Black Bolt Archives

The Pull List is holding strong as 33 issues this week thanks to a huge number of new pickups – including eleven new number one issues (plus two already-running series I finally caught up to reading)!

This was an intense Marvel Comics week on my pull list and a lighter DC week for me. Marvel had only two books out from titles I’m not up to speed on, where DC had a lot of comics out in lines I’m not yet caught up on and no “New Age of Heroes” books, plus only one new number one – a relaunch of Shade.

Meanwhile, it is a big week for new debuts from independent publishers – though a few of them weren’t to my tastes (and one was entirely unreadable!).

Artwork by Becky Cloonan.

Here’s The Pull List for the 7th of March, 2018. New adds to the pull list are marked with *; dropped titles are marked with #.

DC Comics
- Batman #42
- * Deathstroke #29
- Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles #3
- Justice League #40
- * Shade, The Changing Woman #1
- Superman #42
Image Comics
- * Elsewhere #5
- *# Gideon Falls #1
- * Oblivion Song #1
- * Prism Stalker #1
Marvel Comics
- * Avengers – Back to Basics #1
- Avengers #683
- Black Bolt #11
- Captain America #699
- Doctor Strange – Damnation #2
- Hawkeye #16
- Iceman #11
- Infinity Countdown #1
- Rise of the Black Panther #3
- Rogue & Gambit #3
- Spider-Man #238
- Venom #163
- X-Men: Gold #23
- X-Men: Red #2
Smaller Publishers:
Aftershock Comics, Boom! Studios, Dark Horse, Humanoids, IDW Publishing, Oni Press
- *# The Ballad of Sang #1, Oni Press
- * Dodge City #1, Boom! Studios
- * Exo #1-3, Humanoids
- Giant Days #36, Boom! Studios
- * Highest House #1, IDW Publishing
- Incognegro – Renaissance #2, Dark Horse
- Mech Cadet Yu #7, Boom! Studios
- # Monstro Mechanica #4, Aftershock Comics
- *# The Spider King #1, IDW Publishing

Before we begin, a reminder that 2.5 stars on my rating scale is an average comic book! It should be my most-assigned score, but I tend to err on thinking average comics are good (confusing, I know), so 3 stars is the peak of my very distributed bell curve of ratings.

That means a 2/5 comic is not bad. That’s my rating for “uneven.” So, don’t freak out and assume a comic book is terrible because it has 2 stars. “Bad” and “Terrible” are 1/5 and .5/5, respectively, and I’ve only given those scores to 2.35% of the comics I’ve read so far this year.

Picks of the Pull

Big Two (Marvel/DC) Pick of the Week:
Infinity Countdown (2018) #1

This galaxy-spanning series is ecstatic – maybe the first time I’ve felt like the comics incarnation of Guardians of the Galaxy has resembled the tone of movie since the first film was released.

This book is built on a year of Guardians plot, but it could not possibly be more inviting to a new reader. All of the action is massive, all of the jokes land, and Aaron Kuder’s style of subtle figures paired with ultra detail is the perfect match for big space blowouts. It’s definitely the first time I’ve ever liked Drax, and the issue is full of amazing moments for Groot.

The Guardians have split their attention between a showdown with the murderous Gardener and defending a massive Infinity Stone along with the Nova Corps. Drax and the Corps start out faring better defending the stone than the rest of the assembled Guardians do agains The Gardener, but as both fights wear on the balance begins to tip.

With the [hugely shocking spoiler] scene on Earth that ends this issue, I understand why Duggan got this story upgraded from being just a Guardians story arc to a universe-wide event. He’s a writer who has been in Marvel’s big leagues for a few years now, and it’s terrific to see him writing an event that touches so many of Marvel’s big franchises without needlessly interfering with their ongoing titles.

I am absolutely subscribed to Infinite Countdown from this point forward, and it has moved Duggan’s Guardians run even further up my “to-read” list.

(Why in heaven’s name would you put a Nick Bradshaw cover on a book with interiors by Aaron Kuder and Mike Deodato? It makes no sense to me whatsoever.)

Small-Pub Pick of the Week:
Exo (2017) Hardcover AKA #1-3, Humanoids

This is the first English translation of this work, originally released as three French graphic albums and here released by Humanoids as three digital issues or a single hardcover.

Exo is a sci-fi motion picture waiting to be optioned. It combines two seemingly separate plots into one perfectly tense story – one of a NASA scientist on Earth, the other of a military strike force on the moon.

John Koenig is a perfectly average scientist who happens to have located a potentially habitable planet in another solar system and tasked a probe to fly its way. His announcement makes for a sleepy press conference, since any potential findings from the probe are almost two years away. The discovery is just another day at the office for Koenig – he goes for a routine physical afterward, and the heads into LA to retrieve his adult daughter, who calls him John.

Meanwhile, a projectile arcs from the moon to Earth, shattering part of an International Space Station en route to crashing into a field in Colorado before it starts to… branch out. Unfortunately, one of its findings is a schizophrenia man named Charles, who it is unable to control.

As Charles’s new crew seeks John, the military responds to the projectile by putting boots on the lunar ground – but they aren’t ready for what they might find there.

That describes just a sliver of the first 40 pages of this 120 page graphic novel, and it doesn’t even include the drug trip!

Exo has the same third act struggles as any massive sci-fi plot, but the tension that proceeds it is makes it worth a read. Even if a lot of the story draws from familiar tropes, it has the brash inventiveness to combine them in a way that we all hope to see from sci-fi films (think: Arrival).

The Inhumans comic books definitive issue-by-issue collecting guide and trade reading order for omnibus, hardcover, and trade paperback collections. Find every issue and appearance of all of the Inhumans Royal Family – like Black Bolt and Medusa – plus newer characters like Ms. Marvel and Moon Girl! Part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics. Last updated November 2018 with titles scheduled for release through January 2019.

The Inhumans were a creation of the Stan Lee and Jack Kirby run on Fantastic Four, yet another uncanny spin on a common sci-fi tropes. They’ve stuck around for over 50 years due to the power of love, a well-timed re-launch, and an unparalleled space epic all paving the way for them to become one of Marvel’s marquee franchises.

In their initial arc of Fantastic Four #45-48, the Inhuman Royal Family were presented as deposed rulers of a secret nation, currently resided in New York. That explained why their queen, Medusa, was a collaborator in The Frightful Four!

Inhumans_Vol_2_1_Textless The family’s true home was hidden in the depths of the Andes Mountains, where they had perfected the art of genetic engineering to grant superpowers to every member of their society. In contrast to this evolved race, their despotic current king Maximus employed a fleet of Alpha Primitives – a sort of devolved neanderthal – against the Royal Family.

That could have been the end of the Inhumans’ story – especially because the end of their arc happened to be the debut of Silver Surfer, a prohibitive Silver Age classic that could easily eclipse other solid stories.

Yet, the Inhumans hung on, largely due to their female cast members. Crystal became a love interest of Human Torch and a replacement member of the FF when Sue Storm was pregnant with Franklin. Medusa also continued to appear, as both friend and foe.

The Inhumans were a particular passion of Jack Kirby’s; he would return to both write and illustrate them in the anthology series Amazing Adventures in 1970. They even merited their own series in 1975, written by Doug Moench (of Moon Knight fame).

Past that, the Inhumans were relegated to guest star status – mostly with the Fantastic Four – through the 90s. Crystal became their breakout character, graduating from the FF and dating Human Torch to The Avengers and marrying Quicksilver.

The modern era of The Inhumans began in 1998 with a stellar 12-issue maxi-series from Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee. This series presaged the darker tone of early-2000s Marvel Knights titles, and focused on every aspect of the race’s embattled society. The series acted as a soft reboot of the Inhumans, who would star in a pair of additional mini-series through 2003. However, outside those series, their appearances were still scant.

That all changed in 2006 thanks to two developments.

First, Brian Bendis’s inclusion of Inhuman King Black Bolt in The Illuminati, would permanently raise the character’s profile and make him an essential tool for writer Jonathan Hickman in his run on Fantastic Four and Avengers from 2009-2015.

Second, the Inhumans’ Silent War during Civil War launched them onto a path that would intersect members of the X-Men and the Annihilation story that launched the modern Guardians of the Galaxy. The intersection, called War of Kings, is a seamlessly executed space epic that combines superheroes, palace intrigue, and massive space battles unlike anything else in Marvel’s history.

As a result of the combination of those eight years of developments, The Inhumans were perfectly poised as a new franchise for Marvel in the wake of their Infinity event. In 2014, they received their own mini-event, “Inhumanity,” as well as their first ongoing series, Inhuman, and their first standalone spinoff hero, the new Ms. Marvel – Kamala Khan. Plus, Inhumans were highlighted in TV’s Agents of SHIELD, culminating in a major arc in 2015.

In the wake of Hickman’s Secret Wars in 2015 their influence in the Marvel line expanded even further, with multiple books and a strong influence on major events in the Marvel Universe.

The tricky thing about the Inhumans is that from their introduction in 1965 through 1998 they only had their own ongoing title two times (both in the 70s) plus a handful of one-shots. Their mythology frequently moved forward during their various guest appearances, especially in Fantastic Four.

This guide tracks the appearances of the Inhuman Royal Family from their introduction in 1965 through the beginnings of War of Kings in 2007. From 2007 on, it continues to track all major limited and ongoing Inhumans titles.

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