I feel the same way about Batman comics sometimes, Bruce, but I keep coming back too.

Batman, being a detective in the past: Hmm, this millionaire was murdered, in a locked room! But how...my only clue, is this broken saxophone reed! Batman, being a detective in the present: 147 people have just been murdered, and now I have to crack this international terrorist ring before they destroy London! I'm only slightly exaggerating, and I feel like I'm going to seem way harder on this book than I may actually be: from 2021, Batman: the Detective #1, written by Tom Taylor, art by Andy Kubert. This is the fancy 1-in-25 retailer exclusive Riccardo Federici cover, but we're still cramming it in the scanner!

This isn't in regular continuity, but it may have taken me a while to realize it. It opens with a group of terrorists, in white Batman cowls, blowing up a plane; telling the victims this was Batman's fault. The terrorists bail out, with the current Knight of England still trying to fight them, and she's hurt on the landing and then shot. Back in Gotham, an older, and less suave than usual Batman wonders, what has he actually accomplished? Has he stopped crime, made Gotham safer, or even made it a better place to live? No, no, and um, no. He felt he had saved people, individuals, and that was about it. There is a page of Bruce, leaving Wayne Manor, and wondering if he would ever return; that I thought was from current, Alfred-less continuity. Bruce is stubbled and his haircut seems almost military, a far cry from his jet-setting playboy look! But you get the feeling he spends about zero time as 'Bruce,' so...

Investigating the plane crash, Batman is joined by the current Squire, who asks him to check on the Knight: not just question her about what happened, see how she was. They are interrupted by the now-monstrous Gentleman Ghost, who's there to eat the fear of the recently dead, and maybe Batman's as well. He instead gets punched out, which does impress the Squire; as Bats tells the Knight later. But, the cowled terrorists--Equilibrium, one says--attack the hospital, after the Knight. They're tough enough to give Batman pause, although he manages to snare one to shake answers out of later; but Batman does discover something when cross-referencing the list of victims: they had all previously been rescued by Batman. Someone was undoing his work... 

 A good chunk of the rest of the series, is seemingly a redemption arc for Henri Ducard, one of Bruce's trainers, and not the most upstanding of them. We saw him in his debut in Detective Comics #599, midway through 'Blind Justice.' He seemed less ethically gray there, more of a straight baddie: here, Taylor portrays him as maybe occasionally offing somebody, that probably had it coming, which of course wouldn't sit well with Batman either. Ducard does maybe teach Batman something else here, though: manhunting doesn't have to be a solo gig, networking is important! Still, I never love how the stakes in these things has been raised and raised and raised: a mere murder isn't enough anymore, we have to have a planeful just to get things started.

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I probably thought this was the last issue of the series when I grabbed it, but at least it's a good one: from 2011, Booster Gold #43, "Endgame" Written by Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis, pencils by Chris Batista, inks by Rich Perrotta.

Suffering from "chronal leprosy" and fated to become the Time Trapper the Perforated Man in the far future, Booster is more than a little out of it, but Rip Hunter sends him to the 30th century for help. He immediately finds the Legion of Super-Heroes, in battle with Validus, as was typical for the time. Which in this case...late 70's Legion, I think? Saturn Girl had given up her swimsuit costume, but the team had Wildfire and Dawnstar, and Star Boy had his starfield costume. Despite feeling sick as a dog, Booster still leaps into action to try and save people from being crushed by Validus, and the Legion leaps into action to beat the tar out of him, thinking he was in cahoots with the big monster. This leads to a large chunk of the Legion's headquarters destroyed--well, it's not the old rocket-accident clubhouse; they did tend to wreck headquarters...

The captured Booster tells the future team he'll only talk to Brainiac 5, despite an amusing good cop/bad cop session with Chameleon Boy and Proty. Brainy wants to know where Booster got a flight ring and one of his force-field belts; Booster says it's because they're actually good friends. Brainy seems dubious, which might be because he's not especially friendly himself; he knows it. He takes Booster to the Chronal Institute for study, which looks a lot like experimenting on him; but he's eventually cured of the chronal leprosy, which might prevent the Perforated Man from ever happening. (Maybe it worked, I haven't read the issues with the Perforated Man! Although I feel like they could've just used the Time Trapper, why not?) Brainy even gives him back his stuff, since somehow, history said Booster Gold was still needed; but he also advises Booster that his aging had been slowed down as well. (Which could be either a rebuttal, or a bandaid, for stories where most of Booster's JLI teammates both recognized when they were speaking to future-Booster and claimed they could tell roughly when Booster was from in the timestream, by the size of his bald patch.)

Booster returns to the present, and Brainy then asks Rip Hunter if he had planned that whole thing for Booster. Rip doesn't say, just that Booster would be tested; but back in the past Rip plays dumb when even Booster thinks he manipulated him, saying only that he believed in Booster Gold. The issue ends with Booster grousing that the last few months of his life felt like one of those dumb licensed comics of him--hey!--and that the book had gone in the toilet since switching writers--hey! This was Giffen and DeMatteis's last issue here; as Booster's creator Dan Jurgens would return for his last four issues--getting sucked into crossover hell with Flashpoint. Read more!

I think I've read most of this before, and I'm still struggling.

Last night--two days ago, as this posts--there was a pretty bad wind storm here. I slept like crap, and like 64,000 people were without power yesterday morning! Not me, though, I still hadda work; and my brain is running short on power as well! Still, we've got time for one I got last week: from 1975, Son of Origins. Cover by John Romita.

Ten bucks, and in pretty good shape for a book nearly my age! I have seen the ad with that cover so many times over the years, so finding this was a pleasant surprise--it's been reprinted in '97 with a Gene Ha cover, and three more covers in 2023. This collects, duh, origins of the X-Men, Daredevil, Iron Man, the Silver Surfer, and more; along with ruminations from Stan Lee about each of them. But, much as I prefer the Romita cover, I don't love how "By Stan Lee" makes it sound like he did everything from the writing to the art to the typesetting. I'm more forgiving if along with Stan's name there's even a minor nod like "and the Mighty Marvel Bullpen," even if that's also a bit dismissive.

Anyway, I'll be glad to see the back of this week; we'll see if the next is any improvement!

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I've mentioned other issues of this series that I've bought more than once, and I'm maybe missing one that I probably had, but today we've got one I hadn't read before! From 1985, Conan the King #27, "A Death in Stygia" Written by Alan Zelenetz, breakdowns by Marc Silvestri, finishes by Geof Isherwood.

A dark issue this time around, as a long-standing foe of Conan's returns, even if he isn't referred to by name here: Thoth-Amon. A fisherman and his wife had found his Serpent's Ring in a fish, and thought it would bring them good fortune: hard no there. The ring frees Thoth from the netherworld, and he wastes no time setting up with one of Conan's baron's, the inept failson Maloric. I would've expected him to be a bit more perturbed that Conan had managed to become a king, but he merely watches through his magic, disgusted at the barbarian's happy family life, but seeing potential in Conan's youngest son, Taurus.

Thoth tracks down the ring, but finds the fisherman and his wife murdered, their child seemingly dumbfounded by the loss. Summoning a spirit from the deeps, he is told the ring had been "claimed by one of his own kind,' which Thoth takes to mean a trip to Stygia was in order. In the cursed city of Neethu, within the black hyena sphinx, he finds a gathering of wizards, who have no idea about the Serpent Ring, but are also nowhere near a match for him even as a group. Thoth murders them all horribly, but then laments the impulsive overuse of his magics. He still had enough juice to look through the "mists of time," which mostly catches us up on Conan's regularly-scheduled plotlines, but is blocked from seeing who now had the ring. Furious, Thoth plans to find and kill them, and then Conan; while back at the fisherman's shack, the bodies are found by their neighbors, who are at least grateful the couple didn't have children to leave as orphans...and nearby, the formerly dumbfounded child contemplates the Ring, with evil eyes.

Despite having read so much Conan, I really don't know if I've seen Thoth-Amon that often? Possibly to avoid overuse, cheapening him; although I think Jason Aaron uses him in his King Conan story, as kind of a loser: Conan had become a king, had a family, lived a massively rich life; and what had Thoth-Amon done?

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"Incendiary."

I usually work more full-script than I did this week, we'll see how that goes...Also, I may be fudging a few things, based on what I remembered (or mis-remembered) about our bad guys. For instance, even with the guitar, I thought Hypno-Hustler's hypnosis (which I spelled wrong and had to re-do as well!) was light-based, from the goggles, but it's sound-based. Like Crossfire, who is here for another reason, since I thought he had some stints as an arms dealer; but he and Hypno both use sonic control mechanisms; apparently developed independently, so there may be some professional jealousy. The Dark Avengers Spider-Man, Ai Apaec, was a last-second add here: I'm virtually positive I've never read a comic where he had a line, but he might not be real integrated into modern society maybe. 

 And Kaine! But how--isn't he really--well, we'll see later. But man, Kaine's magenta cape-shawl thing pops, doesn't it? I had bought him earlier and not opened him, then found another cheap at Ross, so here he is.

Oh, and we've seen that Gamma bomb before! It was part of a lot of loose accessory pieces on eBay.

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It's maybe OK to gawk when he's fighting a lion, but embracing his wife...?

Even I'm barely old enough to remember, but Tarzan used to be a prestige gig. Still, there's a right way and a wrong way to do things, and Marvel unsurprisingly chose the latter here. Although it may have been a creative choice as well! From 1977, Tarzan #2, "The Road to Opar!" Adapted from Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan of the Apes and Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar by Roy Thomas, art by John Buscema.

Tarzan was returning home with a guest, Jules Frecoult, whom he had saved from a lion. But "Jules" was really Albert Werper, a Belgian deserter who had killed his commanding officer and fell in with some bandits who wanted to be rid of Tarzan. After Jane recounts Tarzan's origin to him, Albert eavesdrops on the couple--not like that! Well, at least not like that right away: Tarzan tells Jane, their finances back in England had gone bust. Probably due to foul play or dirty deeds, sure, but that left Tarzan forced to come up with quick cash the only way he could: a trip to the lost city of Opar for some gold. Jane knew it was dangerous, probably least of all because the city's queen La wanted Tarzan for herself; but the trip gives Albert an idea--to kill Tarzan after the trip, to steal the gold as well? Yeah, look at the big idea man. I'm sure that'll go well for him.

Despite the prestige of Thomas and Buscema, Mark Evanier noted they were kind of barking up the wrong tree there: Tarzan was more popular in the foreign markets, and they didn't want adaptations, but that's what Thomas decided they should do. The foreign markets also wanted something like the Russ Manning version, while Buscema wanted to do a Joe Kubert-style. Even the number of pages wasn't right for the overseas sales! But, as we've seen, Marvel would keep trying to squeeze that square peg in a round hole for over two years. Which still seems like a bit of a run, considering Star Wars would've just come out, and sci-fi would've been bigger than big then. Still, it feels like whenever anyone gets the Tarzan license, the first thing they want to do is the origin yet again, when maybe they should do something newer. Read more!

Maybe that was a load-bearing hour...

My Youngest lives in Arizona right now, so he doesn't have to mess with time-changes, but I'm not sure I mind it: I was going to say I usually start work when it's pitch-black out, but looking it up, the average sunrise time around here is 5:09 AM. But, it's still overtime season, which I'm not loving: I'm not putting in the max, which feels like leaving money on the table, but I'm there long enough that my brain is fried after. So fried, I didn't read a lot last week; but we did get to a few! From 2021, Children of the Atom #5, written by Vita Ayala, art by Paco Medina, color art by David Curiel.

This was a mini-series, set during the Krakoa era, but despite the name, the kids of the new super-team Children of the Atom weren't mutants. They had found alien tech, which with some trial, error, and after-market touch-ups; they managed to create identities resembling X-Men. They spend a good chunk of the run trying to figure out how to get to Krakoa, since the teleportation gates would usually only take mutants; but they get captured by Orchis. More specifically, Dr. Barrington and the U-Men, who seemed like white supremicists that still wanted to steal mutant powers to improve themselves. Fortunately, one of the Children, Daycrawler Nighty-Nightcrawler escaped, and returned with several real X-Men! (The kid's costume made his hands and feet look like Nightcrawler's, but were really normal.)

Also in continuity at this point, was "Kamala's Law," basically forbidding teenage superheroes; so while the X-Men are grateful for the assist and flattered by the imitations, Cyclops also tells the kids to hang it up and go home. (Which is a load, since Cyke had been one of the original new Champions; which meant he had been a teenage hero himself, twice!) But one of the kids, Gimmick, is given an invite to Krakoa, since she was developing mutant powers of her own. Which then puts her in the awkward position of living la vida Krakoa, or staying with her friends...(Spoiler: she would appear again later!)

 I got five of the six issues from the dollar bin the other day, and it's fun, with probably more teen angst and drama than has maybe been in the X-books for a while. 

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