What comic books are you reading?

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I read two volumes of the Darth Vader comic this week. Overall I like them.

The main ‘issue’ is they’re written with Vader-as-protagonist so:

1. You kind of know how things are going to end if you’ve seen these obscure, niche movies from the 70s and 80s called “Star Wars” you may have heard of.
2. I’m not sure how I currently feel about following an antihero who is, as described here, pretty evil.

Anyway, those aside: It’s set just after Episode 3, specifically just after the ‘Big Noooooooooo’ scene. The Emperor is truly warped here: He spends a lot of time psychologically messing with Vader to build up the idea that it’s his rage that led to Amidala’s death, for example. The rage being something the Emperor has encouraged previously, of course.

It kind of sets up why Vader int he original movies starts out as this very controlled, precise force.

An amusing aspect is that Vader is unknown in this era. People see a kinda scary guy in shiny black armor, but there’s tons of weird aliens and such around, so he doesn’t stand out that much. He actively has to work to build his rep in this.

The two volumes I’ve read start with Vader acquiring a new lightsaber. This makes it canon that red evil blades are the result of the crystals being tortured by evil force users until they ‘bleed’ and turn red.

The story then turns to Vader as Jedi Hunter. There’s some inquisitors who I believe have shown up in other media. There’s a strong plot that if Vader was unavailable, the head inquisitor would jump in to his role without hesitation.

Remember the Jedi Librarian from the Prequels? She gets some screen-time here, and actually does some cool stuff. Vader is hunting her, and one ‘berserk button’ of his is apparently anyone who remembers his old identity. He’s totally building a new life (if you can call it that) as the spooky violent Emperor’s right hand man.

Art is usually good. There’s some exceptions: One image I disliked is a flash-forward to Luke sometime between episodes 6 and 7 finding a cache of Jedi lore, and he looks really off… But it’s a single page, so no big deal.

Overall it’s well done. I do like that this kind of explains how the Jedi went from known to mysterious in a couple decades. There’s good secondary scenes of artifacts being recovered or, in one scene, a ton of lightsabers being publically incinerated by some random guy who is spreading the story that the Jedi went nuts and that’s why they all had to be killed.

[e4tmyl33t]

Minor NSFW warning!

I just got my hardcover editions of Sunstone books 1 and 2. I haven’t linked it, because it’s a troubled love story that just happens to be between two women in a dom/sub relationship. (Also, because I’m at work, and I’m not searching that up on this machine )

I love the artist’s work, and felt that even though I could read this for free on their DeviantArt (he has the whole thing posted, including the new spinoff prequel/side-story/thing as he’s making it) I’d pick up the books both as a collector’s piece and to support his future endeavors a bit.

Edit: Cover pictures now that I’m home (not explicit, but spoilered anyway):
Book 1

Book 2

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I recently ‘finished’ two series of note:

Rat Queens didn’t end, but the original author left after several years and as of volume six I think he’s done with it. It was an interesting ride, mainly due to the external stuff: The original artist left after getting in some weird domestic abuse conflict, then there was some half-hearted attempts to switch artists, reboot as a web comic, and a plot line (once the artist situation mostly resolved itself) that got awkwardly wrapped up off-screen.

Still a good ending, though. It’s a bit disjointed.

More interesting is reading the final volume of The Wild Storm series, which is an odd re-imagining of very 90s material from the ‘Wildstorm’ universe which included WildC.A.T.S., StormWatch, The Authority, and others. It’s a Warren Ellis book (who wrote the last couple I mentioned). The Wild Storm took elements of all these ideas but re-imagined them: The base world is one without ‘superheroes’ but does multiple secret overlords and alien races poking fingers in things.

I have only read bits and pieces of the earlier Wildstorm material (and mostly after reading The Wild Storm) and there’s a lot of stuff that is somewhere between ‘easter egg’ and ‘bonuses for veteran readers’: It’s like if you’re watching a new reimaging of Firefly and they have new mechanic, you’re going to expect the ‘Kaylee’ character to end up with the heroes even if she’s first introduced as mechanic on a different competing ship.

The ending of the 24 issue run is pretty good. Some stuff ties up nicely: There’s a familiar ‘move’ that bookends the first and last issue. However, there’s a ton of unresolved plot points: Early on there’s major focus on characters getting caught between the two alien factions… But this is mostly unresolved, and the team most involved with that actually sits out the last big fight because it’s not their battle. (I really expected the moment where the leader says it’s not their problem, but his underlings insist on getting involved.) Apparently this may be the focus of the follow-up series coming in a year or two.

Ellis is a great, if somewhat odd, writer. His stuff is generally good and thought provoking: I think Transmetropolitan is a great commentary on politics in general. My hope is that this series evolves into something akin to Mike Mignola’s Hellboy/BPRD material where he hands it off to others and returns to it intermittently. No need to meet a monthly schedule for long stretches, just do a 6 issue series when it makes sense.

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Gwenpool came back for a five-issue “Strikes Back!” series. The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl ended at issue 50, appropriately tagged with "Big Final Issue! (Only Our Second #50 This Year!), a callback to when Marvel restarted the number on their comics and it actually did have two #1 issues in the same year.

Couple of new ones:
Big Hero 6: The Series (IDW)
gen:LOCK (DC)

In case you missed getting a Rooster Teeth subscription, you can buy the first season of gen:LOCK from Amazon for about $15.

 
If you like Steampunk and you’re interested in a comic that has extremely detailed artwork, pick up Lady Mechanica… Most comics will put detail when that part of the panel is in “focus”, where you’re attention is most likely to be, and then it gets simpler in the surrounding area. You can see the kind of detail Joe Benitez puts into all issues with this cover.

[RRabbit42]

After the TV series Vagrant Queen was cancelled, I kept checking Amazon to see when it would be available on Blu-ray and DVD. It took a while, but now it’s available. BUT, the company that’s selling them through Amazon is importing the Region 2 DVD. The Blu-ray has the same UK rating on the cover, so that’s Region B (2) encoded.

I did buy the trade paperback of the comics, and that’s led to an investigation of what exactly has been released. It’s the strangest scheduling of releases I’ve seen that wasn’t a deliberate attempt to confuse their customers like the Marvel Rising debacle two years ago. It starts out normal, then gets intertwined with the TV show. Here goes.

Vagrant Queen is a six issue series by Magdalene Visaggio about a child named Eldaya who suddenly becomes queen of her planet just before a revolution occurs so she and her mother have to flee. It’s not really covered what the circumstances are that led to her ascension, but her being roughly ten years old added to the unrest. Later, Eldaya takes up a life as Elida, a scavenger.

Fifteen years after the revolution, Isaac Stelling shows up in her life again with news about her mother. He’s a lawyer from Winnipeg (yes, that Winnipeg) who wound up in a different galaxy a few years back and hasn’t stopped wanting to get back to his family. Where’s Earth from where he is? Maybe one guy knows.

Commander Lazaro also shows up again. He’s been hunting Elida ever since he was part of her ouster. The top brass are running out of patience with him, so he decides to up the stakes by getting an ancient artifact the thousand year old monarchy Elida’s from has used to control the minds of the people. It all leads to a big showdown.

Those six issues have been collected in a trade paperback (TPB). The [one you can get on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1939424410/) is the second printing. Normally which printing it is doesn't matter unless you're a collector, but the research I did turned up two other versions of this TPB, so it may be a case of the first printing was released with two different covers, which would be unusual for a TPB, or the listing is using a promotional image for the TPB. I'll find out when they arrive. I ordered both just to find out.

A standard feature of trade paperbacks is to include a cover gallery. The comics had two different teams doing covers: Natashia Alterici for the “A” covers and Jason Smith & Harry Jackson for the “B” covers. Except, there’s no cover for issue 6 by Natashia. Only the Smith & Jackson cover was used for issue 6. It’s something I’d like to find out why if I can.

Here's where it gets weird with the comics.

After production on the TV series begins, Visaggio decides to do another six issue series called Vagrant Queen: A Planet Called Doom. In an interview with Syfy Wire in March 2019, she said she is “going big for the next arc of the book in anticipation of a second season for the show”. It was scheduled to launch in the fall last year but got bumped back to a January 2020 release.

The first four issues were released between January and July. Issue 1 had three covers: regular, a variant and a Star Wars homage cover. The fifth issue has a print and digital release date of August 19 on Comixology. They’ve got issue six tagged for September 30 in both formats. However, Things From Another World is listing issues five and six as releasing together on December 30.

Whatever the actual release dates of the final two issues, the trade paperback for this series will be released on October 27, 2020. If the Things From Another World listings are correct and not just a coincidence that in this year the 30th of September and December both happen to fall on the standard comic release day of Wednesday, then it will be the second time a trade paperback has been released before the standard print run is finished.

I think the first would be for The Resistance, the comic by J. Michael Staczynski about a super disease that starts in China and gives the survivors superpowers. The real-life COVID-19 put the print edition on hold, so the digital versions have been put online and its TPB will be sold on October 20th. But that might be just for the first six issues. There’s at least 11 so far.

Whew. Okay, got that?

Since both Vagrant Queen comic series are by a smaller company, Vault Publishers, I haven’t been able to find any of the back issues at local stores and a lot of comic book shops don’t have online stores that list their inventory. TPBs are a good way to get a complete run of a comic, but reading what’s close to the spine is difficult unless you’re willing to crack the spine on the book so it opens more. I’m not. I try to keep all of my comics and TPBs in good shape. Getting the standard comics costs more overall but you can lay it flat and see everything easily.

Ebay, here I come. Again, smaller publisher, so not that many people have them for sale. I found the right combination of places selling the various issues at reasonable prices. By next month, I’ll have all available issues and will only need to pick up the last two later.

And then the fun begins where I see how much of the first comic series made it into the TV show and where the second comic series goes that the TV show may or may not have. And, most fun of all, I’m going to do a comparison with episode 8 that’s called “No Clue”. It’s the movie Clue… in space!

No, I’m not kidding. The Intergalactic Parking Authority tracks down the crew to impound their vehicle for unpaid parking tickets that were racked up on a stopover at a planet that’s rigged to cheat tourists as much as possible. The officers of the IPA are Lloyd, Mull, McKean, Eileen, Kahn and Lesley, after actors Christopher Lloyd, Martin Mull, Michael McKean, Eileen Brennan, Madeline Kahn and Lesley Ann Warren. One of the IPA officers should have been named Madeline instead of Kahn, but that would have meant the writers wouldn’t have been able to use a Star Trek II reference. There’s many, many more references to the movie. I want to see how much the episode parallels it.

If you’re interested in the comic books, you can get a free version of Vagrant Queen #1 directly from Vault Publishing as well as the TPB. Both are in DRM-free PDF format. Comixology also has them for sale plus A Planet Called Doom and you can download a DRM-free version if you want.

There’s also a Vagrant Queen Wiki that’s really just getting started. I’ve been the most active on it since the show was cancelled. It’s got an appeal to me because this subject is small enough and still new enough that it’s possible to learn everything about it. Ten episodes, twelve comics and a smattering of interviews here and there on the web.

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After a 7 year gap, and appropriate for this thread’s long slumber, the Team Fortress 2 comics appear to have completed.