Pathfinder: Wake the Dead #1

This was a bargain-bin purchase from Most Excellent Comics and Games in Enfield CT USA on Free Comic Book Day 2025.

Title: Pathfinder: Wake the Dead
Issue: 1 
Publisher: Dynamite
Date: 2023
Writer: Fred Van Lente
Artist: Eman Casallos
Colorist: Jorge Sutil
Letterer: Tom Napolitano
Editor: Joe Rybandt
Cover: Steve Ellis

This is an adaptation of the Pathfinder tabletop roleplaying system. The story here is essentially meant to assemble the team of heroes as a bunch of characters on converging missions meet in a horrific city district of living flesh known as the Awful. There's a lot of posturing the eventually becomes fighting, and everyone gets to show off their moveset before some badder enemies arrive and we go to cliffhanger.

This was fine, but it had a lot of characters involved and none of their powers or skills was anything we haven't seen before. After the comic action is finished, there's a section detailing the game stats of some of the spells, items, and characters in the book, including the most memorable thing in this issue: the tragic backstory of the champion character Seelah. That would make a good comic adaptation, and I think I would have preferred Seelah in a solo book, or at least to start with her and build the team a bit more slowly.

Rating: 4.5/10

Jinx: A Cursed Life #1

Bought from cover artist Jay Kennedy, who had a table at Zombie Hideout in Springfield MA USA for Free Comic Book Day 2025.

Title: Jinx: A Cursed Life
Issue: 1
Date: July, 2023
Publisher: Archie Comics
Writer: Magdalene Visaggio
Artist: Craig Cermak
Letterer: Jack Morelli
Colorist: Ellie Wright
Cover: Jay Kennedy
Editor: Jamie Lee Rotante, Vincent Lovallo, Stephen Oswald

This is from Archie's horror line, putting the familiar Riverdale gang into horror scenarios. Jinx, rumored to be the daughter of the Devil, just wants to be a punk rock musician and for everyone to leave her alone. But when Archie shows up seeking help for a demonically possessed Jughead, Jinx and her friend Danni spring into action. After a sufficient bribe, that is.

This felt a bit more like dark comedy than horror, and it was having some trouble figuring out if it would rather lean into the comedy side of things or the dark. Demonic Jughead was presented as a serious threat, even if rotting-meat hamburgers was a big part of his gimmick, but he ended up getting defeated relatively easily once Jinx started using her not-all-that-well-defined superpowers.

The best parts of this were the characterization of Jinx and Danni, who were both great and full of snarky dialogue. Archie was fun too in his supporting role. This provided a good introduction to this version of Jinx, but didn't lay the groundwork for much ongoing story.

Rating: 5.5/10

Sabrina the Teenage Witch: Annual Spectacular

Bought from cover artist Jay Kennedy, who had a table at Zombie Hideout in Springfield MA USA for Free Comic Book Day 2025.

Title: Sabrina the Teenage Witch: Annual Spectacular
Issue: 1
Date: 2023
Publisher: Archie Comics
Writer: James L. Rotante, George Gladir, Al Hartley, Dick Malmgren, Ian Flynn
Penciler: Holly G, Dan Decarlo, Al Hartley, Harry Lucey, Chad Thomas
Inker: Jim Amash, Rudy Lapick, Joe Sinnott, Marty Epp
Letterer: Jack Morelli, Bill Yoshida, Vincent Decarlo
Colorist: Glenn Whitmore
Cover: Jay Kennedy
Editor: Jamie Lee Rotante, Vincent Lovallo, Stephen Oswald

Two new stories and three classic reprints.

The main feature has Sabrina battling the Wicked Trinity of Amber Nightstone and her two new henchgirls Jade and Sapphire. They've kidnapped Sabrina's aunts as well as Salem and Enchantra. Sabrina is determined to rescue the captives (using the term "captives" a little loosely here as the Unholy Trinity have done a pretty inept job of securing their supposed prisoners). Sabrina ends up in Riverdale and gets a bit of reluctant help from Josie of the Pussycats.

From there we get a Sabrina origin story from 1962 that does into fairly interesting detail about Sabrinas powers and weaknesses. A story from the 1970s brings some definite Saturday morning cartoon vibes as Sabrina explores a haunted house with Archie and Jughead. The last reprint, also from the early 70s, involves Sabrina trying to teach Reggie a lesson in humility by enhancing rival Archie's basketball skill. Unfortunately, Archie as the star player proves to have an ego just as insufferable as Reggie's.

The book ends with a solo story featuring Salem when he was a human boy, and it's another haunted house adventure that brings the same Saturday-morning-cartoon-spooky vibe as the haunted house reprint.

I enjoyed the look at Sabrina's origins here, and the character profiles at the end of the book provide some interesting depth to Jade and Sapphire, who seem poised to be important recurring characters. The rest of this was the usual harmless fun that we expect from the Archie titles.

Rating: 6.5/10

Getting Into Gaming: Peaceful Games

From last Spring's Flywheel Zine Fest in Holyoke MA USA.

Title: Getting Into Gaming: Peaceful Games
Date: August, 2023
Writer: Silver Kahn
Artist: Silver Kahn

Video game zine designed as an introduction for non-gamers. This was one of two in the series, this one covering a selection of nonviolent games (and mostly nonviolent ones such as Minecraft). I loved the tone of this because as someone who is into most areas of geekery, but has barely minimal knowledge of video games, I felt like this was right on my level. It's going to come off as probably too basic for a lot of potential readers, but it was a perfect fit for me. As an added bonus, it did feature one of the few games that I have played extensively: Monument Valley, which I enjoyed as much as the author of this zine did.

Your mileage may vary in terms of whether this is telling you anything new, but it is well written with a clear heartfelt love of gaming and a desire to spread the word in a positive way.

Rating: 7.5/10

Spy Family Volume 4

Bought at Barnes & Noble, Enfield CT USA.

Title: Spy Family
Issue: Volume 4
Publisher: Viz Media
Date: November, 2023
Writer: Tatsuya Endo
Artist: Tatsuya Endo

A group of student terrorists are about to try to carry out an assassination using trained dogs carrying explosives, and Loid needs to stop them.

And speaking of dogs, Loid also just promised to get Anya a dog. So it's off to the dog adoption fair.

You can see where this is going, right?

And, since everyone else in the story is walking around with a big secret, it turns out that the adorable dog, eventually named Bond, is precognitive.

This had some of the best action so far in the series, with Anya and Bond rushing to prevent a future where Loid is killed in a booby trap explosion, and then Loid racing to stop the assassination plot. Yor gets a couple of moments, but is in the background more in this story.

This had much better pacing than the previous issue (reviewed here), and was more of a self-contained story. Bond is a great addition to the cast, and is drawn delightfully. While it didn't advance the main plot of the series much, it provided some needed character development time while giving Loid a chance to show of some of his skills.

Two backup stories in this issue. The first is a cute game of make-believe with Anya and a large plushie penguin. The second has Franky asking Loid for dating advice, in a quick story that is mostly silly, but takes a surprisingly poignant turn at the end.

Rating: 7.5/10

Once Upon A Time In The North

From my school library.

Title: Once Upon A Time In The North
Publisher: Random House Kids
Date: 2023
Writer: Philip Pullman
Artist: Chris Wormell

Not a comic, but beautifully illustrated, this novella (novelette? fairly long short story?) is a prequel to Pullman's His Dark Materials series. This is a classic western tale (well, northern, technically) featuring a stranger coming to town, a corrupt politician, an evil mining company, a good-hearted librarian, gunslingers, and, of course, a talking bear.

This is the story of the first meeting of Lee Scoresby and Iorek Byrnison. Lee arrives in a sleepy northern oil town, and gets introduced to the local political scene, where an offer is made to pay him to be hired muscle in the unfair treatment of a merchant captain. Instead, Lee decided to side with the captain, and earns the support of the armored bear Iorek Byrnison.

This was really fun because the pacing of most of His Dark Materials makes it difficult to give center stage to secondary characters like Scoresby and Byrnison, and even more difficult to spotlight a character like Scoresby's daemon, Hester, who is absolutely awesome here.

This features an intense gunfight with an extremely nasty villain, a good bit of worldbuilding, and some fun subplots. Really enjoyable as a fan of Pullman's other works, but stands on its own pretty well as long as you have an idea of the daemon concept.

Rating: 8.5/10

The Deep

This was a gift from a friend when we moved back to the US.

Title: The Deep
Date: 2023
Publisher: Penguin Workshop (an imprint of Penguin Random House)
Writer: Lindsey Leigh
Artist: Lindsey Leigh

This is an illustrated survey of the creatures of the deep ocean, full of some amazing biology mixed with a lot of goofy humor. The author does a great job of highlighting some of the most interesting adaptations to life in the ocean depths, organizing most of the book by the different zone of the deep sea. There are also some special topics such as chemosynthesis and whalefalls that get a bit of extra coverage.

Some really alien-looking creatures come off as quite charming, and the range of deep sea life that is included is impressive, given the size of the book.

Rating: 7.5/10

Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong #2

First review of 2024! Bought at Bob's Hobbies & Collectibles, Springfield MA USA.

Title: Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong
Issue: 2
Date: 2024
Publisher: DC Comics / Legendary Comics
Writer: Brian Buccellato
Artist: Christian Duce
Colorist: Luis Guerrero
Letterer: Richard Starkings, Comicraft's Jimmy Betancourt
Editor: Ben Abernathy, Robert Napton

With all of the preliminaries out of the way, we get right to the mayhem in this issue. Godzilla takes on Superman, Hawkgirl, and Captain Marvel (you know, the Shazam one), while the Batman and a bunch of Bat-family members go after um... okay, I need to look up a list of members of the Monsterverse B-team... Camazotz, who is attacking Gotham City. Two other Titans, Scylla and Behemoth, are attacking Central City and Themyscira respectively, but those battles will wait until next issue. No problem with that; this issue packs plenty of action.

The Justice League characters all get some good moments, and writer Brian Buccellato does a nice job of keeping them true to their characters while delivering fun interactions, including a feel-good moment of Batgirl knocking out Jason Todd.

Godzilla no-sells pretty much everything thrown at him. looking like a Doomsday-level threat to the Man of Steel by the end of this.

This was a fun issue that delivered on what it promised.

Rating: 7.5/10

2022/2023 Comic Review Recap

As mentioned in the previous post, 2022 (especially) and 2023 were pretty unproductive for this blog. I'm back settled in the US and have just reorganized the Random Stack of Unread Comics, and I've also got lots of graphic novels and manga on the to-read shelf, so expect more in 2024. My most recent review was actually for a comic I read in 2023, so 2024 reviews will start soon.

My total number of comics read in 2022 was a miserable 3. I did a bit better in 2023, but only a bit, with a total of 18.

Highest-rated comics in 2022/2023:

Hellboy: The Wild Hunt (8.5)
Keep the Home Fries Burning: A For Better or For Worse Collection (8.5)
The Sands of Time: Accidental Time Machine (8.5)
White Bird (9)

Lowest-rated comics in 2022/2023:

Dork Diaries: Tales From A Not-So-Happily Ever After (5)
Snow Drop Volume 2 (5)
Star Wars: Allegiance (4)

Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong #1

Look! A (relatively) new comic! Bought at Bob's Hobbies & Collectibles, Springfield MA USA.

Title: Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong
Issue: 1
Date: 2023
Publisher: DC Comics / Legendary Comics
Writer: Brian Buccellato
Artist: Christian Duce
Colorist: Luis Guerrero
Letterer: Richard Starkings, Comicraft's Jimmy Betancourt
Editor: Ben Abernathy, Robert Napton

There is a lot more focus on the DC characters than the Monsterverse in this mostly-setup introduction to this epic crossover. That being said, the setup for the crossover, featuring a series of mishaps in a plot by the Legion of Doom (remember Challenge of the Superfriends?), and the Toyman in particular, as they attempt a raid on Superman's Fortress of Solitude.

Clark, meanwhile, is in the midst of getting his act together to propose to Lois (she knows he's Superman, but they aren't yet married in this version of whatever continuity we're in here), only to have the moment (of course) interrupted by the arrival of Godzilla in Metropolis. Pretty much all of the expected mayhem is saved for next issue, but the interactions between Clark and the rest of the Justice League are really good, and the interplay between the Legion of Doom is at least entertaining.

Good setup. The action was a bit on the generic side, but business should pick up (as Jim Ross would say) once the Monsterverse Titans get fully involved.

Rating: 6/10