Dave's Capsules for July 2024

Items of Note (Strongly Recommended or otherwise worthy): Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths Part Three

In this installment: Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths Part Three, Adventure Finders Book 3 Chapter 20, Heterogenia Linguistico vol 1, Delicious in Dungeon vol 5-7, Cat + Gamer vol 5, Junji Ito's Cat Diary: Yon & Mu Collector's Edition, Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear vol 9, Spider-Man Cosmic Chaos, Action Philosophers (2020s revision) vol 1-2.

Wow, July really was a light month for everything for me. Just as well, Dawntrail dropped for Final Fantasy XIV so I had trouble keeping up with even this much reading. :) Also, starting this month I will try to give more information on where to find free samples or entire books online where relevant, such as presence on Library Pass, or the creator's website.

"Other Media" Capsules:

Things that are comics-related but not necessarily comics (i.e. comics-based movies like Iron Man or Hulk), or that aren't going to be available via comic shops (like comic pack-ins with DVDs) will go in this section when I have any to mention. They may not be as timely as comic reviews, especially if I decide to review novels that take me a week or two (or ten) to get around to.

Zero surprise they went
with this image.

Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths Part Three: DC - And the Tomorrowverse wraps up and also makes it clearer that it's also a coda to the new52-verse. They continue to take advantage of post-1986 concepts to help make things more cohesive...again, this time it was planned well in advance, unlike how the original comics had their goal shifted while they were coming out. Crisis has always been an important story, but it suffered so much from changing course halfway through and trying to do something much bigger without anyone really planning it. The Tomorrowverse has taken all the stakes and importance of the original, and made it fit together. And, ironically, they made it come out of the end of the New 52 universe, which itself was a repudiation of Crisis in the first place. Sure, it's just as full of characters showing up just long enough to die, but the nature of animation lets them do so while leaving a lot more room for the core story elements. For instance, instead of Supergirl's death being a few pages, barely enough to set up and carry out, they're building towards it over the course of half an hour or more of screen time across the three parts. Also, importantly, Kevin Conroy gets to go out as Batman. Strongly recommended. Price varies by format and store, also available on Max.

Digital Content:

Unless I find a really compelling reason to do so (such as a lack of regular comics), I won't be turning this into a webcomic review column. Rather, stuff in this section will generally be full books available for reading online or for download, usually for pay. I will also occasionally include things I read on Library Pass (check to see if your public library gives access to it), although the interface can be laggy and freeze sometimes.

Adventure Finders Book 3 Chapter 20: Patreon.com - The final chapter of the epic, this is denouement but not yet epilogue...those will follow. The telling blow was struck at the end of Chapter 19, now it's cleanup and goodbyes. As such, it's not as compelling a read on its own, but what can you expect for the denouement? Of course, if you join the Patreon now, you can grab a complete (except for epilogues) story. :) $2/month or more. The first four chapters of Book 1 are available on Library Pass (Antarctic Press editions).

Heterogenia Linguistico vol 1: Yen Press - James Nicoll reviewed this in July and Library Pass has it, so I decided to give it a try. It's part of a...I don't think "subgenre" really fits, more of a literary movement or something. Anyway, it's one of many fantasy stories that tries to provide a better explanation for fantasy dungeon crawl tropes. Delicious in Dungeon goes hard into ecology, Great Cleric provides an ontological reason for dungeons to exist, Reborn as a Vending Machine has been looking at the economy of dungeons, and as the title of this manga implies, it's about the linguistics (some ecology and biology as well, especially where biology shapes language). Language shapes society and is shaped by it, how can multiple "monster" species interact when they can't even make the same sort of sounds or experience the same sensory inputs? The main character is a student of linguistics, off on his first trip to the Netherworld (a formerly human-inhabited region dominated by monsters) to follow in the footsteps of his professor. Well, the linguistic footsteps, at least. Leaving aside the interface issues, the actual story is fairly brisk, often with each page being relatively self-contained (this gives me the impression that before being collected into chapters and volumes, it was serialized in very short chunks). In this volume, at least, there isn't a plot beyond "wander the Netherworld and learn the languages," but the volume summaries of later books indicate that the stakes do go up later on. There's also an ongoing theme of "the real monsters are not much like human tales of them," which no doubt will lead to conflict later. For an extreme example, harpies are just big birds, no human heads or anything. Seems interesting enough to continue, I'll keep this on my list of "stuff to order online in a slow month, or get if I actually see on the shelf," as well as ordering the hardcopy of vol 1 now. Hardcopy price $15, rated Teen 13+ (for monster stuff). Volumes 1-5 available on LibraryPass.

Manga Collections:

With manga collections coming to dominate my reading habits, I decided to formally split them off from Trades (informally they'd already been split for a while).

Delicious in Dungeon vol 5-7: Yen Press - To summarize very briefly: vol 5 "Yay we saved Falin!" vol 6 "Did we err?" vol 7 "Not only did we err, now we have a cat." These volumes bridge from the original rescue mission plot into the much larger (in terms of both power level and geographical scope) plot which seems to be dumping our hapless foodies into the middle of prophecy and international intrigue. Not that Laios notices. Mostly it's the side characters who are getting mixed up in the above-ground intrigue for now, although the core party does find out enough about how big of trouble they're in that the only viable option for them now is to find the final boss and try to undo as much damage as possible before the wrath of every dungeon regulatory body in the world descends on them. Along the way, they kinda managed to become a Wizard of Oz riff. Sometimes the food elements are a little tertiary and feel tossed in because they're expected, because the short-arc and long-arc plots are pushing them out of the way, but they're still present. I've read that the creator had an unusually long time to work on each installment, and it does show, both in visuals and in how the plot may shimmy around a bit but I never got the feeling that things were going off the rails due to being rushed. On top of the plot stuff and foodie stuff, we also get more about Marcielle's past and fears, and volume 7 ends on Senshi's mysterious backstory (plus a short bit of Chilchuck's background after several volumes of being the butt of "just a kid" jokes). Recommended. $15.00/$19.50Cn each, rated Teen L/V (and occasional monster nipples). Volumes 1-13 are available on Library Pass.

This is a typical cat ability.

Cat + Gamer vol 5: Dark Horse Manga - The character of the series has definitely changed now that there's two cats and they can talk to each other. What had been a contrast between fantasy gaming and mundane life now has some bleedover with the cats being increasingly a fantasy element in this volume. Yeah, they're not completely anthropomorphized mentally, but they're not really "real" cats anymore either. I wonder if it's a rule of writing cats...eventually you can't resist casting their thoughts into something the reader can understand directly, going from show to tell. It's still an enjoyable read, but it's not the same series I started, and I do worry that we might hit that "out of ideas" wall soon. Recommended. $11.99/$15.99Cn. Volumes 1-4 are available on LibraryPass.

Junji Ito's Cat Diary: Yon & Mu Collector's Edition: Kodansha - Since this month was so slim, I spent some time skimming the shelves at B&N to see if I could find something else to add, and this caught my eye. Junji Ito, master of weird horror, doing "cute" autobio comics about having two cats (and one wife) enter his day to day life? Sure, why not. Originally published in 2009 and translated in 2021, this is a "Collector's Edition" leveraging Ito's fame among American readers. As one might expect, the humans in the story tend to overreact to things in horrifyingly extreme ways. There's a short added bit at the end from 2011 chronicling the death of Yon and the family's move back into a city just in time for an earthquake. All in all, it's pretty much what you'd expect out of a "cute cat manga by a horror mangaka" book, and it definitely has a different feel from Cat + Gamer. Recommended. $24.99/$33.99Cn (hardcover), rated Teen 13+ for moderate humor elements.

Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear vol 9: (publisher) - The theme of "keeping Yuna out of her comfort zone" continues in all three stories/events this volume. In the first, she takes a normal guild quest commensurate to her C ranking, and finds that her normal tendency to keep things to herself and not tell people about her plans until afterwards isn't unique to her...and sees someone else get in a bit of trouble for it. Her grudging sense of empathy makes this a more effective lesson than simply having someone yell at her about it. The second is more of a bridging bit, but serves to remind her that she's a LOT more famous than she ever wanted to be (she wants to be a hermit). But the main story that takes up the bulk of the volume has her facing a new and very uncomfortable challenge: dealing with her peer group, in the form of escorting a group of academy students on a practical challenge trip. Just as the first story showed her things through other people, this field trip has her trying her best to not just fix everything herself with massive firepower...plus she finds the downside of people not knowing her by reputation, in stark contrast to the short intermediary scene earlier. She's not quite self-aware enough to pick up all the lessons dumped on her this volume, but neither is she a complete thickhead. Recommended. $12.99/$16.99, rated Teen 13+ (fantasy violence, mostly).

Expected next month: Great Cleric vol 10 (regularly ships the last week of the month), Spy x Family vol 12, Easygoing Territory Defense (insert a million more words) vol 3, Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc. vol 3, Mr. Villain's Day Off vol 5, Way of the Househusband vol 12, maybe Go Go Loser Ranger vol 11 (also expected at end of month). Given all that, I may put off buying more Delicious in Dungeon.

Other Trades:

Trade paperbacks, collections, graphic novels, whatever. If it's bigger than a "floppy" but not Manga, it goes here.

Spider-Man Cosmic Chaos!: Marvel/Amulet Books - The finale to Mike Maihack's young reader series fell a little flat for me, trying too hard to take Cosmic Stuff and make it goofy. Cosmic plot devices multiply, perhaps a few too many Cosmic Marvel people and places get crammed in, and....eh. It's not that none of the jokes land well, many do. But too many don't. Mildly recommended. $12.99/$16.99Cn/#9.99UK

There's some dispute over
whether Plato was really
a wrestler, or if it was
people mocking him.

Action Philosophers vol 1-2: (publisher) Okay, I've reviewed these before, but the recent Kickstarter added a few more stories, and this is a very slim month anyway, so I'm reviewing it again. :) Volume One, Hooked On Classics, is most of the material from parts 1 and 2 of the More Than Complete Edition, plus Hypatia. Omnipotence for Dummies, aka Volume Two, is Machiavelli from the old part 2, all of part 3 of the omnibus, and a new piece on the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. That leaves all of part 4 ("modern" philosophers) for a future Kickstarter. The "coming soon" in the back of Hooked on Classics indicates the third volume will be titled "Modernity Bites!" Unlike the previous omnibus, these volumes are closer to the top end of manga digests at about half the size of a sheet of regular printer paper (a little bigger than 5" wide and 8" tall or about 14cm wide and 21cm tall), and they're printed in full color with fancier covers that have the fold out bits that feel like book jacket flaps. If you don't have either previous collected version, definitely pick these volumes up. If you do...well, the new pieces are pretty good, having full color is nice, and these will fit on shorter shelves? $17.99 shelf price, rated Teen. Currently being serialized at https://www.actionphilosophers.com on a weekly basis.

Expected next month: Wayne Family Adventures vol 5.

Floppies:

No, I don't have any particular disdain for the monthlies, but they are floppy, yes? (And not all of them come out monthly, or on a regular schedule in general, so I can't just call this section "Monthlies" or even "Periodicals" as that implies a regular period.)

Nothing this month, my pull has so few books in it right now that the shipping cost is best split across more than what comes in four weeks. It might be going up soon, but with only five books ready to go at the end of the month I decided to wait a bit.

Expected next month: At least Vampirella #670, Vengeance of the Moon Knight #6-7, My Adventures With Superman #2, and several of the new Gatchaman comics (main series, Galactor, and my store pulled the Ken Deathmatch for me as well), Venomverse Reborn #2 (Adam Warren issue, getting just that one), Fantastic Four #22.

Dvandom, aka Dave Van Domelen, is an Associate Professor of Physical Science at Amarillo College, maintainer of one of the two longest-running Transformers fansites in existence (neither he nor Ben Yee is entirely sure who was first), made it about 3/4 of the way through Dawntrail in July, is an occasional science advisor in fiction, and part of the development team for the upcoming City of Titans MMO.

"I object to you, and what you represent." - The Question, to the Spectre, Crisis part 3