Missy

In case you don't know, they published an Epic Collection called Ghost Rider: Danny Ketch back in October. That's what I was reading from. Stunning work all around.

Catwoman: Selina's Big Score: Excellent crime drama, but speeds to the end. Catwoman #1-37 (2002) and Catwoman Secret Files and Origins: Starts out exceptionally strong, but Brubaker either takes a massive step back, loses interest, or editorial gets involved, because there are some massive dips in the back portion. That said, the art is mostly top-tier, and there's a nine-issue stretch where Selina FUCKS UP hard and it costs a lot. She then tries to rebuild but it's not easy. Dragonball: Volume 1 - The Monkey King Dragonball: Volume 2 - Wish Upon a Dragon Dragonball: Volume 3 - The Training of Kame-Sen'nin Dragonball: Volume 4 - Strongest Under the Heavens Dragonball: Volume 5 - The Red Ribbon Army Dragonball: Volume 6 - Bulma Returns Dragonball: Volume 7 - General Blue and the Pirate Treasure Dragonball: Volume 8 - Taopaipai & Master Karin Dragonball: Volume 9 - Test of The All-Seeing Crone Some of the very best comics I have ever read. April Issues: 147 Total: 333

World of Krypton #1-3 (1979) The World of Krypton #1-4 (1987) World of Krypton #1-6 (2022) Three vastly different takes on Krypton's final years, each one equally valid and with its own merits. The 1987 miniseries gets mired in some Byrne bullshit, but it's, at least, a fresh take on the planet. Superman: World of New Krypton #1-12: Great art by Pete Woods, but the writing was missing something. Never really felt connected to anyone, not ever Superman. The World of Smallville #1-4 The World of Metropolis #1-4 Part of the Byrne "World of" trilogy after the Crisis reboot. Smallville is the most interesting because of Martha's backstory, but it loses a ton of steam with the lame Manhunter crap that was shoehorned in. The Kents #1-3: Really wanted to get into this, but I just can't. Ghost Rider #1-12 (1990): Genuinely shocked by how good this is. In time, I will be coming back. Marvel Comics Presents #64-71: Skipable. Batman #142-144 (2016): Joker: Year One is way too mired in whatever the hell is going on in the Batman books. Did not care one bit. March Issues: 59 Total: 186

Loved this episode. I have to agree with Des on A Simply Plan. When I saw it in the theater, I loved it. It made me want to read the book, which I devoured. A few years later I rewatched the movie and walked away disliking it quite a bit.

Moonstruck, The Rock or Con Air or Face/Off, Pig

What'd you think overall?

I've seen few of her movies, but I would suggest: Julie & Julia and Arrival.

The Brave and the Bold #57-58: With the passing of Ramona Fradon, I thought I'd give her co-creation, Metamorpho, a try. Glad I did too, because her art grabs you from page one and holds on tight. Showcase #34: With my Ant-Man reading through (more in a moment), I opted to try his DC counterpart. Only got one issue in, but he's so much more compelling after one issue than Hank was after a dozen. Hell, and I like Ant-Man. Tales to Astonish #27, 35-69: For this, I went back and read the Ant-Man, Giant-Man, and Wasp stories, and I was shocked to discover Giant-Man is mostly boring. The stories are fun, but they have to find ways to make him weaker than Ant-Man to generate peril. Hank constantly refers to Janet as being scatterbrained, yet she never demonstrates this. He's just a prick to her. The Human Top is a majorly compelling villain, and Egghead is an absolute dork. Janet is Janet Van FUCKING Dyne, so she's always on fire. Tales to Astonish #84-101, The Incredible Hulk #102: Continuing my look at the early years of The Hulk, and this book is wild. It has some downs for sure, but it drills into who The Hulk is, abandoning Banner for long stretches, so we get to know the man that people see as the monster. February Issues: 58 Total: 127

Interesting. It sounds like Spotify pulled them from the site and stored them on their own servers.

Hi, Davy! The basic story is this: Despite paying for unlimited storage and bandwidth, GoDaddy has a hissy fit whenever the storage size becomes too big. (They can never define what "too big" means, so there's no known cap I can push against.) Under threat of terminating my service, they force me to nuke everything. To this end, I keep only a few episodes up at a time. That said, if you DM me here, I can maybe get something working for you.

Congrats, you two!

During part of her tenure on Voyager, Jeri Ryan was married to Jack Ryan, an investment banker. They wound up getting divorced in 1999. Reports at the time were it was due, in part (more on this later), to Jeri's Voyager filming schedule. Jack was known to be a controlling man, after all. In 2004, Jack decides he wants to run for the US Senate. Because he's a political candidate and because everyone knew something was off about their divorce, the records are unsealed. What did they find in those records? Jack forced Jeri to visit sex clubs with him and made her perform sexual acts on other men. This revelation nukes all political aspirations for one Jack Ryan. So who should fill the vacuum left by Jack Ryan? Who should win the US Senate seat Ryan was after? Barack Obama. And thus begins the political career of the future POTUS. From there we all know how Trump treated Obama (RE: birtherism) and how Obama making one joke led to Trump finally deciding to run for POTUS himself. And here we fucking are. Addendum: Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich is tied to this as well, because it was Obama's vacated Senate seat he tried to sell, which is what put him in jail.

MIB by a mile.

2000AD #2-18: Got into a Judge Dredd kick, and these are solid short tales. This group also includes the first storyline, The Robot Wars, which very much sets up the world of Mega-City One as an oppressive place for some, and makes no bones about the Judges being authoritarian. Detective Comics #1062-1065: This is the start of the Ram V run. It's different, I'll give it that, and I appreciate different when it comes to Batman stories. I'll see where it goes somewhere down the line. The Incredible Hulk #1-6, Tales to Astonish #59-83: When Stan and Jack created The Hulk, it was clear they had no real direction for him besides "monster runs from the military." You can feel them trying to find their footing, while also slowly losing interest, so the end of the first run was a mercy killing. Then Steve Ditko is given Tales to Astonish and holy shit does it take off. Ditko gives us rage-changes, The Leader, Glenn Talbot, and Hulk being his own man with his own friends and feelings. I could read Ditko Hulk stories all day, but Kirby returned. Thankfully they don't drop Ditko's additions to Hulk, but the art is not great. That is, until Bill Everett joins as Jack's finisher, and the series has life once more. At the point I am now, I'm not sure Stan is scripting it - despite being credited. I'd bet money it's Roy Thomas. But, Stan's the credited writer until #101, when the book shifts to the second volume of The Incredible Hulk, so who knows. Wesley Dodds: The Sandman #1-4: For decades now, I've wanted to get into Golden Age Sandman - based solely on his look. And this book did the trick. Absolutely loving it. And it finally got me to read... Sandman Mystery Theatre #1-4: Wow. Just wow! This is everything I've wanted and more. However, a note: if you read the original physical (or scanned) comics, be prepared for anti-Semitism, racism, sexism. Not of the 1990s variety, but that of the late 1930s. The digitized reprints, however, edit this out. WildCATs: Covert Action Teams #0, 1-4; WildCATs Special #1; WildCATs Trilogy #1-3: This tosses you right into a pre-built world and gives zero fucks if you understand a damn thing that's going on. I appreciate the balls of that. However, a lot of it does feel like slightly tweaked unused X-Men ideas. Issues: 69 😎

It's been a while on both, but I'm thinking Black Swan.

Des, do you know the impact Voyager had the world? How it literally changed the course of human history? Not unless it happened in the first 2 and a half seasons and I can't think of it.

Boomerang, The Flintstones, The Call

Wow! That is an amazing touch! And nice catch!

Go!

Go!

Martian Manhunter Detective Comics #280-326 House of Mystery #143-173 - These stories cross several genres. From crime to superhero to mystical to sci-fi to spy thriller, and it's an interesting but uneven look at one of my favorite comic book characters. It's clear DC Comics wanted to keep J'onn fresh for new and old audiences alike, but his popularity never quite stuck. Which leads us to... Adventure Comics #449-451 World's Finest Comics #245 - These stories bring J'onn into The Bronze Age with slightly tweaked origins and more violent tales. Martian Manhunter #1-4 (1988) Set firmly post-Crisis, J'onn seeks the truth about himself as he's haunted by H'ronmeer -- the Martian God of Death and Fire. Solid introspective tales. Martian Manhunter: American Secrets #1-3 J'onn fights lizard people in the 1950s as he pushes against conformity post-World War II. It's written by a diddler. Skip it. Martian Manhunter Special Pure 1990s wank. Martian Manhunter #0, 1-36, 1,000,000 (1998) And, lastly on the J'onn J'ones train for 2023, his first ongoing series. It starts out weird: #0 to Annual #1 t0 #1,000,000 then to #1. You can skip the annual, but #0 and 1,000,000 do set the tone for the whole series. Though I was into this run, we needed more time in J'onn's past. We're given hints of his time as Bronze Wraith and John Jones, but those eras are never fully explored. So when we're asked to care about people from those eras of J'onn's life, it's all surface level. Tom Mandrake is why you pay the price of admission, however. He's on 90% of the issues and he's bringing his best Gene Colan to the table. Moving on from my favorite Martian: Doctor Who #1-2 (1984) Only the Meep stories, read to coincide with the first 2023 Doctor Who special. They're fine. X-Men Blue: Origins #1 No spoilers in case people still haven't read this, but oh man oh man oh man. Marvel finally did it! Total for 2023: 837

I can see it.

Awesome!!

Mrs. Flood has to be a Time Lord. The name is too weird. Her reaction to seeing The TARDIS dematerialize was perfectly normal, but then she acts like it was nothing and calls it by name without anyone having said it in front of her. She nudges Ruby to leave with The Doctor, manipulating their union. So, who is she? The Master, The Monk, The Rani, The War Chief are all options, of course. Could be someone new. Don't know. But, no matter who, I'm wondering if she was actually Noah. Why: I mean, her name. The ark had to be bigger on the inside. Noah lived to be 950 years of age. Myths are becoming reality. Maybe it won't play this way. Maybe she's a one-off oddball neighbor. But I've got my eye on her.

Shana's looking for something to do New Year's Eve, something very mild. So she suggested seeing a movie. I asked if she had any in mind, and my lovely, innocent, wrestling-adverse wife said, "There's a new wrestling movie. The Iron-something. I'd be willing to give it a try." My reaction: "Oh dear god no!" For the record, I do want to see it, I just will not subject Shana to the story of the Von Erich family.