Comics of May 23, 2018 + goal updates

I’m not sure if I’m going to write a full review tonight or not. It depends on a couple of things, the main one being that I’m trying to go for a gym workout every day this week and next week. I’m readying myself for my big swimming goal. One thing that got me excited about this goal is that, this past Sunday, I swam my first ever 200m butterfly. I didn’t even plan on attempting it going into the swim, but I actually found the butterfly part of my first 400im (out of the 3 I swam) kind of easy.

That’s actually a great sign for my goal of swimming the 400m individual medley in less than 8 minutes. It helps that I’ve made massive improvements to my butterfly technique in the last couple of weeks, as well as some backstroke improvements. So whether I write a full review or not depends on when I get back from the gym, and how I feel. With that said, these gym workouts shouldn’t affect my James Bond Blogathon. I’ll be watching You Only Live Twice either tonight or tomorrow night, again depending on how I feel. But until then, let’s talk about this week’s releases.

The comics I picked up this week include the Star Wars Annual, Star Wars 48, Super Sons 16 and Detective Comics 981. Here are my first impressions, and if I do write a review, the link will be added below. But just in case, I’ll go into more detail than usual for these posts.

The Star Wars Annual is fun. Cullen Bunn’s story involves four major parties. There’s Sana Solo, cheating both criminals and the Empire out of money for a pair of ancient Sith lightsabers. Something about these lightsabers still channels the immense hatred that the original Sith lord fueled into them. Both these criminals and the Empire, who are each only given one of the sabers, trying to hunt down Sana. And then there’s Luke, just working on his own private mission to gather credits for the Rebel Alliance. They interact in fun ways, and it’s neat how despite their very different stances on the force at the time, both Luke and Vader ultimately react similar to the lightsabers. It’s a fun comic, but there’s nothing all that special about it. Check it out if it sounds interesting to you.

It’s also worth noting that this issue takes place before the eight issue of the series – before Luke even met Sana Solo.

Star Wars 48 continues the Rebel’s efforts to gain the Mon Calamari as an official ally. In the previous issue, a daring rescue mission for the Mon Calamari king led Luke, Leia and Han into an ultra-high security prison. Only to find that the king is on life support and cannot be moved. Although they do find a solution to this problem, the situation gets complicated when their captive officer sets off an alarm. And of course there’s another, bigger complication at the end of the issue that I won’t spoil, but I’ll say it could end in bloodshed on a massive scale. Writer Kieron Gillen’s been doing great with this series so far. He’s building up to The Empire Strikes Back, while also throwing in bits of Return of the Jedi build-up. This series is an easy recommendation for Star Wars fans in general.

Super Sons 16 is fun. After finding most of the Justice League captive by a punk in a high tech suit, Superboy and Robin need to figure out a strategy for beating someone who can mimic the powers of every single member of the Justice League. That’s all I’m going to say about this one. This is a fun, optimistic series in general, and it’s worth checking out for fans of either Batman or Superman.

Detective Comics 981 brilliantly concludes James Tynion IV’s epic run on the title. This issue begins with an intense conclusion to the dark Tim Drake story arc, but it’s an emotional conclusion at the same time. The rest of the issue helps tie off loose ends, shows how far characters like Cassandra Cain have come since the start of the series, and breaks up the team in a way that works on every dramatic level. And for a run that’s been fairly dark from the start, it’s nice to see a relatively happy ending that still feels like it fits. It feels like every member of the team has learned from both their successes and failures from this series, and are actively trying to improve their own lives for a change. Since the DC Rebirth began, this series has been consistently great. Fans of the Batman franchise should read it.

I’m not sure if I’m going to continue reading Batman comics right now, or if I’ll just take a bit of a break and re-read the Batman comics I currently own. I haven’t yet found the time to re-read Scott Snyder’s New 52 run, but I’ve been itching to for a while.