"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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"Rescue."

Production hit a snag where I had to dig up the alternate hands for Ghos--er, Spirit Spider. I don't love that latter name, it sounds like the Spider that moves into a storefront when something goes out of business... Read more!

Shoot, do I haveta buy another Rom figure?

I have two, of course, but one is unopened on my wall! Still, this was one of the issues I had as a kid, so a good one to finally hit: from 1981, Rom #25, featuring "Galador!" Written by Bill Mantlo, pencils by Sal Buscema, inks by Joe Sinnott; and "Love Will Tear Us Apart" Written by Stephen Grant, pencils by Greg LaRocque, inks by Steve Mitchell.

Some have pointed out some similarities between the silver Spaceknight here, and Marvel's own Silver Surfer: aside from the coloring, both were insanely noble, and had made horrible sacrifices to save their respective homeworlds, and later earth. But the Surfer's timeline is somewhat vague as to how long he was Galactus's herald: in-story, it seems like it could've been centuries, although the Surfer's girl Shalla Bal didn't seem to have gotten old and died, so maybe it wasn't? Here, Rom returns to Galador, after leaving 200 years ago to continue fighting the Dire Wraiths. Which is why he's confused when he's greeted as though he had never left? And that he was their Prime Director? The people hail and kneel to him, as the Hawkman-like Angel Elite form an honor guard/perimeter around him, saying they had not realized he intended to go out in public. Rom thinks back over his history, and the first two years of the book, as he approaches the "Hall of Science!" It's a bit foreboding to him, as that's where he had been made into a cyborg Spaceknight, but also where his remaining human parts were still stored...He notices the doors were now covered with carvings, of his own heroic deeds; but that was troubling in itself since the Galadorians had never glorified war.

Before he can enter, Rom is confronted, by another Rom: it doesn't get a big reveal, it's on the cover, okay? Rom-2 also had the ornaments of office, the "Living Lightning" which look a lot like the thunderbolts Arkon threw around, and the "Golden Globe of Power," which looks like a pain in the ass to hold with Rom's mitteny hands. Rom scans his duplicate with his analyzer, thinking it would be a shape-changing Dire Wraith: instead, Rom-2 was almost a literal mirror image of himself, human where he was machine, and vice versa. The Angel Elite fry Rom with weaponry that seemed specifically created to zap him; captured, he's hung up in a stasis field. Really surprised they didn't lean into the crucifixation angle of that; that might be a tokusatsu thing. Rom-2 and a hooded figure question him: was he sure he was the real Rom? Uh, yes; this wasn't anywhere as close to breaking him as they seemed to think it would be, but the worst was yet to come. Rom-2 was really Rom's old friend Terminator: all of his human parts had been lost, so he was probably happy just to have Rom's spare bits. The hooded figure reveals himself to be...Mentus! That name doesn't really mean anything to Rom, but he was the 'evil' side of the previous Prime Director...y'know, he probably had a name besides the job title, but okay. The Prime Director, grieving that he had asked a generation to sacrifice its humanity, tried to project his will into a Spaceknight shell, but instead of creating an alternative to making cyborgs, just released his evil side. Mentus then faked the PD's death, but the populace greeted the returning 'Rom' as a hero and gave him the position. The people believed him when he said the Dire Wraiths were defeated, but Mentus was actually moving Galador to the Wraith's dark nebula: he was going to give them Galador, in exchange for ruling them, which he assumed they would in awe of his evil.

Back in Clairton, WV; Brandy Clark takes Steve Jackson to the drive-in movies, but not for anything fun: she needed to talk to him without anyone listening, since she could tell people were acting changed. Steve doesn't think they had been replaced by Wraiths, since they had new hero the Torpedo to watch for that, but after a mysterious fog settles in, the townsfolk turn on them like zombies. Worse, after they escape to the Torpedo's house, they find it filled with the same fog...

Meanwhile, on Galador, the Prime Director tries to encourage Rom, telling him Mentus fed on despair. Summoning his neutralizer from subspace, Rom frees himself, then the PD, then the frozen Spaceknights that had returned over the years but been betrayed by Terminator and Mentus. The Spaceknights strike first, to disable the duped Angel Elite; but Mentus had brought in Dire Wraiths, who are probably a little steamed Rom had only been captured, not killed. Rom faces his own face in the Terminator, who is willing to kill to keep at least some humanity, but he is then swayed by Starshine, who forgives his earlier coldness. Terminator turns on the Wraiths, using his neutralizer not just to banish, but to kill; seemingly sending them directly to hell. Rom also gladly accepts his old friend, even if it costs him his humanity, because goddamn he's noble. But, the collected Spaceknights then find the Prime Director and Mentus, both dead: appearing briefly as a big floating head, the Prime Director explains he had reabsorbed his evil side, but at the cost of his life. Still, he warns there was more danger ahead, as Galactus was coming...as we saw, some time back! This one would have to be backpedaled a bit to get Rom a happy ending at the end of the series, but at the time was just one in an ongoing series of tragedies for the character.

Also this issue, "Love Will Tear Us Apart"--wait, not that one! OK, I would've read this in '81, but I wouldn't hear Joy Division until several years later, probably on 120 Minutes or its tie-in CD. Set earlier than the lead story, Rom sends more Dire Wraiths into Limbo, while still trying to track down a field commander named Baran. He gets a tip from Brandy, who had researched recent developments in advanced sciences; but both her dad and her ostensible boyfriend Steve worry about her associating with the Spaceknight: it's more than obvious they've lost her and she loves Rom, even if nobody comes out and says it yet. Baran, for his part, had 'gone native': he had been on earth for at least five years, and had a human wife and adopted son, which his cohorts are appalled by. When his wife is captured by the Wraiths, Baran is forced to admit the truth to her; but Rom arrives in time, having looked Baran up in the phone book! The other Wraiths, having already turned on Baran, nearly kill Rom with new magnetic weapons, but Baran shoots and wounds one, giving Rom time to recover. Baran then surrenders: he had acted against his own to save his wife, but was done. Instead of banishing him, though, Rom considers him human now, and leaves him to try and hash things out with his wife, who isn't sure if they can go on. (If you know what eventually happens in the book, I'm not sure it works out for Baran either way!) Read more!