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Abyss, on 05 June 2026 - 06:07 PM, said:

FWIW (I've read it now), it's an anthology series, individual stories that don't tie much together. Camp described it on twitter as 'Black Mirror if time and space were breaking down', and that pretty much tracks. There's a linking character so there maybe will be an eventual throughline, but it's not composed of long arcs.


It's also a ridiculous writing (and art) flex. All the stories are written the same kind of ambition and flair as the Watchmaker chapter of Watchmen. But each issue is also about a... well, a real issue. Immigration crises, anxiety spirals, dissacotiating from the modern world, various things like that, interrogated via metaphors created via a reality crisis. It's not a light happy read, but it's very, very good.


Camp is a machine, he's so good at this.

I picked up Cheetah and Cheshire Rob the Justice League, by Greg Rucka and Nicola Scott. Great fun, just a tightly told heist story featuring a combination of villains (I was worried they'd soften Cheshire, but no, not really) and rogues. Not much to say about it other than it's fun, and surprisingly heartfelt, and recommended.


Only sour note really is that there's a relationship between the new trans character (who's overall positive, don't get me wrong) and someone who has a crush on her that... well, it's a minor moment right at the end and they didn't mean anything by it, they were playing a 'let him down gently' cliche, but it's careless.



I also got Assorted Crisis Events, by Deniz Camp and Eric Zavadzki, a collection of stories of ordinary people during, well, crisis events. I will read it in a bit but since Deniz Camp is arguably the best writer currently working (I also got the second part of his Ultimates run the other day, and while not as good as his best work, it still sees him flexing a lot) I suspect it's gonna be great.

Picked up the next three volumes of the Absolute collection I'm ammassing: WW and Superman 2 and Flash 1 (my brother has Bats 2, not got the chance to read it yet).




Absolute Superman is definitely a repudiation for the Snyder-goons insisting that what Superman should be about is power and killing. Like, he has internal dialogues about this. It's definitely the densest of the books I've read so far, there's a lot going on, but there's still plenty of big scale action, especially in this second volume.


Flash (written by Jeff Lemire, art by Nick Robles) is maybe the most by-the-book story of the ones I've read so far, but as you'd expect from Lemire it's good, and the art is absolutely dynamite.

Wonder Woman continues to be the best of the 'verse aside from Martian Manhunter. It's got such a great take on the core of what being Diana means, doesn't lose any warmth despite the obvious 'dark and edgy' status of things around her, and it's got great inventive enemies and action set-pieces. And the art is so good. That's true of all the lines, they've really gone all out to ensure the Absolute Universe looks both great and distinct, but it really is pushing things here. Like I said, very JH Williams III-inspired panel and page layouts.



I will say that the Absolute Universe so far is verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry depended on evil secret organisations. Everyone seems to have a monster in a lab somewhere.

I've got books 2 and 3 sitting there coz i got the omnibus.

My read to start my holiday: The Lost War by Justin Lee Anderson. For the most part, a well-written example of a classic fantasy adventure, with a gang of various talents thrown together on a quest (I think it's very obviously one of the role-playing inspired genre). The characters are engaging and it does well balancing multiple plot threads. And then comes a truly spectacular ending which has me wanting to dive into the sequel. Probably won't be next, but good chance it'll before my holiday is out. Recommended.


Before that I finally finished up Lords of Uncreation, the finale of Adrian Tchaikovsky's Final Architecture space opera trilogy. Also a lot of fun, as per Tchaikovsky.