Talking About Comics

Dragon Ball Z #79-97 Originally released in 1990 Written by Akira Toriyama Art by Akira Toriyama Last time on Dragon Ball Z!   Gohan, Krillin, and Vegeta have been forced to team up in order to keep the wish-granting Dragon Balls out of the hands of the sadistic Freeza and prevent him from making his terrible wish for immortality.  However, Freeza has five aces up his sleeve - the Ginyu Force! With Goku hours away from Namek, can this unlikely trio recover the Dragon Balls, or is all hope lost for the universe? Unlike with Jujutsu Kaisen or Demon Slayer, I am very familiar with Dragon Ball Z. However, there are some days where I want to go back to something that I'm familiar with and see if there's anything I've forgotten. (I can recall watching the series as a kid where they'd air the series, reach some new episodes, and then start from the beginning of Dragon Ball Z with the Raditz fight. As a result, it felt like they were stuck on Namek forever) Guldo is the weakest...

Fantastic Four #1-4 Originally released in 2022 Written by Ryan North Art by Ivan Coello This Fantastic Four run starts out as something of a mystery, with the team split up and going on individual adventures.  I don't recall the full context surrounding it (there was a period where Marvel seemed determined to ignore or downplay the team, seemingly out of spite over the 2015 movie releasing, but this was well past that) Ben Grimm (a.k.a. the Thing) and his wife Alicia Masters-Grimm have stopped in a quaint little town that feels like it hasn't changed a day since the 1940s. In a way, it hasn't, as according to information that Alicia can find on her phone, the town disappeared in 1947, and they should just be in a field. In addition to being married (a big shake-up to the status quo), Ben and Alicia adopted two kids, a Kree and a Skrull, though they're absent for reasons that are seemingly tied to why the team is temporarily split up. As it turns out, the town is caught...

Absolute Martian Manhunter #1-3 Originally released in 2025 Written by Deniz Camp Art by Javier Rodriguez FBI agent John Jones has survived a suicide bomber blowing up a coffee shop, though maybe "survived" isn't the right word.  He can see smoke when nobody else can, he's hearing voices in his head, and a mix of Cyclops from the X-Men, Squidward from Spongebob, and Gumby is following him around. Even without that, his life is a bit of a mess.  He refuses to take time off of work, figuring that even taking a week or two off will set the organization back months, while making it seem to his wife like he wouldn't be given time off.  He's growing distant from his son, who may or may not have some kind of powers based on what he makes for his art projects. (Though maybe it's just the alien projecting himself (?) into the model) Compounding the tragedy of all of this is that the book will occasionally introduce Martianvision, a way for you (yes, YOU ) to change...

Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur #1-6 Originally released in 2015 Written by Brandon Montclare and Amy Reeder Art by Natacha Bustos In the early to mid 2010s, Marvel made a big push for the Inhumans as a property, as Fox had the movie rights to the X-Men and the Inhumans were a similar enough idea where anyone could potentially be an Inhuman.  Of the new Inhumans created during this period, only two seem to have stood the test of time - Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan) and Moon Girl.  I'm far more familiar with Kamala, so I decided to read Moon Girl's first appearance. Moon Girl is a grade school student named Lunella Lafayette, though the Moon Girl nickname seems to be less due to her interest in science and more due to her head being in the clouds.  She's far above her classmates and constantly teased for it, to the point where she doesn't want to make friends at school because she has little in common with them. Already incredibly intelligent, Lunella has built a detector for Kr...