Veitch brings a nice Vertigo-esque vibe to things. But I think Guichet is too traditional superhero; Veitch is basically doing a sea full of Lovecraftian monsters, and the art isn't doing that, not yet. It's promising though, in a way it hasn't been since David left.
But in the 2003 run, things have gone bad for Aquaman in the intervening time: dark magic sorcerers have taken over Atlantis during some crossover or another, and turned the Atlanteans and all sea life against him. He's lost the metal hand, and gets a magic one instead.
Over at Aquaman, there's sea change (harhar) as I finish the Jurgens run, and jump from 2000 to Aquaman's next series, in 2002 by Rick Veitch and Yvel Guichet. At the Jurgens tail end, Aquaman gets sucked into Warlord's world for a while, and ends on a happy note.
It's... not the worst thing that's happened to a woman in this series, and not even the worst thing that's happened to Wanda, though maybe that's debateable. But no matter who's writing, West Coast continues to be unnecessarily gross.
So yes, the original implication seems to be that... Wanda just decided to give a captive Wonder Man oral sex in front of her father, brother, and the rest of the captured Avengers.
The infamous part is that when Wanda, Magneto, and a secretly working for Avengers Quicksilver capture the Avengers, Wanda taunts Wonder Man, and promises to give him pleasure, and lowers her head off panel, while he moans. The published art mitigates the implied act, and the original art does not.
My regular Marvel reading is West Coast Avengers, and I read 53-61. It features the end of Acts of Vengeance, a brief heel turn for Scarlet Witch,a very infamous scene, Byrne's departure from the book, and the build up to whatever Immortus is vaguely planning.
79 is what if Storm became the Phoenix? and it's... a bit messy, but the core idea is interesting, with a Phoenix less interested in fire and destruction and more interested in rule and worship. By Sarah Elizabeth Byam and Franchesco Bufano.
The Sinister Six are chagrined to learn that Spider-Man has brought three friends to even the odds.
77 we read last time, but 78 is What if the New Fantastic Four--Ghost Rider, Spider-Man, Grey Hulk, Wolverine--remained a team? Answer: they have to fight all their foes, plus the FF. Art is by Quique Alcatena, and I like it--he does a great Sinister Six here.
The premise is that Flash gets bit instead, and he takes it in a petty bully direction. It's interesting that I think we've had at least three different takes on this idea in various What Ifs.
I kind of like having comic reading going besides the main two reads, so I decided to keep that up. Namely, I went back to What If, since a lot of those I missed before have been added recently. What If 76 is What if Peter Parker had to destroy Spider-Man, by Terry Austin and Stuart Immonen.
Still, I liked it more than not, and it's a rare event that I finish with a positive feeling.
The story ultimately comes down to Doom and Valeria's relationship, and I've always been... kind of mixed. Yes, he cares for her. But her getting around the fact that he's a more than occasionally a petulant murderer takes some mental gymnastics.
Here he is taking a real close look at their ruined time machine.
Reed stretches himself into various holes of the earth left by root systems and so forth to deposit silver.
Most of the Marvel screenshots I took this time round were of Reed, doing weird stuff with his body. Here he is stretching into the earth to make silver deposits for Invisible Woman to find in the far future.
The second half of Fantastic Four has the four scattered through time, regroup, and defeat Doom's time loop safety measures. Fun stuff, as always. North has been playing up the idea that Doom refuses to allow himself to lose throughout the series, and Reed's response to that is naive, but sweet.
The Avengers' Master of Evil arc by MacKay and Broccardo concludes, basically happening in the margins of the main series. Black Panther does a bit of assist, but mostly it's a story about Sam succeeding against low odds, and it's pretty great.
One miniseries starts entirely: Runaways, by Rainbow Rowell and Elena Casagrande. Basically, Doomboots come for the team's Doombots, and they respond. It's also a lot of Rowell picking up subplots left hanging from her last run with the characters. It's great, and ends on a sweet note.
Most characters don't survive; two kind of disappear, and I'm wondering whether that's oversight, or a set up for some future story by Foxe. Dr. Strange of Asgard concluded its mystery, though the ending suggests another comic has made it kind of moot. Still, I liked Strange as outsider to Asgard.
Luckily for me, all of the miniseries tie ins that kept going in the second half where the ones I liked. Superior Avengers, the group of heroes from Doom's future, fell apart rather quickly after Doom himself appeared on the scene.
Over at comics, I finished North and Silva's One World Under Doom. I liked it, though I don't think I would have if I had read it issue by issue, or paid individually rather through Marvel's subscription service.
Can You Solve the Murder by Antony Johnston
I've also read more of Anthony Johnston's CYOA for adults, Can You Solve the Murder? I'm in my second batch of interviews, and I have no idea if I'm doing well or not.
The basics of that is that Talibi's stories were very dark, but interesting takes on people's relationship to city and country. Scalzi's Ghost Brigades is a little too military for my tastes, but it is the subgenre, and I do like the deep dives into posthuman supersoldiers and alien species.
Cover John Scalzi's The Ghost Brigades: An Old Man's War Novel. Two smaller ships approach a large battleship in space. Behind them is a planet with a ring around it, and there's another planet or moon behind the planet.
Cover of Chris Brookmyre's Places in the Darkness
Cover of F M Busby's Young Rissa
Cover of Wole Talabi's Convergence Problems
On leisure reading, I've been continuing incrementally with Young Rissa and Places in the Dark, and Wole Talibi's Convergence Problems. I read through all of Scalzi's Ghost Brigades, and didn't realize I'd already read it until I started typing out the review here.
Call of the Eco-Weird is wrapping up, with essays on tabletop games and one on humour in the eco-weird; both are very good. Laboratory Lifestyles is an interesting tension of design for clout and design for collaboration. Funambulist has been a short story about a cosmic horror indoor parking lot.
Cover of Funambulist Pamphlets v9, Science Fiction, edited be Leopold Lambert
Cover of The Call of the Eco-Weird in Fiction, Films, and Games, edited by Brian Hisao Onishi and Nathan M. Bell.
#BookSky #SundayReading
I got a long way into this before my computer restarted on me, so... here's the abridged version. I've been reading Call of the Eco-weird, Laboratory Lifestyles, and Funambulist v9 for academic reading.
There's a few more issues in this run, but I'm ready for something new. And that's it for this week!
Over at DC, Dan Jurgens takes over writing duties, from 63-71. It's mostly a storyline where Atlantis is destroyed by a neighboring(?) land country, a plot that turns out to come from Ocean Master, around Garth and Dolphin's newborn son. Aquaman saves the day.
From 46. Mockingbird calls Hawkeye out for his incredibly uncompassionate response to her rape. When Byrne is critiquing a past writer's treatment of women, it's pretty bad.
As a sort of last ditch attempt to save their marriage, Mockingbird and Hawkeye decide to train the Great Lake Avengers. I have a lot of affection for these characters, so I begrudgingly thank Byrne for this plotline.
The robot Human Torch exits a pool, with a close up on his spandex-clad butt.
Other plotlines: the original Human Torch robot is still around, and apparently has a great ass, as shown in the panel below. It's a plot of Immortus, unfolding over a long period.