Author: Graeme McMillan

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The Comics of September 2024

First off, I know; I can’t quite believe I re-read all of Countdown to Final Crisis either, especially given that it must have been the third or fourth time I’ve read it. It’s not any good, and yet I periodically just… come back to it. I’m sorry, everyone. Much more fulfilling was revisiting Steve Englehart and Joe Staton’s The Green Lantern Corps, a massively fulfilling experience for me when I was 12, and happily the same when I was 49. I probably shouldn’t be so eager to admit that, and yet…

  1. The Flash (1987) #s 76-79
  2. The Flash: Rebirth #1
  3. The Flash: Rebirth #s 2-6
  4. X-Men: From The Ashes Infinity Comic #13
  5. The Flash (1959) #300
  6. Daredevil (2023) #13
  7. Exceptional X-Men #1
  8. The Incredible Hulk (2023) #16
  9. The Immortal Thor #15
  10. Marvel Zombies: Dawn of Decay #1
  11. What If Donald Duck Became Thor? #1
  12. Moon Knight Annual 2024 #1
  13. Miles Morales: Spider-Man (2022) #24
  14. Scarlet Witch (2024) #4
  15. Spectacular Spider-Men #7
  16. Spider-Boy #11
  17. Star Wars: The Acolyte – Kelnacca #1
  18. The Ultimates (2024) #4
  19. Venom War: Spider-Man #2
  20. Venom War #2
  21. Flesh Books 1-2
  22. Green Lantern/New Gods: Godhead #1
  23. Green Lantern (2011) #35
  24. Green Lantern Corps (2011) #35
  25. Green Lantern: New Guardians (2011) #35
  26. Red Lanterns (2011) #35
  27. Sinestro (2013) #6
  28. New Gods (1971) #1
  29. Wonder Woman (1987) #s 101-103
  30. Green Lantern (2011) #36
  31. Green Lantern Corps (2011) #36
  32. Green Lantern: New Guardians (2011) #36
  33. Red Lanterns (2011) #36
  34. Sinestro (2013) #7
  35. Wonder Woman (1987) #104
  36. Green Lantern (2011) #37
  37. Green Lantern Corps (2011) #37
  38. Green Lantern: New Guardians (2011) #37
  39. Red Lanterns (2011) #37
  40. Sinestro (2013) #8
  41. Green Lantern Annual (2012) #3
  42. All-New Collector’s Edition #56 (Superman vs Muhammad Ali)
  43. Absolute Power: Super Son #1
  44. Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #31
  45. Superman (2023) #18
  46. Wonder Woman (2023) #13
  47. Jenny Sparks #2
  48. John Constantine, Hellblazer: Dead in America #9
  49. Absolute Power: Origins #3
  50. Absolute Power: Task Force VII #7
  51. Green Arrow (2023) #16
  52. The Flash (2023) #13
  53. Titans (2023) #15
  54. Detective Comics #s 1084-1089
  55. Super Powers (1985) #1
  56. MultiVersus: Collision Detected #1
  57. Breaking the Chain: The Guard Dog Story
  58. Dawn of DC: Knight Terrors FCBD 2023 Special Edition #1
  59. Knight Terrors: First Blood #1
  60. Knight Terrors #1
  61. 2000 AD Prog 2400
  62. Judge Dredd Megazine #472
  63. Knight Terrors #s 2-4
  64. Knight Terrors: Night’s End #1
  65. Batman/Catwoman: The Gotham War – Battle Lines #1
  66. Batman (2016) #s 137-188
  67. Catwoman (2018) #s 57-58
  68. Batman/Catwoman: The Gotham War – Red Hood #s 1-2
  69. Batman/Catwoman; The Gotham War – Scorched Earth #1
  70. Batman/Catwoman: The Gotham War – Prelude Batman Day Edition #1
  71. World War III (2007) #s 1-4 (52 spin-off)
  72. Sgt. Rock Annual #3
  73. Questprobe #3
  74. Super-Team Family #6
  75. The Flash (1959) #s 252, 268
  76. Action Comics (1938) #s 482, 512
  77. Sgt. Rock #s 345, 347, 368, 387
  78. G.I. Combat #288
  79. Blackhawk (1944) #258
  80. Green Lantern (1960) #s 123-124
  81. Judge Dredd by Mick McMahon Apex Edition
  82. Green Lantern (1960) #125
  83. The Flash (1959) #296
  84. DC Comics Presents: Captain Atom #1
  85. Countdown (to Final Crisis) #s 51-49 (Series is numbered backwards)
  86. Countdown (to Final Crisis) #s 48-43
  87. The Amazing Spider-Man (2022) #51
  88. Mystic (2000) #1
  89. X-Men: From the Ashes Infinity Comic #14
  90. Savage Wolverine Infinity Comic #6
  91. Star Wars (2020) #47
  92. Star Trek: Defiant #s 8-11
  93. Star Trek: Defiant Annual #1
  94. Our Army at War #233
  95. Justice League of America (1960) #109
  96. Wolverine (2024) #1
  97. Star-Spangled War Stories #183
  98. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – The Scorpius Run #s 1-5
  99. Countdown (to Final Crisis) #s 42-40
  100. Justice League of America (1960) #123
  101. Uncanny X-Men (2024) #2
  102. Justice League of America (1960) #124
  103. Star Wars (2020) #50
  104. Avengers Assemble (2024) #1
  105. Captain America (2023) #13
  106. The Amazing Spider-Man (2022) #57
  107. All-Star Squadron #s 1-3
  108. The Flash (1959) #s 260, 263-264
  109. Justice League of America (1960) #127
  110. All-Star Squadron #s 4-5
  111. The Lovable Lockheed Infinity Comic #1
  112. Absolute Batman #1
  113. Flash: The Fastest Man Alive #s 7-13
  114. All-Flash Special #1
  115. Justice League of America (1960) #117
  116. Countdown (to Final Crisis) #40
  117. Amazons Attack! (2007) #s 1-6
  118. Countdown (to Final Crisis) #s 39-34
  119. The Green Lantern Corps (1986) #201
  120. Countdown (to Final Crisis) #s 33-31
  121. Justice League of America Wedding Special #1
  122. Justice League of America (2006) #13-15
  123. Green Arrow/Black Canary Wedding Special #1
  124. Countdown (to Final Crisis) #s 30-29
  125. Countdown (to Final Crisis) #s 28-27
  126. Countdown to Final Crisis # 26
  127. The Lovable Lockheed Infinity Comic #2
  128. Savage Wolverine #7
  129. The Green Lantern Corps (1986) #s 203-204
  130. Countdown to Final Crisis #s 25-21
  131. Salvation Run #s 1-2
  132. Countdown to Mystery #s 1-8
  133. Countdown to Final Crisis #20
  134. Countdown: Arena #s 1-4
  135. Salvation Run #s 3-7
  136. Countdown to Final Crisis #s 19-1
  137. DC Universe #0
  138. The Green Lantern Corps (1986) #205
  139. DC Retroactive: Green Lantern – The ‘70s #1
  140. DC Retroactive: Justice League of America – The ‘70s #1
  141. Secret Origins (1986) #7
  142. Sword of the Atom (1983) #s 1-4
  143. Power of the Atom #s 1-2
  144. The Green Lantern Corps (1986) #206
  145. Vengeance of the Moon Knight #9
  146. Spider-Man: Reign 2 #3
  147. The Sixth Gun #1
  148. Fantastic Four (2022) #25
  149. The Green Lantern Corps (1986) #207
  150. Batman (1940) #401
  151. Detective Comics (1935) #568
  152. The Warlord (1976) #s 114-115
  153. G.O.D.S. #8
  154. Spider-Man/Deadpool #s 1-2
  155. Spider-Man/Deadpool #s 3-6
  156. Deadpool Team-Up #893
  157. Spider-Man: The Short Halloween #1
  158. Heroic Age: 1 Month 2 Live #1
  159. The Green Lantern Corps (1986) #s 208-210
  160. X-Men: From the Ashes Infinity Comic #15
  161. Avengers (2023) #15
  162. Spider-Man/Deadpool #s 7-18
  163. House of Mystery (2008) #1
  164. 2000 AD Prog 2401
  165. DC Retroactive: Green Lantern – The ‘80s #1
  166. DC Retroactive: Justice League International – The ‘90s #1
  167. Red Tornado (1985) #1
  168. The Incredible Hulk (2023) #13
  169. Blood Hunt #3
  170. Giant-Size Daredevil (2024) #1
  171. The Green Lantern Corps (1986) #s 211-213
  172. X-Men (2024) #4
  173. X-Factor (2024) #2
  174. The Incredible Hulk (2023) #17
  175. Dazzler (2024) #1
  176. Black Canary (2024) #1
  177. Hyde Street #1
  178. Avengers (2023) #18
  179. Spider-Man: Black, White and Blood #2
  180. The Power Fantasy #2
  181. Star Wars: Darth Vader (2020) #50
  182. Spider-Boy Annual #1
  183. Wolverine: Deep Cuts #3
  184. The Green Lantern Corps (1986) #s 214-216
  185. Joker: The World OGN
  186. Batman/Elmer Fudd #1
  187. Savage Wolverine Infinity Comic #8
  188. Deadpool (2024) #6
  189. Venom War: Deadpool #1
  190. Venom War: Lethal Protectors #1
  191. Tales of the Green Lantern Corps Annual #3
  192. The Green Lantern Corps (1986) #217
  193. Green Lantern (2023) #s 1-2
  194. Green Lantern: Knight Terrors #s 1-2
  195. Sinestro #s 1-4
  196. Green Lantern (2023) #s 3-12
  197. Green Lantern (2021) #1
  198. Green Lantern (2005) #10
  199. 2000 AD Prog 2402
  200. The Green Lantern Corps (1986) #s 218-219
  201. Millennium (1987) #1
  202. Young All-Stars #s 8-9
  203. The Flash (1987) #8
  204. Justice League International (1987) #9
  205. Wonder Woman (1986) #12
  206. Outsiders (1985) #27
  207. Firestorm (1982) #67
  208. Batman (1940) #415
  209. Blue Beetle (1986) #20
  210. Superman (1986) #13
  211. Adventures of Superman (1986) #436
  212. Booster Gold (1985) #24
  213. Infinity, Inc. (1984) #46
  214. Teen Titans Spotlight #18
  215. Action Comics (1938) #596
  216. The Lobo Cancelation Special #1
  217. Detective Comics (1937) #582
  218. Suicide Squad (1987) #9
  219. The Spectre (1987) #10
  220. Captain Atom (1986) #11
  221. Generations: Fractured (Detective Comics #1027 short)
  222. Generations: Shattered #1
  223. Generations: Forged #1
  224. Millennium #s 2-3
  225. The Green Lantern Corps (1986) #220
  226. The Flash (1987) #9
  227. Justice League International (1987) #10
  228. Wonder Woman (1986) #13
  229. Outsiders (1985) #28
  230. Firestorm (1982) #68
  231. Blue Beetle (1986) #21
  232. Superman (1986) #14
  233. The Shadow War of Hawkman #s 1-4
  234. Hawkman Special (1986) #1
  235. Action Comics (1938) #s 588-589
  236. Millennium #s 4-7
  237. The Green Lantern Corps (1986) #221
  238. Millennium #8
  239. The Green Lantern Corps (1986) #s 222-223
  240. The Immortal Thor #12
  241. DC Comics Presents (1978) #95
  242. Hawkman (1986) #1
  243. Infinity, Inc. (1984) #47
  244. The Spectre (1987) #11
  245. Teen Titans Spotlight #19
  246. Jeff Week Infinity Comic #1
  247. X-Men: From the Ashes Infinity Comic #1
  248. The Amazing Spider-Man (2022) #52
  249. Sensational She-Hulk (2023) #9
  250. Doctor Strange (2023) #16
  251. Wolverine: Revenge #2
  252. Uncanny X-Men (2024) #3
  253. Avengers Annual (2024) #1
  254. Amazing Spider-Man (2022) #58
  255. Daredevil: Woman Without Fear (2024) #3
  256. Ultimate Spider-Man (2024) #9
  257. Absolute Power #4
  258. DC All In Special #1
  259. Justice Society of America (2022) #12
  260. Batman (2016) #153
  261. Plastic Man No More! #2
  262. War of the Gods #1
  263. Wonder Woman (1986) #58
  264. Superman: The Man of Steel (1991) #3
  265. Action Comics (1938) #s 1070-1071
  266. Green Lantern Civil Corps Special #1
  267. Green Lantern (2023) #16
  268. Batman and Robin: Year One #1
  269. Jenny Sparks #3
  270. Birds of Prey (2023) #14
  271. Shazam! (2023) #16
  272. The New Guardians (1988) #s 1-4
  273. G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #301
  274. The New Guardians (1988) #s 5-8
  275. Dark Nights: Death Metal #7
  276. Infinite Frontier #0
  277. The New Guardians (1988) #s 9-12
  278. All-New Collector’s Edition #54
  279. Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #32
  280. Titans (2023) #16
  281. Wonder Woman (2023) #14
  282. 100-Page Super Spectacular #22
  283. The Flash (1959) #s 269, 271-272
  284. The Flash (1958) #s 274, 290-291
  285. Hawkman (1986) #s 2-3
  286. The Flash (1958) #s 292-295
  287. Detective Comics (1937) #s 821-826
  288. The Forged #1
  289. Tales of the Unnamed: The Blizzard #s 1-2 
  290. X-Men: From The Ashes Infinity Comic #17
  291. Detective Comics (1937) #s 827-832
  292. Hawkman (1986) #s 4-6
  293. DC Comics Presents (1978) #17
  294. Justice League of America (1960) #s 179-180
  295. Doodlepool Infinity Comic #1
  296. Detective Comics (1937) #s 833-837
  297. Hawkman (1986) #s 7-11
  298. G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #s 302-305
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Wha’Happen?

I was explaining to a friend the other week that, when the year started, I was all too aware that I’d be turning 50 soon. In January, it felt like something I was amazingly, unstoppably conscious of, as if there was a countdown in my head that I couldn’t stop listening to — a biological clock of some kind, if you will. This is the year, it told me, look at the number, this is the one where you hit that half-century mark, this is something you need to be conscious of at all points all year.

At some point, that entirely disappeared from my head. Life happened, and other things got in the way of me thinking about my birthday. (If you think about this year alone, I’ve been to multiple conventions, interviewed-for and got a promotion at work, and then had to adapt to that, in addition to everything else.) That is, really, how it’s supposed to be, I suspect; you take care of the everything that you have to as it’s happening and the larger anxiety about your birthday slips into the background. But here I am, just a week or so away from it happening now, and I’m wondering: should I have done more to celebrate, or even prepare for, turning 50?

There’s a practical answer to the preparation bit, at least; I almost certainly should have scheduled more doctors appointments, to make sure everything is in working order. (I am appallingly bad at that, in part because some subconscious part of me doesn’t want to know in case something is wrong. Ignorance is bliss, after all.) But otherwise, I find myself thinking about the self-conscious things I thought back in January about this being the year I learn a musical instrument, or publish zines, or whatever, to make a new mark on the world, and wondering when I was supposed to find time to do any of those things.

My 50th birthday will, I suspect, come and pass in a blur of deadlines and real world obligations, and then I’ll wonder what happened. (Well, I’ll probably wonder that after New York Comic Con, which is just a week or so later, and sure to take up all my brain in the meantime.) Somehow, that feels curiously fitting.

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The Villain is a Hyper-Realistic Great Gazoo, Of Course

I can’t get this idea out of my head, so I’m putting it here as a form of exorcism.

For reasons that I honestly can’t explain beyond simple accidental masochism, I’ve been re-reading a bunch of Geoff Johns comics lately; you know this if you look at my lists of the comics I’ve been reading every month. One of the things I’ve noticed that he unfailingly does is concentrate on making the subtext text in almost everything he writes, but in a very specific format. It isn’t just that he’ll make sure that the subtext is made very, very clear to everyone reading the comic, but that he’ll almost certainly have a character say the subtext out loud in such a way that is, almost without fail, either a complaint or a wistful comment about a problem that doesn’t really exist.

I was re-reading The Flash: Rebirth the other week — a comic where the first issue is just filled with characters essentially looking out at the reader and saying, and this is my relationship with the Flash before he shows up and also looks out at the reader to say, and here is my dilemma that I will be addressing throughout this series, and this is how it connects to the readers’ own feelings about me as a fictional construct — and my brain went, ‘I wonder if someone who can do such a thing could create a Geoff Johns mad-libs where an entire comic could be constructed basically by filling in some well-paced gaps?’

This thought then immediately switched to, imagine if Geoff Johns was writing a reboot of The Flintstones and I could see the first page horrifically clearly without any further thought.

It would be essentially one big image of the town of Bedrock, with an all-too-detailed, quasi-realistic bird-like dinosaur squawking in the foreground, against a backdrop of cavemen moving things out of huts. The dinosaur, an update of the idea of dinosaur-as-radio or whatever, would be talking about how Bedrock has been hit by a wave of layoffs and everyone is being forced to move out of the city because of impending meteor warnings. Everything would be in muted, dull colors, and look very depressing.

A relatively small panel is inset into the bottom of the page, showing the tired, downset eyes of Fred Flintstone — again, far too realistic in terms of depiction — as he looks off-panel. A caption, relaying Fred’s innermost thoughts, is at the bottom right of the panel. It simply reads, “It’s hard being a modern stone-age family.”

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Posters That Never Were

This was made for a thing, kind of; it was really me playing around with someone else’s design brief as a way of trying some techniques in Pixelmator I was curious about, but I really like how it turned out, so I’m saving it here.

Not unrelated: I really miss doing graphics for the THR newsletter every Friday.

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Spoilers: You Can’t

I didn’t actually realize what was going on until it had been going on for awhile, unfortunately; I was talking to someone at work about the fact that all of us seemed to be operating under less than optimal circumstances lately and I wrote something like, “we all just seemed a little burned out,” at which point my brain went, oh, that’s it. You’re burned out. That’s what this is.

I had, to this point, been operating for a few weeks wondering why I was failing to have the same joie de vivre (which I have likely misspelled) that I normally had; I’d been feeling sluggish both in terms of feeling physically tired, but also emotionally under the weather, with everything feeling that little bit less exciting or even interesting than it usually did. I’d been ascribing a lot of this to the fact that, just weeks earlier, I’d had COVID and it takes time to get over that — something that is still true, it should be noted — but, nonetheless, had also been wondering why I’d failed to spring back as quickly as I had the first time I’d had the virus. Was this a stronger case? Was it just that I’m four years older?

The truth is, I realized when talking to my work colleague, I was burned out — a state that, in my mild defense, I’d practically trained myself out of recognizing back when I was a freelancer. It’s not that freelancers can’t get burned out — they do, and often — but that being burned out didn’t help when it came to meeting deadlines and paying bills. At some point relatively early in my freelance career, I convinced myself that because it didn’t “matter” on some practical level if I was burned out, then I simply wouldn’t accept that I could be burned out. There’s that entirely-healthy attitude I had back then.

Looking back on it with older, fresher eyes: of course I was burned out. I’d moved through three separate highly stressful work periods without a break, during which time I’d also attended San Diego Comic-Con and had COVID for a week. in addition to navigating whatever home life had been throwing at me at any given moment. (That list included the kid coming back from his summer away, and getting him ready for school, in addition to pet nonsense and other stuff.) How could anyone not be burned out, after all that?

The realization was something that allowed me to feel smug, for all of… a minute or so? After that, there was the inevitable follow-up question: how are you supposed to recover from being burned out when you have no less than two separate conventions to attend and report on for work in a two week period?