So Long And Thanks For All The Fish!

 Hey all my buddies, I’m moving all of this out of Google’s digital clutches and into my OWN poorly managed e-space, and so you can find me over at www.itsthebageler.com! All the bullshit you know and love and more! Thanks for everything, and I hope to see you all over there!

Review: The Kaiju Preservation Society, by John Scalzi

The Kaiju Preservation Society

by John Scalzi

"I can explain," I blurted out. This was a lie, I could not.

-

"You didn't insult me by offering me money. You insulted me by thinking I could be bought."

-

"This is not working," I said to the plant. The plant, while sympathetic, I'm sure, said nothing.

-

"These are just your basic vaccinations," she said. "Just the usual stuff, new and boosters. Measles, mumps, rubella, multispectral flu, chicken pox, smallpox."

"Smallpox?"

"Yes, why?"

"It's extinct."

"You'd think so, wouldn't you."  

A GALLERY OF MY TERRIBLE CATS, EXHIBIT 1: HOLLAND

  ALONE IN THE WORLD WAS A LITTLE CATBLOG   

    BECAUSE YOU DEMANDED IT, or you would have, HAD YOU KNOWN YOU NEEDED IT IN ORDER TO CONTINUE PRODUCING YOUR BONES' PRECIOUS MARROWS. But now that's taken care of, so you're ahead of the game; go ahead and take a break, fix yourself a drink, maybe!

    Anyone who knows me for any length of time will find themselves wondering: wait how the hell many cats does this guy have? And to that reasonable question my reply is reliable, and unchanging as the sea: what are you, a cop?

Make like Ruggles, motherfucker

    It's time for you all to get to know the tiny monsters that infest my home, pukify my carpets and bake more biscuits than a thousand Southern families could smother in gravy if given all the chickenfat in God's delicious creation, and so I have embarked upon a RECORD OF MY INNUMERABLE MEOWMARTS, like Quirinius taking his census of Judea, and we all know how well that turned out.

    Today we start with the tiniest and, I'm not even ashamed to say it, my favoritemost:

CAT #1: CELEBRATED LOCAL CAT HOLLAND J. CAT

Disclaimer: Holland not actually as terrible as advertised

FUN FACTS:

1. Has no naturally-occurring meow! She mostly goes 'Peep!' and she gets along JUST FINE, thank you very much aggressive, condescending telemeowketers trying to sell us a product we don’t need.
2. Is my little princess because JUST LOOK AT HER STUPID PERFECT LITTLE FACE.
3. I narrate her in a little French accent sometimes: "Papa! I am on ze keetchen COUNTAIR, even zo I know zis is CRIMES for ze kitty to do! Vive la vie de crime!"
4. The 'J' stands for 'Oats'!

    My very first cat was her predecessor, Denmark J. Cat, who was my best guy for four presidential administrations, until he fell to the sword of feline lymphoma and set sail for the Undiscovered Country. I have it on good authority that he has since CONQUERED HELL, and is warming my throne there until I can arrive.

    After what my wife deemed an appropriate mourning period, during which she experienced the only span in our relationship when I wasn't pointing to an animal and yelling for her to look at how good they were, she surprised me wif A BAYBEEEEEE

"Papa! AH AM SO GODDAMN SMOL!"

    

    She is now my constantmost and steadfast companion and snugglecreature; she will not leave me the hell alone and I love it so damn much, she is on my lap as I type this, her paws buried beneath my laptop, like so much traysure.

Traysure with CLAWS, apparently, so in addition to being my Wee Peep she is also the LEGENDARY CRYSTAL CRAB OF CUDDLEMONSTER COVE, GOD HELP US ALL

HOLLAND’S FAVORITE PASTIMES INCLUDE:

• Scrumbling
• Going absolutely batshit cuckoo-bananas on the scratching-post when I crush a Diet Coke can in my bitchin' can-crusher, seriously for some reason it just drives her into a tiny berserker frenzy, it's hilarious
• Meepwalking (walking around going 'meep')
• Having breath that Elton John once called "screaming anguish of a thousand lutefisk-slathered ghosts’ asses" due to FIV-induced stomatitis
• Blepping at a Regional Championship level, but if I'd had any competitiveness genes for her to inherit she would destroy the rankings so completely that the league would never recover.

Don’t embarrass yourself, you can’t step to this, just put Kevin back in his carrier and get the hell out of the Dayton Radisson’s multipurpose room while we’re still inclined to let you

    She is also, as if you hadn't noticed yet, the smallest cat in the entire world.

So fuckin tiny!

Look how ittybitty oh-so-small!

She's the size of a single grain of rice! Not even basmati! Arborio!

She takes a bath in the top-hat Monopoly piece! She puts a catnip julep on the rim!

If I need her to weigh down some papers she has to put on a kimono lined with lead pellets!
SHE LOOKS AMAZING IN IT.

When she needs to go shopping she catches the 10:15 millipede to the Towne Centre Tiny Barterin'-Rink!

She uses a q-tip for a mop on people's nails in her
part-time job at the parlor down by Swongburt's Pie-Barn!

She thinks Fantastic Voyage is a movie about giants!

One time I sneezed when she was lying on my desk and she called for me to pick her up from Turkey!
Reno, Rude, Tseng and Elena took excellent care of her, thanks guys! Tell Rufus I'll SEE HIM IN HELL.

THE CAREFUL OBSERVER WILL NOTE:

    She is the very embodiment of feline razzle-dazzle, and we are all richer for her being in our lives. You're welcome.

    Tune in next time when I interview Paisley J. Cat and ask the question that's been on everyone's minds: What's with all the fluff, man?

and she didn't raise a fool,
and she raised me

Review: Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James

Black Leopard, Red Wolf

by Marlon James

The Dinosaur To Which I Am Heir, Or: I, Jerk

    Good evening. Thank you for joining me, and please feel free to help yourself to a frosty Fanta in the flavor of your choice, including Limited-Edition And Possibly Fictional Goozleberry.

    Find below a photo-graph of Haplocanthosaurus Delfsi, a dead-ass thunder lizard first discovered in Colorado in 1954. Pictured is the most complete fossil ever found, still only around 60%, the rest being casts and leftover props from the most famous dinosaur film Hollywood has ever produced, Gran Torino.

Not pictured: adorable spinny-propeller cap, found clogging the craw of a nearby and, in retrospect, overly optimistic Australopithecus 

    

    As you have no doubt ascertained through the observational powers afforded you by your peepin'-globes, H. Delfsi was a big ol' doofus.

"Buhhhhh hi there, I chomp-a da leafs and die in da tar pits! I'm the number-one style!"

    

    Through a series of increasingly improbable events that I am nowhere near creative enough to have devised, I have a personal connection to this ridiculous monster, and like all stories, it begins with a gesture of kindness, has a life-exploding revelation in the middle, and ends with a pile of giant goofy bones, under which I will one day be buried, and which will eventually be indistinguishable from my own due to the bone-embiggening tonic I plan to quaff in my last moment as a gesture of revenge agains the funerary industry that once stole six months of my life, but that's a story for another day.

    This is a true story; not in like a Fargo way, but in a weird, 3am public-access news-show way. I have actually changed the names of those involved except one, which will be evident, but all other events described are accurate to the best of my knowledge. You can trust in this, because if I were making it up there would be more Mole-Men and Dune references, and less heart disease and inconclusive emotional tumult.

Pictured: What I would, frankly, have much preferred 

    In February of 2020, just before the eruption of what I can only hope to every god is the last era-defining historical event of my lifetime (update: nope, thanks to Putin!), my wife surprised me with an Ancestry.com test; as an off-the-shelf white guy with little in the way of identity, culture or heritage save vague notions of watered-down Irish and Norwegian ancestry, I've spent my adult life obsessed with finding out Who I Am, historically, ethnically and geographically speaking, and she thought this would be a good place to start. What self-discoveries awaited me??? Was I Jewish? (No.) Klingon? (No for different reasons.) ¿SPANISH? (A little.)
    The test came back, accompanied by my saliva sample and a note saying "Why did you send so much?", "Please see a doctor", and "Where did you even get a Eureeka's Castle lunchbox-thermos?", but sadly revealing little beyond what I'd already suspected: I'm a dang mayonnaise mutt is what, fulla nothin' from nowhere. Still neat though! And still an extremely thoughtful gift that I recommend to anyone whose life and understanding of self you may not want to actively destroy, but to the destruction of which you wouldn't necessarily be opposed.

    I looked the report over a couple of times and then didn't think much of it for the next month or so--sorry, my tiny, beautiful wife, but there're only so many ways you can read about different groups of white people and still be interested; academics call this the 'Texan history textbook problem'--until I received an email from a gentleman I'll call Harold, in which he said Ancestry had pinged him an alert that I was on the scene and that we were, somehow, relation to one another, according to the alleles and centimorgans and xenomorphs that the service uses to map genetic branches; specifically, that I was either his half-brother, cousin, uncle, nephew, or grandparent, and given that he's several years older than I am, cousin seemed the most likely, if least hilarious, possibility. 

He had no way of knowing that my fashion sense could best be described as 'baby grandpa'! HE HADN'T SEEN THE TINY SUSPENDERS, WHICH MAKE THE SKEPTIC BELIEVE!

    I said 'Neato!', we compared family trees and whoops, turns out we actually didn't have anything in common, that's weird! Better luck next time somebody's wife does something nice. I thought no more of it, and went back to reading Rat Queens, like a common Gary.

    Then it got weirder.

    Harold emailed me again, saying he'd recently discovered he had a SURPRISE HALF-SISTER (we've all been there, we all know this classic way) with whom he shared a biological father; he had been synthetically shaken and baked within his mother's ova-oven, which was news to him and had opened up an entire orchard of connections to relatives he never knew he had. 
    According to Harold this was further evidence that he and I were kin, and further evidence to me that he needed a new hobby. I sent a screenshot of his email to my mother; "Lol!" I said, "Check it out, this dude thinks I'm his uncle brother nephew grandpa cousin", and I didn't hear back from her for a week. In and of itself this was not unusual; we are not especially close, and the divide between us had only grown since the 'election' of The Twice Impeached citizen.

    But in retrospect: indicative.

    The next week, while my wife and I were enjoying Steve Martin's The Jerk, my parents called and tearfully confirmed that my dad is not my biological father, that they were, for reasons they declined to share, unable to conceive and that like Harold, I had been brewed in her tummy-cauldron through the potioncraft of artificial insemination. And what's more, I was pretty much the only one who hadn't already known. I flashed back to every time I wondered why my dad didn't treat me like my siblings, every time I'd been wrong about my own medical history without realizing it, every time I'd wondered why I looked nothing like him and seemed to have nothing of him within me except his laugh, which he, my brother, and I have in common, but only the true laugh that grips the heart and shakes until you go limp; the laugh that I'd assumed, vaguely and foolishly, was genetic, a single provable link to a man with whom I seemed to share almost nothing. 
    That's right: a DNA test for my birthday made my mother tell me I was a test-tube baby while I was watching The Jerk, a movie where Steve Martin's family tells him he's adopted on his birthday, and if I ever meet him that'll be the only thing I have to say to him. Needless to say this wrecked my entire ass in ways that may never fully resolve. Insert joke to break the tension here!

Okay I just searched 'random joke' looking for something serviceable but this actually got a legit donkey laugh out of me AND doubles as a callback to the Fanta thing, so that's a freebie, that one's on the house

    So one huge, life-altering piece of the puzzle had fallen into place, if only by carving a hole for it out of my identity with a box-cutter, but in so doing had formed an outline that now could not be ignored: if my dad was not my biological father, and the available data pointed to me being related to this cat Harold and, by extension, all of these half-siblings he had just discovered, just who the fuck's seed had been planted in my mother?

    During the phone call that unbeknownst to me would become a line of Before & After demarcation in my life, she had assured me the donor was carefully chosen; a college graduate and musician, because in the late 80's they still thought either of those had anything to do with genetics instead of socioeconomic status. So was Mr. Collegiate America also the source of Harold and his newly-discovered veritable Apple Dumpling Gang? That didn't make any sense; Harold and most of the others were considerably older than I was, and were too numerous and spread out too widely to be the issue of a single college student, no matter how, ah, productive a class of young man they may be. Something wasn't adding up.

    There was an element of Harold's story that I had dismissed immediately and out of hand upon reading it, not because I thought him a liar, damn'd liar or statistician, but because it was too outlandish, too Lifetime Original Movie, but to my dawning horror I realized that it was also the only explanation that fit, the only variable that allowed every one of us to solve for X: Harold had said that he and all of his new siblings, including me, shared a common biological father, and that this man was not, as one might assume, his mother's husband or inamorato but her OBGYN, and the doctor that had personally delivered him into the world like so many Oriental Trading catalogues. 

Lemme tell ya, nothin' gets my morning started right like a handfulla shapes fresh from the tub

    Now, this was not for any salacious reason; there had been no clandestine smoochin', and I'm sorry to say this is not merely due to my famous disinclination to publicly discuss such matters (outside my Smutty Award-winning fantasy series The Butt-Toucher Chronicles) but to the fact that the explanation was, in fact,

much darker and much more disturbing.

    

    Harold did a lot of digging (HA, DINO-PUN), and a lot of Ancestry work, and sent out a lot of emails just as confusing as the one he sent me, and eventually he came to the inescapable conclusion that he had at least six half-siblings, all of whom had been conceived artificially, and all of whose mothers had been professionally attended to in matters gynecological, obstetric, and natal by the same man. The man who, we had no choice but to conclude, had swapped out an unknowable number of donor semen samples, including the one that eventually became me, with his own.

    Enter: Edwin Delfs.

 I could make a joke here, but frankly I'm just terrified at the possibility that his hairline is as hereditary as our shared affinity for vests

    Delfs was widely considered to be something of a renaissance man: an OBGYN, fertility specialist in a time when that was still considered borderline witchcraft, and amateur paleontologist who remained active in the fossil-finding game until he died to death of deadly dying, discovering the above H. Delfsi while still a student. The name 'Delfs' likely derives from the Dutch delven which means, I shit the gentle reader not, 'to dig', because the Powers That Be thought that if I was going to be put through this they should throw me a nomenclature-pun bone. 

Update: I have been warned by that paleozoic pervert, and that was the last paleontology joke I will be making, and it WASN'T EVEN ON PURPOSE, BECAUSE LIFE IS UNFAIR.

    Delfs has been dead for almost twenty years now, like an asshole would do, so we aren't getting answers from him and his precious ~legitimate~ family certainly isn't forthcoming with information or any of that sweet dinosaur-money, so this is where things begin to occupy a more speculative space.

    The current understanding, through comparing where we now know our various mothers sought fertility services, is that Delfs was engaging, prolifically, in what is now known as fertility fraud or donor fraud, which is wildly illegal in the civilized parts of the United States, although my natural inclination toward generosity requires me to believe that in the remaining states it's 'legal' in the way that teaching a dog to understand that it will one day die is 'legal' in that what the hell man, why do you need a law to tell you not to do that. 
    As far as we can ascertain, throughout at least half of his horrifyingly long career as an OBGYN and fertility specialist in California, he scattered his foul seed in plots that had been clearly marked for other crops, leading to an ongoing harvest of duplicitous bellyfruit and metaphors that get away from you with upsetting and surprising ease. Delfs is one of only a handful of what I have to assume the telenovelas call los médicos monstruos that has even been found out, and he's not even one of the few that have been prosecuted or held to account, legally or otherwise because he died of congestive heart failure with, I have to admit, is a pretty elegant way to dodge prosecution. Fair play to you, you egomaniacal, power-mad kinda-rapist. Kitten to break the tension!

    

My God, this kitten has contracted chronic blepatitis

    So where does this leave we, the unmoored, the unfathered, the lied-to? Kinda nowhere, actually. My newly-found siblings (???) and I made a fair shot at connecting and keeping in touch but don't really have much to say to one another, besides the fact that our mere mutual existences are just a reminder of the secrets and the lies and the shroud of enforced silence surrounding fertility-shame taboos in couples. My parents, for their part, don't seem to have actually engaged with the whole 'the stranger you trusted illegally impregnated you with his own semen under false pretenses' aspect, because they're still stuck behind the taboo-wall that kept this a secret for thirty years in the first place; they're much more upset about the circumstances surrounding me being a crockpot baby than the fact that there was an unauthorized ingredient-substitution. I can't tell whether I think that's denial and refusal to deal with a traumatic reality or actually shockingly enlightened of them; either way, life is hard and we do what we must, and I'm not prepared to begrudge them their coping mechanism, since mine is apparently blogging, which is arguably worse.

    Harold learned the hard way--the 'triple bypass at 34' way--that we've inherited some mighty bad tickers from our deceitful dino-daddy, and if nothing else that has inspired me to take better care of myself, because I'll be damned if I let him steal any of my time on earth in addition to the broken trust and resentment my already-tenuous family bonds are now straining to ʕ •ᴥ•ʔ, and wouldn't you know it, right when I really needed a joke to cut the maudlin tone, the autocorrect my wife put on my phone for 'bear' kicks in; that's a freebie, and I'll take it gratefully. Thank you, beautiful.

    The takeaway is this: I'm not upset that I was a test-tube baby, I'm upset that a fundamental truth about the physical nature of who I am was deliberately kept from me and influenced the behavior and thoughts of others regarding me without my knowledge or consent; it probably would've stayed secret my whole life, or a least theirs, if they could've swung it. How much earlier would I have started taking my heart health seriously if I had known? How much more effort would I have put into my relationship with my father if I'd known he was struggling to connect with a child that wasn't his, instead of a child that was his but that he just didn't like, as I always assumed? These are questions no one should have to ask, so if there's any point to any of this, it's to please, please tell your children the truth, about whatever their situation is. If you're any kind of parent to them, that bond will have nothing to fear from a simple twist of biological fate that led them into your hearts, but everything to fear from the revelation that their personal medical agency and knowledge of self were things that you, at some point, actively decided they didn't need or deserve.

    No story ends, and this one is no different, so I have no nice neat wrap-up for you, and for that I apologize. Thank you for reading, and letting me express something that's been pinballing around inside me for two years. I'll leave you with this song, which I love a lot and which helps me through some rough ones, and the hope that you and yours are well, and stay safe. Enjoy.

in no time at all, this'll be the distant past

Strange Academy, Vol. 1: First Class

Strange Academy, Vol. 1: First Class

Published By: Marvel · Written By: Skottie Young · Art & Cover By: Humberto Ramos

    The Marvel universe has a written history and legacy longer and more convoluted than those of many countries, religions and efforts to reform the goddamn filibuster, and it can be intimidating to try to get into. Just how does one know when it's Clobbering Time, and is it affected by Daylight Savings? Exactly what are those mass-destruction-causing weirdoes 'avenging'? What the fuck is Paste Pot Pete's deal, and who in the Marvel org chart can I punch about him?

KINDER WORDS THAN I WOULD'VE HAD FOR HIM, SPIDO

    That high barrier to entry is one of the reasons that a title like this is a great idea: Strange Academy (the school, not the comic) is the first school for the Marvel multiverse's many magical munchkins, all of whom are new characters but most of whom have ties to preexisting characters like Dormammu, Loki, the Man-Thing, and beloved New Orleanian Ignatius J. Reilly, all of whom readers with a few more issues under their belts can use as anchor-points, but who aren't necessary to know for this story. Also, I just used 'whom' three times in a single sentence, which either entitles me to an award and Hometown Buffet gift-certificate or means I'll die at midnight. Of course, the second might naturally follow the first anyway.

ah, there's the weirdest lighting 1995 could offer, how the hell ya been

    Following the events of The Last Days of Magic and Loki: Sorcerer Supreme, the world's (that is to say, Earth-616's) supply of magic was, in this order, depleted, hijacked, destroyed, rebooted, unleashed, and allowed to go absolutely batshit cuckoo-bananas all over the place. Stephen Strange (the guy, not the school), knowing that one cannot stop a wave but must learn to ride it, has founded his academy as something of an arcane counterpart to Charles Xavier's School for Uninsurable Youngsters, not in hopes of creating his own monster-child army but with the simple aim of preparing the upcoming generation of spooky weirdos for the world in which they will need to survive. To this end, he has assembled a faculty comprised of high-level mojoslingers to educate his paranormal pupils in the way of the weird, including the Scarlet Witch, the Ancient One, a bunch of guys I don't recognize and, last but possibly most interesting, Jericho "Doctor Voodoo" Drumm, DVM (Doctor of Voodoo Medicine). 

His doctoral dissertation was on coats that make me go 'goddamn'

    The first crop of eldritch youngin's represents a wide spectrum of magic bullshit, including a Frost Giantling, a maybe zombaby, a dude whose living jacket that will eat you if you fuck with him, the honestly pretty easygoing son of the ruler of a dimension of dark horror, a really fuckin' cool quiet kid made outta living crystal and, to round it out and give the reader a point of view character, a normal kid that just learned she's magic and conveniently needs all the same stuff explained to her that we do. Funny how there's always one! 

    Look there's a bunch of cool stuff in this book--yes, there's mayhem on a field trip to Asgard; yes, the Parents' Day scavenger hunt goes hilariously wrong; yes, our protagonist comes too close for comfort to releasing the living manifestation of the sum of all suffering that all life has endured since time began--but if you've picked up a Magic Kids Go To Magic School book, you know why you did it, and Strange Academy does too: you wanna watch a bunch of magical misfits slowly form bonds and relationships with one another, then see those undergo tests and come out closer and stronger on the other side, like we all hoped our fellow Americans would after 9/11, except this time it actually works, instead of fomenting twenty years of xenophobic, militant jingoism.

oh wait, I've got one: our longstanding national assumptions of moral, cultural, economic and educational superiority

    HA-HA, HA, sorry, I'm secretly convinced that Simulation Theory is right, Y2K was real and the last score of years have just been us circling the glitch-drain. Anyway, Strange Academy, Vol 1. is a very, strong initial offering that promises plenty of growth, but its nature as a story set in an Academy of Adventure also sets the stage for new additions as subsequent classes arrive, and both are going to be well worth sticking around for.

Score: 8.75/10 Breakfast Burritos Prepared By Mindful One, Who Is Apparently The ONLY One That Can Remember Not To Dry The Friggin' Eggs Out

November 2021 Books Read Standouts: Reign Of The Seven Spellblades, Vol. 1 / Maniac Of New York, Vol. 1: The Death Train

Reign Of The Seven Spellblades, Vol. 1

Written By: Bokuto Uno

Art By: Sakae Esuno, Ruria Miyuki

    Okay we all know what comes to mind when Americans think of 'magic boarding school', right? That's right: Neil Gaiman's The Books of Magic, which was about a dark-haired, bespectacled orphan drawn into a world of magical wonder that he's destined to either save or destroy, and which came out almost a decade before a certain belligerent transphobe's career took off. (I'm joshing, Gaiman himself said that he "wasn't the first writer to create a young magician with potential, nor was Rowling the first to send one to school"; She Who Must Not Be Named is a monster that created a Micky Mouse-level property and decided to use that success, power and privilege to hurt people that have no ability to punch back, but she's not a plagiarist.)

    No, of course I mean Hank Ceramicist & The Sudden McGuffin, a thing that was accessible and, to its credit, opened countless young minds to the magic of reading; sadly, it seems they frequently didn't go on to read much else, but this is the war for literacy in America, and we are prepared to take what we can get and call it a victory. ROTSS takes the by-now thin and threadbare Academy of Adventure genre, makes extremely minimal tweaks, and the result is substantially better and more engaging from the very first chapter. How do you feel about:

• A magic school where where children learn mystic arts, which now include swordfighting
• A cast of characters with more than one personality trait, including being from other countries without being huge ethnic stereotypes with names like Seamus Finnegan, Cho Chang and a black guy named 'Shacklebolt', Jesus Christ Joanne what were you thinking
• One character who is not a wizard learning swordfighting, no no my friends, but a samurai learning combat-magics
• Teachers who actually do things! ADMITTEDLY: Some of those things are drinking while running a class, or attacking students with flaming knives in the middle of lessons, BUT STILL

    Obviously it's glib and reductive to describe anything as "Property X meets Property Y", or "Other Property But With This Change", but it's a useful shorthand. That said, ROTSS has a lot to offer on its own merits: an intriguing magic system, the seeds of some pretty interesting political drama involving one of the students who's foreign royalty, the aforementioned samurai clearly having PTSD, and a central mystery involving the titular Seventh Spellblade, terrifyingly powerful magical sword techniques of which there are, we are assured, only six in the world. It lays a LOT of groundwork for storylines to come, eschewing the common (but by no means bad) manga production technique of basically just coming up with something that happens that week. Also, apropos of nothing, their school uniforms are INCREDIBLE Kingdom Hearts-ass robe/hoodie hybrids, and as a renowned slut for a nice coat that definitely tips the scales in the book's favor for THIS citizen.

    Overall, ROTSS, Vol. 1 is a very strong start and found a place on my preorder-on-sight list before the end of the first chapter; I can't wait to see where it goes and how many teachers it has to fight when it gets there.

Score: 8.5/10 Roast Chickens That Were Supposed To Be For EVERYONE, LITTLE MISS BIG HUNGRY SAMURAI

October 2021 Books Read Standouts: The Superior Foes of Spider-Man, Vol. 1: Getting The Band Back Together / Head Lopper, Vol. 2: Head Lopper & The Crimson Tower

The Superior Foes of Spider-Man, Vol. 1: Getting The Band Back Together

Written By Nick Spencer

Artwork by Steve Lieber

        Haaaaaaaaa shit this is a fun book. The name Nick Spencer, at least in this house, is synonymous with Amazing Spider-Man By Nick Spencer and, a brief Wikipedia check confirms, HOLY SHIT BEDLAM WITH GENUINE ART-PSYCHOPATH RYAN BROWNE, WHAT THE FUCK--sorry, I wasn't expecting that; Bedlam absolutely rules, and if given the chance I would personally feed the exec at Image who canceled it to THE UNGUS.

[UNGUS not pictured for your safety]

    Look, Fred Myers--some-a-time called Boomerang--is a supercriminal (provided a laissez-faire definition of 'super'), washed-up baseballer, world-class sonofabitch and Class 3 Australian. He's a low-stakes semi-regular enemy of various Spidered-Men; I for one, do not care for him, and you may quote me. In f--wait, Fred Myers? Like the--hold on, I have to look this up--

Ohhhhhhh, okay

    Sorry to stop for two research breaks in the same chunkle, that was gonna bug me, BUT NOW WE KNOW THE STUPID TRUTH.

    Anyway Fred's a hilariously incompetent con-man who manages to convince an incarnation of the Sinister Six who only number five to come together for One Last Job; the only problem is that he's promised the spoils not only to his partners, but to at least one powerful, murderous mobster in whose debt he sweatily rests. The item in question? As if you hadn't guessed yet, it's the undying cyborg head of the mob family's leader, which has been missing for years, and would bestow control of the New York mafia upon anyone who found it. How are you supposed to split a living, probably racist head between the mob and your crew, and then further divide it amongst the latter? THAT, my friends, is a problem for Future Fred, and that motherfucker is on his own. Further complicating matters is that one of his crew is the latest incarnation of The Beetle, who happens to be the daughter of the POSSIBLY UNKILLABLE TOMBSTONE, YET ANOTHER MOBSTER. And finally, yet another classic Spidey villain, Norman Osborn, has joined up with organized crime as the Mobgoblin, and--no, I made that one up, but now I wish it was real, and we all have to go home a little sadder because it isn't.

    TSFOS-M is a hell of a lot of fun, especially given a pretty self-awarely watered-down Sinister Six, a deeply unlikeable protagonist who is nonetheless pretty good at keeping a lot of plates spinning and a lot of people looking where he wants them to look, and a real humanization of some one-note villains who have frankly gotten used to being first-act wall-crawler punching bags in stories about more engaging and dramatic enemies. It's also, and I'm trying to find a way to say this without sounding unkind, a hell of a lot funnier than I expected a Nick Spencer book to be. His main Spider-Man title is great, but it's not a funny book, because Spider-Man needs to be a stand-outingly funny character in it; because this is an ensemble story, no one character needs to shine on that wavelength and good goofs are just all over the place from antiheroes and bartenders and mobsters and food-cart vendors and severed robot heads. Although in retrospect, his work on Bedlam with Ryan Browne makes a lot of sense because that book is way funnier than a story about a mass murderer has any right to be.

    This is a very strong first volume, and there are only three total, so these jackasses won't wear on you too much and overstay their welcome, and the limited nature of the series lets the story really bounce around in some bonkers ways while staying in the same general area, so by the time the dust settles you feel like you really know this weird, stupid little slice of the world. I recommend you visit, and get the hell out when your time is done.

Score: 8/10 Heist-Crew Recruitment Scenes Attempting To Enlist THE UNGUS

Books Read 2021

R: Re-read

RTD: Read To (my wife) Deej (at bedtime)

JANUARY

1st. 

1. Lumberjanes, Vol. 5: Band Together (R)

2nd

1. Dragon Ball Z Full Color: Freeza Arc, Vol. 3

9th

1. Dragon Ball Z Full Color: Freeza Arc, Vol. 4
2. Dragon Ball Z Full Color: Freeza Arc, Vol. 5

10th

1. Dragon Ball Z, Vol. 12

13th

1. Dragon Ball Z, Vol. 13

16th

1. Dragon Ball Z, Vol. 14

17th

1. Dragon Ball Z, Vol. 15

18th

1. How To Break Into A Hotel Room - Stephen Graham Jones (Short Story, Nightmare Magazine Vol. 100)
2. Dragon Ball Z, Vol. 16

20th

1. Dragon Ball Z, Vol. 17
2. How Long Til Black Future Month? - N.K. Jemisin

21st

1. Dragon Ball Z, Vol. 18
2. Dragon Ball Z, Vol. 19

23rd

1. Dragon Ball Z, Vol. 20

25th

1. The Only Good Indians - Stephen Graham Jones (R) (RTD)

29th

1. Dragon Ball Z, Vol. 21

31st

1. Dragon Ball Z, Vol. 22

FEBRUARY

9th

1. The Stormlight Archive Book One: The Way of Kings - Brandon Sanderson (R)
2. Dragon Ball Z, Col. 23

11th

1. Dragon Ball Z, Vol. 24

13th

1. Dragon Ball Z, Vol. 25
2. Dragon Ball Z, Vol. 26

14th

1. Giant Days, Vol. 1 (R)

15th

1. Giant Days, Vol. 2 (R)

16th

1. Giant Days, Vol. 3 (R)

18th

1. Giant Days, Vol. 4 (R)

20th

1. Giant Day, Vol. 5 (R)

24th

1. Giant Days, Vol. 6 (R)

26th

1. Giant Days, Vol. 7 (R)

27th

1. Giant Days, Vol. 8 (R)

28th

1. Giant Days, Vol. 9 (R)
2. Giant Days, Vol. 10 (R)

MARCH

1st

1. Giant Days, Vol. 11 (R)

2nd

1. Giant Days, Vol. 12 (R)

3rd

1. Giant Days, Vol. 13
2. Giant Days, Vol. 14
3. The Way Of The Househusband, Vol. 1

4th

1. The Way Of The Househusband, Vol. 2

5th

1. The Way Of The Househusband, Vol. 3
2. The Way Of The Househusband, Vol. 4

7th

1. The Empty Man

9th

1. Chainsaw Man, Vol. 3
2. Lumberjanes, Vol. 6: Sink Or Swim (R)
3. House Of Sand And Fog (RTD)

10th

1. Lumberjanes, Vol. 7: A Bird's-Eye View (R)
2. Lumberjanes, Vol 8: Stone Cold (R)

14th

1. Batman (2016), Vol. 1: Their Dark Designs

16th

1. Batman (2016), Vol. 2: The Joker War

17th

1. Ice Cream Man, Vol. 5

18th

1. Immortal Hulk, Vol. 8: The Keeper Of The Door

22th

1. Deep Roots
2. Borne - Jeff VanderMeer

24th

1. The Scumbag, Vol. 1: Cocainefinger
2. Lumberjanes, Vol. 10: Parents' Day

25th

1. Fire Punch, Vol. 1

27th

1. Fire Punch, Vol. 2

28th

1. Fire Punch, Vol. 3

29th

1. Fire Punch, Vol. 4
2. Fire Punch, Vol. 5

30th

1. Stillwater, Vol. 1: Rage, Rage
2. Fire Punch, Vol. 6
3. Fire Punch, Vol. 7
4. Fire Punch, Vol. 8
5. Cannery Row - John Steinbeck (R) (RTD)

31st

1. Lumberjanes, Vol. 11: Time After Crime (R)
2. Lumberjanes, Vol. 12: Jackalope Springs Eternal (R)
3. Lumberjanes, Vol. 13: Indoor Recess (R)
4. Lumberjanes, Vol. 14: X Marks The Spot

APRIL

3rd

1. Lumberjanes, Vol. 15: Birthday Smarty
2. Lumberjanes, Vol. 16: Mind Over Mettle
3. Lumberjanes, Vol. 17: Smitten In The Stars

4th

1. Heterogenia Linguistico, Vol. 1

6th

1. Heterogenia Linguistico, Vol. 2

8th

1. Reincarnated As A Sword, Vol. 1
2. Reincarnated As A Sword, Vol. 2

10th

1. The Department Of Truth, Vol. 1: The End Of The World
2. Drugstore In Another World: The Slow Life Of A Cheat Pharmacist, Vol. 1
3. Reincarnated As A Sword, Vol. 3

11th

1. Reincarnated As A Sword, Vol. 4

13th

1. Rainbringer: Zora Neale Hurston Against The Lovecraftian Mythos - Edward M. Erdelac

15th

1. Reincarnated As A Sword, Vol. 5
2. Shadow Service, Vol. 1

19th

1. Chainsaw Man, Vol. 4: The Gun Is Mightier
2. Ring Shout - P. Djèlí Clark

20th

1. Manifest Destiny, Vol. 7: Talpa Lumbricus & Lepus

23rd

1. Superman For All Seasons

24th

1. Tinfoil Dossier, Book 1: Agents of Dreamland - Caitlin R. Kiernan

26th

1. Tinfoil Dossier, Book 2: Black Helicopters - Caitlin R. Kiernan

28

1. Frankenstein: Junji Ito Story Collection

MAY

2nd

1. Tinfoil Dossier, Book 3: The Tindalos Asset - Caitlin R. Kiernan

3rd

1. Abbott

7th

1. We Only Find Them When They're Dead, Book One: The Seeker

8th

1. Once & Future, Vol. 1: The King Is Undead

9th

1. Once & Future, Vol. 2: Old English

12th

1. The Secret History Of Twin Peaks - Mark Frost
2. Witch Hat Atelier, Vol. 1
3. Animeta, Vol. 1
4. A Dead Djinn In Cairo - P. Djèlí Clark

15th

1. Dragon Goes Househunting, Vol. 1

16th

1. The Haunting Of Tram Car 015 - P. Djèlí Clark

17th

1. MIND MGMT Omnibus, Volume 1: The Manager And The Futurist (R)

18th

1. The Way Of The Househusband, Vol. 5

22nd

1. MIND MGMT Omnibus, Vol. 2: The Home Maker And The Magician

24th

1. The Murderbot Diaries #1: All Systems Red - Martha Wells

26th

1. A Witch's Printing Office, Vol. 2
2. MIND MGMT Omnibus, Vol. 3: The Eraser And The Immortals

28th

1. Crossover, Vol. 1: Kids Love Chains
2. A Witch's Printing Office, Vol. 3

29th

1. Home Sick Pilots, Vol. 1
2. Beneath The Rising - Premee Mohamed

JUNE

3rd

1. Gideon Falls, Vol. 1: The Black Barn

4th

1. Invincible: Compendium One

8th

1. Invincible: Compendium Two

9th

1. Something Is Killing The Children, Vol. 3
2. A Witch's Printing Office, Vol. 4
3. Gideon Falls, Vol. 2: Original Sins (R)
4. Gideon Falls, Vol. 3: Stations Of The Cross (R)

10th

1. Gideon Falls, Vol. 4: The Pentoculus
2. Gideon Falls, Vol. 5: Wicked Worlds
3. Gideon Falls, Vol. 6: The End

12th

1. Reincarnated As A Sword, Vol. 6
2. Chainsaw Man, Vol. 5: Minor

15th

1. Witch Hat Atelier, Vol. 2
2. One Piece, Vol. 1
3. Wolf & Parchment, Vol. 1

18th

1. Perestroika In Paris - Jane Smiley (RTD)
2. Power Pack, Vol. 1: The Powers That Be

24th

1. Invincible: Compendium Three

25th

1. Welcome To Japan, Ms. Elf!, Vol. 1
2. Kaiju Score Vol 1: A Monster Affair

26th

1. Seven Secrets, Vol. 1
2. Otaku Elf, Vol. 1

27th

1. Black Hammer: Doctor Andromeda And The Kingdom Of Lost Tomorrows
2. Mapping: The Trash-Tier Skill That Got Me Into A Top-Tier Party, Vol. 1

30th

1. Black Hammer: Colonel Weird: Cosmagog
2. Black Hammer: Barbalien: Red Planet
3. Drugsore In Another World: The Slow Life Of A Cheat Pharmacist, Vol. 2

JULY

1st

1. Black Hammer: Skulldigger + Skeleton Boy
2. Mapping: The Trash-Tier Skill That Got Me Into A Top-Tier Party, Vol.1

5th

1. Black Hammer: The Quantum Age

7th

1. The Immortal Hulk, Vol. 9: The Weakest One There Is
2. Berserker, Vol.1

8th

1. Redneck, Vol. 1: Deep In The Heart (R)

9th

1. Redneck, Vol. 2: The Eyes Upon You

10th

1. Redneck, Vol. 3: Longhorns (R)
2. Redneck, Vol. 4: Lone Stary
3. Redneck, Vol. 5: Tall Tales

13th

1. DCeased

14th

1. Black Hammer '45

15th

1. One Piece, Vol. 2

17th

1. Quality Assurance In Another World, Vol.1

21st

1. Miskatonic
2. Otaku Elf, Vol. 2

24th

1. Hellboy Omnibus, Vol. 1: Seed Of Destruction (R)
2. One Piece, Vol. 3

28th

1. Uncle From Another World, Vol. 1

AUGUST

3rd

1. Chainsaw Man, Vol. 6: Boom Boom Boom
2. Time Paradox Ghostwriter, Vol. 1

4th

1. Hellboy Omnibus, Vol. 2: Strange Places (R)

6th

1. Time Paradox Ghostwriter, Vol. 2
2. Uncle From Another World, Vol. 2
3. The Lord Of The Rings, Part One: The Fellowship Of The Ring

7th

1. Mama Akuma, Vol. 1

8th

1. Delicious In Dungeon, Vol. 1

12th

1. Animeta!, Vol. 2

16th

1. Hellboy Omnibus, Vol. 3: The Wild Hunt (R)

18th

1. Hellboy Omnibus, Vol. 4: Hellboy In Hell (R)

23rd

1. Delicious In Dungeon, Vol. 2

28th

1. Headlopper, Vol. 1: Headlopper & The Island, Or, A Plague Of Beasts

30th

1. Welcome To Japan, Ms. Elf!, Vol. 2

SEPTEMBER

1st

1. Call To Adventure! Defeating Dungeons With A Skill Board, Vol. 1

2nd

1. BPRD: Plague Of Frogs Omnibus, Vol. 1 (R)

3rd

1. DC: The New Frontier, Vol. 1
2. One Piece, Vol. 4

4th

1. DC: The New Frontier, Vol. 2

5th

1. Delicious In Dungeon, Vol. 3

6th

1. The Devil Is A Part-Timer!, Vol. 1
2. Zodiac Starforce, Vol. 1

7th

1. Reincarnated As A Sword, Vol. 7
2. BPRD: Plague Of Frogs Omnibus, Vol. 2 (R)
3. The Devil Is A Part-Timer!, Vol. 2

8th

1. God Hates Astronauts, Vol. 1: The Head That Wouldn't Die!
2. The Devil Is A Part-Timer!, Vol. 3

10th

1. The Devil Is A Part-Timer!, Vol. 4

14th

1. The Devil Is A Part-Timer!, Vol. 5

15th

1. Delicious In Dungeon, Vol. 4

17th

1. One Piece, Vol. 5

20th

1. The Devil is A Part-Timer!, Vol. 6

22nd

1. BPRD: Plague Of Frogs Omnibus, Vol. 3 (R)

23rd

1. Dragon Ball Super, Vol. 1

24th

1. Scout's Honor

31st

1. Percy Jackson And The Olympians, Book 1: The Lightning Thief (R)

OCTOBER

3rd

1. The Superior Foes of Spider-Man, Vol. 1: Getting The Band Back Together

6th

1. East Of Eden - John Steinbeck (R) (RTD)
2. Chainsaw Man, Vol. 7: In A Dream
3. The Superior Foes Of Spider-Man, Vol. 2: The Crime Of The Century

7th

1. The Devil Is A Part-Timer!, Vol. 7

8th

1. Kingdom Come

10th

1. BPRD: Plague Of Frogs, Vol. 4 (R)

11th

1. God Hates Astronauts, Vol. 2: A Star Is Born

13th

1. Delicious In Dungeon, Vol. 5

14th

1. The Low, Low Woods
2. Head Lopper, Vol. 2: Head Lopper & The Crimson Tower

17th

1. Percy Jackson And The Olympians, Book II: The Sea Of Monsters (R)

19th

1. The Devil Is A Part-Timer!, Vol. 8

24th

1. The Superior Foes Of Spider-Man, Vol. 3: Game Over
2. The Devil Is A Part-Timer!, Vol. 9

NOVEMBER

4th

1. Uncle From Another World, Vol. 3
2. Delicious In Dungeon, Vol. 6
3. Green Lantern: Far Sector

5th

1. Helm Greycastle, Book One
2. Percy Jackson And The Olympians, Book III: The Titan's Curse (R)

7th

1. Deep Beyond, Vol. 1

8th

1. Proctor Valley Road
2. Maniac Of New York, Vol. 1: The Death Train

10th

1. Ice Cream Man, Vol. 6: Just Desserts

11th

1. BPRD: Hell On Earth, Book One (R)

14th

1. BPRD: Hell On Earth, Book Two (R)
2. The Mystery Of The Meanest Teacher: A Johnny Constantine Graphic Novel
3. The Way Of The Househusband, Vol. 6

15th

1. Alien, Vol. 1: Bloodlines
2. Fearscape

16th

1. Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, Vol. 1: Secrets And Rumors

17th

1. My Heart Is A Chainsaw - Stephen Graham Jones (RTD)

18th

1. Reign Of The Seven Spellblades, Vol. 1
2. Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, Vol. 2: Hostile Takeovers

19th

1. The Scumbag, Vol. 2: Moonflower

21st

1. The Alchemist Who Survived Now Dreams Of A Quiet Life, Vol. 1

23rd

1. Campfire Cooking In Another World With My Absurd Skill, Vol. 1

24th

1. The Alchemist Who Survived Now Dreams Of A Quiet Life, Vol. 2

25th

1. Campfire Cooking In Another World With My Absurd Skill, Vol. 2
2. Campfire Cooking In Another World With My Absurd Skill, Vol. 3
3. Campfire Cooking In Another World With My Absurd Skill, Vol. 4
4. Campfire Cooking In Another World With My Absurd Skill, Vol. 5

27th

1. BPRD: Hell On Earth, Book Three (R)
2. BPRD: Hell On Earth, Book Four (R)

28th

1. Drugstore In Another World: The Slow Life Of A Cheat Pharmacist, Vol. 3
2. Ascendance Of A Bookworm, Vol. 1

29th

1. BPRD: Hell On Earth, Book Five (R)

30th

1. BPRD: The Devil You Know, Vol. 1: Messiah (R)

DECEMBER

1st

1. BPRD: The Devil You Know, Vol. 2: Pandemonium 
2. BPRD: The Devil You Know, Vol. 3: Ragna Rok

2nd

1. Ascendance Of A Bookworm, Vol. 2
2. Ascendance Of A Bookworm, Vol. 3

5th

1. Rascal - Sterling North (RTD) (R)

7th

1. Ascendance Of A Bookworm, Vol. 4
2. Superior Spider-Man Complete Collection, Vol. 1

8th

1. Call To Adventure! Defeating Dungeons With A Skill Board, Vol. 2
2. Call To Adventure! Defeating Dungeons With A Skill Board, Vol. 3
3. Kaju No. 8, Vol. 1

9th

1. Immortal Hulk, Vol. 10: Of Hell And Of Death
2. Chainsaw Man, Vol. 8: Super Mess
3. Immortal Hulk: Great Power

11th

1. Daredevil, Vol. 1: Know Fear

12th

1. Daredevil, Vol. 2: No Devils, Only God

13th

1. Daredevil, Vol. 3: Through Hell

14th

1. Daredevil, Vol. 4: End Of Hell

15th

1. Daredevil, Vol. 5: Truth/Dare
2. Daredevil, Vol. 6: Doing Time
3. Ascendance Of A Bookworm, Vol. 5

16th

1. Harley Quinn, Vol. 1: No Good Deed

17th

1. Ascendance Of A Bookworm, Vol. 6

20th

1. Strange Academy, Vol. 1: First Class

22nd

1. Komi Can't Communicate, Vol. 1

24th

1. A Wrinkle In Time - Madeleine L'Engle

25th

1. Spider-Man & The X-Men
2. Strange Academy, Vol. 2: Bright Side

26th

1. Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls - David Sedaris (R) (RTD)
2. The Devil Is A Part-Timer!, Vol. 10

29th

1. Delicious In Dungeon, Vol. 7

30th

1. Otaku Elf, Vol. 3

playing the end against the middle and losing every time