain Nazi!" I'm pretty sure he's up to no good there, but phrasing, man. I don't want to see Captain Nazi trying to get a date, I want to see the Marvels work him over with tire irons for 15 pages. Read more!

Sometimes when they say 'locals only' you maybe should listen.

Also this issue: a woman goes about becoming a b-girl the wrong way--wait, I think I mean something else. From 1975, House of Secrets #129. Cover by Luis Dominguez.

"Almost Human" is a spin on a fairly typical horror plot: the hidden village of mysterious tribesmen, who may have secrets unknown to modern man. In this case, it's a tribe of bee people, somehow evolved from insects: an entomologist thinks their royal jelly could be a cure for most diseases and aging, and is willing to sacrifice her party to get it if need be. She kills a guy to keep him from hurting one, then gets captured by the bee people, who give her exactly what she wanted, which doesn't turn out exactly as she expected. (Written by Jack Oleck, art by Franc Reyes.)

After some Sergio Aragones' shorts, we then get "The Lottery," which isn't Shirley Jackson's version but it's close. A businessman says goodbye to his beloved wife and kids before getting on the train for a business trip, but ends up on the wrong train and instead of Springfield (not that one...well, maybe) he gets stuck in small town Plumber's Junction. Stranded until the next train comes through, at least the town was having some kind of festival, complete with a lottery with a $50,000 prize! The man wants a ticket for that action, but is warned this was usually just for the locals...well, it'll probably be okay. Of course he wins, and the prize is legit, but it's going to his family, since the man is clonked on the head, and left trussed up in a cemetery for the local vampire! The locals feel kinda bad about it, but overall one victim a year was better than the vampire picking people off all willy-nilly and such, and the family was taken care of, so...They maybe should put some of that on the lottery tickets, in the fine print maybe. (Written by Michael Fleisher and Russell Carley, art by Ernie Chan.)

That page is pretty good, although I feel like you could write like a dozen of these that use it! All roads lead to the graveyard, I suppose. Read more!

"Collected."

Yay, the Squadron Supreme returns! To their old boss? We'll see why maybe later. Read more!

He's not called "Boomerang" because of the things he throws; it's more of a karma thing.

I just grabbed a reader copy of this one, and I'm not sure if I'd read it before, or if I'd just seen all of it online? In the best way. From 2013, Superior Foes of Spider-Man #1, written by Nick Spencer, art by Steve Lieber.

Pretty sure the Sinister Six here never really gets a sixth member, but this issue is mostly Boomerang's story, starting with a brief recap of his origin: a star baseball pitcher that got caught fixing games, that was then approached by the Secret Empire and kitted out with weapons. Fred's a lout and a jerk, but one with big dreams; like getting out of jail for one. It's a somewhat elaborate shell game that involves shorting Hammerhead on some diamonds and letting him beat up poor Shocker (who would be the butt monkey for most of the run) except it doesn't, Hammerhead was really the Chameleon, 'kickstarting' Boomerang's crew, although I'm not sure how either Chameleon or Boomerang expect that to work when there's not really a job or money for said crew after they've put them together...? Well, that's a later problem.

While not eat-a-baby evil, the Six are largely conscienceless jerks--well, as far as we know: Overdrive actually has dreams of joining the Avengers after his 'villain' phase; and the new Beetle is maybe just there to piss off her dad, who maybe should not be pissed off. Shocker's kind of alright; but this issue we see Speed Demon steal a little girl's dog and the Beetle rob a comic shop, with varying degrees of success. They are jerks!

I think I forgot this started during the Superior Spider-Man era, too. There's a jerk for you...Also, I think some time after this, they tried to give Fred a redemption arc in Amazing Spider-Man: didn't take! Still, big recommendation if you missed this; I gotta figure out if I have all of it.

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"Warning: Read Siege #4 before this book!" I keep telling you, you can't make me!

They tried to do the same thing for Sentry: Fallen Sun, too. Will I like this issue any more...or less? From 2010, the New Avengers: Finale #1, written by Brian Michael Bendis, pencils by Bryan Hitch and others, inks by Butch Guice, Andrew Currie, Mark Morales, and others.

I actually have read Siege, and off the top of my head, the only things I can recollect are a pep talk for the bad guys that Asgardians were creampuffs and Thor was like their Spider-Man, the only tough one; and Norman Osborn unmasked in his Iron Patriot suit and found to be wearing...like Green Goblin facepaint underneath? It's a striking visual that does not make a helluva lot of sense: he had been crazy before, sure, but portrayed as a savvy master-planner always at least two steps ahead of everyone, not a drooling nutbag. This would be the end of Norman's time as everyone's villain and send him back to just being Spidey's. Anyway, with Norman under arrest, a ton of villains captured, and oh yeah, I guess Asgard had fallen? But, the New Avengers had been wanted by the law for quite a stretch, and weren't really sure if they still were at this point. Still, they were holding a grudge against the Hood, and even if he had lost his powers (again! How many times has that happened?) they had no intention of letting him rebuild power; either his own or organizational. The Hood had escaped with Madame Masque, who takes him to her dad, Count Nefaria, in the hopes of getting his powers back. Or some powers. Whatever. (I had mistakenly thought Silvermane was Masque's father, or maybe wasn't going to let that get in the way of a joke!)

Weird, this would be two years before Bendis would shoehorn Count Nefaria into another attempt at a big finish, Moon Knight #12. I suppose he's needed here so this isn't just a cakewalk for Ms. (Captain) Marvel, but the Avengers bring in everyone; which feels like should spell doom for the Hood, since I can't see him not getting repeatedly shanked in prison. Steve Rogers is made "America's top cop," a title I don't miss. Their names cleared, and Luke Cage reunited with Jessica Jones and their kid, the team enjoys a rare walk in the sun. 

This was the end of Bendis's long time with the Avengers. which was usually more miss than hit for me; even as he still has the occasional decent character beat; like Nefaria badmouthing the Hood, asking what Whitney saw in him. But, and I could say this was of its time, but it's also petty and mean? The Avengers go out of their way to intimidate and torture the Hood's cousin to get info (lightly torture, if there's such a thing) and their takedown of the bad guys is a bit over the top: Nefaria boasts of being immortal, so they bring Wolverine in to stab him a bunch? Moreover, I should enjoy Hitch art more than I do; but neither the Ultimates nor the Authority have aged especially well for me. Which I'm pretty sure wasn't his fault, but here we are. There's also a sizeable stretch of the story set under red lights, for...reasons? Like the colorist got it on sale? And then a pin-up section-slash-series retrospective by various artists, if that does anything for you.

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"The Secret of Mockingbird"? What, like what she actually thought of Hawkeye's costume?

No, not that one, the Secret Six one--no, I keep telling you, not that Secret Six! Oh, let's just do this: from 1988, Action Comics #629. Cover by Dick Rockwell.

Captain Atom guests in the lead feature, with Green Lantern; as an alien having taken the form of 80's action-movie star "Randy Violent" dug a chunk out from underneath an office building for his ship or recharge-temple or whatever. (I'm pretty sure Randy Violent was referenced in the Question; it may have been a DC go-to like Big Belly Burgers.) While GL struggled to hold the building up until the fire department could get everyone out, Captain Atom tries to make peace with the alien, and fails miserably; deciding it was too dangerous to be left to its own devices and starts trying to kill it. Exhausted and his ring running out of charge, GL still tells Atom, the only way he'd get that alien, was over his dead body...! ("So Long Ago the Garden" Plot and script by James (Priest) Owsley, plot and pencils by M.D. "Doc" Bright, inks by Romeo Tanghal.)

Black Canary's last strip may have ended on a cliffhanger where she faced a flying figure with swords, and another with a hook...this month we find out Dinah just beat up the cast of a local production of Peter Pan. This was like six chapters in so I'm not caught up, but Dinah may have found the killer, if someone doesn't get her first. ("Knock 'em Dead, part 6" Written by Sharon Wright, pencils by Randy DuBurke, inks by Pablo Marcos.) Likewise, "Beginning of the End" was also well into the Secret Six serial, but finally reveals the identity of the original Mockingbird: the premise had been, he had put the espionage team together, but was also secretly a member.

After a Superman two-pager, there's part four of a Nightwing and Speedy serial, that appears to be all Speedy this month, and is set in Ireland. With his daughter Lian, Speedy meets a couple orphans, and their story is dark; involving terrorism, murder, and suicide. Speedy is reaching the kids, so of course the house gets firebombed on the last page. ("Rocks and Hard Places, chapter 4: New Friends, Old Enemies" Written by Cherie Wilkerson, art by Tom Mandrake.)

Finally, another chapter of Blackhawk, where after the death of Marcia, Jan beats the crap out of her CIA agent jerk brother; then sleeps with Nat. She doesn't seem thrilled about that later, but Jan checks his mail, and finds they've both been invited to Washington, by Harry S. Truman! ("Some Guys Can't Take No For an Answer" Written by Martin Pasko, pencils by Rick Burchett, inks by John Nyberg.) Read more!

Good idea: making a list of all the Earth X/Universe X/Paradise X books I've bought additional copies of, to see what I need to complete another run of that. Better idea: maybe putting that list somewhere I'd actually be able to read it while I'm looking, like in my phone or something? No, that makes too much sense. And I'm at least 40% sure I hadn't bought another of this one, anyway: from 2000, 4 (Universe X) #1, plot by Alex Ross, plot and script by Jim Krueger, art by Brent Anderson, additional inks by Will Blyberg. Cover by Alex Ross.

Unlike most characters in the Earth X setting, at the start Ben Grimm is happy and thriving, largely retired, and living with his wife Alicia and their two boys, Buzz and Chuck. (Alicia had gained some kind of sculpt-to-life powers in the Terrigen Mists, and maybe wasn't blind anymore, so she was doing way better than a lot of the people changed thusly.) Reed Richards, however, is a wreck; having not only lost Sue and Johnny, but also Franklin: as X-51 recaps at the start of this one, Franklin was Galactus now, but unaware of who he had been prior; Reed couldn't tell him without changing him back, and Galactus was needed to eat planets and keep the Celestials' numbers down. Still, Galactus had been summoned to earth previously, and defended it, when called as Franklin; now he asks X-51 to tell him of Franklin Richards, trying to determine why that name meant something to him.

Meanwhile, at Castle Doom, problems continued to pile up: Adam Warlock had returned, although Ben wonders why he wasn't trying harder to find Her. Even as Reed's "human torches" worked to burn away the Terrigen, Warlock and Her's son was the source of a lot of strife with mutated humanity, so Reed stashed the kid the last place anyone would expect: with Namor, who was still half on fire, since killing Johnny Storm. This triggers a sidebar about the nature of mutation, at least in the Earth X mythos, that might give 'Galactus' a clue as to what he had become. (Basically, if stage 1 mutation was random and stage 2 somewhat more of what the mutant wanted, stage 3 was like becoming what the universe needed you to be; which may have meant the end of what you had been.)

Reed send Ben to Namor, with one instruction: "Don't hit him." Yeah, you're sending the wrong guy then, Reed. In the underwater fight, Ben inadvertently frees Orca, Tiger Shark, and TS's sister Diane; the latter of whom had been mutated by the Terrigen as well. Ben's helmet is smashed, but he's saved by Namor giving him mouth-to-mouth, which is beyond mortifying for him. Namor then introduces him to Warlock's 'son,' the reborn Captain Mar-Vell, who Ben calls Marv; that name might stick. Marv explains, there was nothing for Ben to be mad at Namor about, it wasn't his fault. Then, the kicker: the afterlife, for super-heroes and villains, wasn't heaven but not quite hell: everyone that had died and gone there, thought they were still alive, and that those still alive were dead instead! So, grudge fights continued, as Sue and Johnny thought Reed and Ben were dead, and were still fighting Doctor Doom. Marv was in both universes now, appearing in the dead one as an adult with the Enigma Force, as he has a conversation with Stephen Strange and the Micronauts' Commander Rann, who had given Marv the Enigma Force. (The dead universe is also color-swapped: the Scarlet Witch was green there, Doom's usual green cape was red; Sue and Johnny's FF uniforms were now orange and the numbers were backwards!)

X-51 continues to explain-without-explaining why Reed had called 'Franklin' and 'Galactus' had come: after first meeting Uatu on the moon, Reed would have realized, the Watcher had always been watching, and maybe not as a friend. The FF had travelled back into the past (more than once! But FF #19 is referenced here) and Uatu would have seen that, before they actually met him. Uatu would've known of the Inhumans, the secret origins of vibranium, the creation of Adam Warlock: all of this might have inspired Reed to investigate the Microverse and the Negative Zone, perhaps looking for a place away from prying eyes...In the dead universe, Marv plans to reunite Reed and Sue: not by killing Reed, but by bringing Sue back, if they can convince her that she was really dead. Johnny had been convinced, but Sue tells him the only thing that would convince her would be to "get Victor Von Doom to come to me and apologize for his entire existence."

An aside: to keep the narration clear, X-51 is given caption boxes with like a circuitry underlay. They're really annoying to read at a glance, you have to focus there! But, pressed further, X-51 explains how Frankin's mutations had affected him: he'd been turned into an adult, back to a kid, a teenager for a bit, kid again, with the Celestials later keeping tabs on him after he had created the "Heroes Reborn" pocket universe. Galactus forces X-51 to admit, Franklin had been a threat to the Celestials; which doesn't add up for him, since 'Galactus' thought he was the only threat to the Celestials. Back in the dead universe, Johnny faces off with Doom: almost literally, as he unmasks him, to show him his scars were gone. Although, he does threaten, he wasn't quite sure how it worked there, but probably could scar him up again if needed.

Forced into a corner, X-51 shows 'Galactus' the final fate of Franklin Richards: killed by Sentinels in X-Men #141...huh? 'Galactus' accepts that explanation, and annoyed that he wasted time talking to a robot, leaves. X-51 is confused, since he knows it didn't go down like that, at least for his world, and is grudgingly forced to consult with Uatu. Namor takes Marv and Ben back to Castle Doom, but then leaves, saying he wanted it to happen but he couldn't be there for it. Marv asks Reed to tell him about Sue, and he breaks down, since he had never even really been able to mourn her. In the dead universe, Sue does get that apology from Doom, who explains everything, from how his hurt pride led to everything he had done, to how he had always been able to manipulate Namor by not letting him split his time in and out of water correctly, to trying to kill Reed with a 'suicide' bomb. It wouldn't really have been suicide, Doom had planned to teleport away; but he chose to kill Sue instead to hurt Reed more, then his teleport failed and he died as well. Looking back on it there, Doom is able to see...yeah.

Now that Sue accepted her death, Marv was able to bring her back: using Reed's right arm as the clay, Alicia sculpts Sue, then Warlock gives her the soul gem, returning her to the living universe. This isn't a sacrifice for Warlock: Ben had thought his soul had been in the gem as well, but Warlock says he was now free, and takes his leave to go find his wife, which should get an "atta boy" from Ben. And back on the moon, X-51 offers to plug Uatu back in, so he can at least hear the world; if he can explain why he was seeing different histories...to be continued, in Universe X #1? Good lord, I thought we were further in than that. But, along with being a satisfyingly dense read, this issue shows how they were able to take something editorially inconsistent like Franklin's multiple age changes, and make them make sense. Sure, you have to go around the long way, but it gets there!  

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