resnullius_bells

-2020 Machine Man #2: I really don’t care for Machine Man. Or the second Machine Man. Or his romance with Jocasta. I care about Jocasta, but it’s not like she’s done anything of note here. Anyway, Machine Man defeats him thanks to his free will and takes Jocasta’s talking head with him, hoping to study the obedience virus inside her. Then there’s a second story about a group of humans helping the robot revolution. It’s alright.

-2020 Iron Age #1: this one has three different stories about the robot revolution (which is still written with as much depth as a kiddie pool, to quote my dearest Caroline Forbes). The first with the group I mentioned above, now called The Wreckers, and Machine Man; the Wreckers find a warehouse full of tortured robots. The second one is with Alkhema, who has her own robot cult and wants to murder all humans to create an AI paradise. The third one is about Doctor Shapiro, now an “ordinary cat” without his AI collar. The cat one was probably my favorite; Doctor Shapiro takes revenge on Sunset Bain by scratching her sofa XD.

-Outlawed #1: I was so pissed off at the last Ms. Marvel comic I read I wasn’t sure whether to read this one, but I (theoretically) like a lot of this characters, so. Anyway, there was an attack in Kamala’s school that caused a lot of damage (including on her, who seems to be in a coma). It resulted in a law trying to ban teenage vigilantism (called Kamala’s law, which is… on the nose. And might result in her outing her superhero identity). This story is unlike anything that’s been written on Marvel before, ofc.

-Spider Woman #1: Jessica is working as a bodyguard for some rich kid in a boat party and they try to kidnap her multiple times. She’s also been poisoned somehow, maybe? Or sick. And she has a new suit that’s maybe been tampered with. IDK, I wasn’t feeling it. And if her baby and domestic life is going to be a significant part of it, I don’t think I’ll stick with this run. It’s weird because sometimes I don’t mind pregnancy/baby plots at all, especially if they’re supposed to be magical and dangerous ones (it’s horrifying but I do like horror, so). But if things start to be about taking care of a baby and about the domesticity of it all I will bolt xD.

-The Low, Low Woods #1-4: this is another limited series from Hill House comics, like Daphne Byrne. Which makes me think I should really check out their other stuff, because I’m really liking both and I’m always up for reading new weird horror. This one is about a small town that’s been slowly dying for years due to mysterious fires in the old coal mines. There are monsters in the woods, a town witch, the town’s girls wake up in random places without memories… that’s what happens to our protagonists, El and Vee, two teenage girls (who I hope end up together. I ship them a lot lol), and the must figure out what happened to them and what’s going on with their town.

These last days I re-read Doomquest and its sequels too (I always end up going through old favorites instead of finding new stuff when I have free time. Alas).

Doomquest is a two-issue story about Tony and Dr. Doom getting trapped in Arthurian times and have to work together to return to the present (there’s a What If? AU where Dr. Doom double crosses Tony and he gets stuck in the past and becomes the new king of Camelot, of course xD); then Recurring Knightmare has them trapped in a futuristic Camelot that later a resurrected Merlin makes them forget. IIRC much later, circa Director Stark times, there’s another short story where Tony and Doom end up trapped in the ‘70s, but it was not as fun (I only remember Doom telling Tony “a lot more people hate you than they hate me”. Ouch).

My favorite of the sequels, however, is Legacy of Doom. Checking his old memory drives, Tony remembers yet another adventure Merlin made he and Doom forget (it seems to be Merlin’s thing. Did Tony learn from him xD?). It’s weird, and fun, and includes Tony getting trapped in hell fighting his father (which is NOT fun and emotionally wreaking, and one of my favorite scenes in Iron Man comics. There’s also a bit where Doom has to ~~penetrate~~ stab Tony with Excalibur to save the world.

All of these stories are great shipping fodder if you like IronDoom, which I definitely do. I especially like the identity porn bits: Doom keep calling Iron Man lackey and praising Tony Stark’s intelligence (and when he sees how smart Iron Man is, he’s in awe of how much smarter Tony must be than he even knew!), and when he’s in the future apparently one of his main concerns is finding out Iron Man’s identity. Now I’m thinking about re-reading/finishing Bendis run (maybe Infamous Iron Man too), if only to read more IronDoom moments. I wasn’t feeling it the first time around, especially towards the end, but it also might give me some fic ideas. Who knows.

And I started watching the new animated Harley Quinn show.

I’m halfway through (I’ve watched up till episode 7 of 13). Some of its humor is… not my thing, but overall I’m really enjoying it. Harley is perfect on this (minus her outfit. I’m sorry but it’s ridiculous). She’s violent and obsessive and neurotic yet utterly lovable, as she’s supposed to. There’s an episode where the characters get into her mind that I didn’t particularly like (it was weaker than most of the others), but I liked how he kept the theme of how unreliable Harley’s memories can be.

Ivy is another win for the show, I love how they write her here and how exasperated she gets at Harley’s antics LOL (I hope they eventually get together on the show, BTW. Fingers crossed. One detail I really liked about them was that the show established Harley had helped Ivy as Dr. Quinzel). Her misanthropy makes for some of the better moments in the show. Though my favorite one was when she took advantage of being on live tv to talk about recycling xD

The Joker in this show works better for me as a villain (Harley’s villain) than he’s done in a looooong time, especially for Batman. Especially in the first episode, where Harley kept going back to him.

I’ve liked a lot of the appearances over the show. The new takes on the characters are usually pretty fun; I especially like Batman (he’s so dry LOL), poor Gordon (he just wants to be your friend, Batman!), and Damian (I love that brat). But really, a lot of them. Bane, King Shark, Clayface, the heroes… My favorite has to be the Queen of Fables. She’s one of my favorite villains and no one brings her up anymore, so I’m glad to see she has a sizeable part to play here.

And the part of me that digs hero/villain ships (so, all of me) really appreciated how finding a nemesis was framed like finding your One True Love LMAO. BatCat is also confirmed canon (Ivy makes a comment about how Catwoman told her he shaves all LOL), and I hope Catwoman appears at some point.

So yeah, I like it. I’m going to try and finish the rest of the season this week. However, I’d warn anyone who wants to watch it that it can get really gory -animated gore doesn’t really bother me, but even I thought some of it was too much.

And to finish this off, here’s a post by @tozka linking to a bunch of free stuff you can access to read or watch during these days, in case your as bored as I am, stuck at home. Enjoy!