By which I mean, I utilized a chicken or two.

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[SPOILERS for Concrete: The Human Dilemma and Concrete: Stars over Sand #1…and Insane #2, I suppose.]

So over the last few weeks, inspired by the recent release of Concrete: Stars over Sand #1, Paul Chadwick’s newest Concrete thing is many a year, I’ve been rereadeding old Concrete comics. Read all the Dark Horse Presents shorts, several of the mini-series, stuff like that. I mentioned my doing this on Bluesky, getting a reply from a pal there of “okay, smart guy, what about this?” And that “this” being…


…Insane #2, a late-1988 parody comic released by Concrete‘s publisher, Dark Horse Comics. As you can see on that cover there, a Jim Bradrick drawing of Cement, the comic’s take-off on you-know-who.

I did not own this. Therefore, via means both fair but mostly foul, and perhaps even fowl, I obtained my own copy of said classic comic, just to ensure my Concrete collection remained complete.

Now, the parody inside was…okay, I suppose. Bradrick did a reasonable job emulating the art style of the original comics, and the script by then-publisher, now former publisher Mike Richardson was…well, it got a bemused smile from me once in a while, but Not Brand Echh it ain’t. It was pleasant enough, I guess.

But there is something quite notable about it, at least in my mind.

Concrete first appeared in Dark Horse Presents #1 in the middle of 1986. Thus the character had only been around for a couple of years…well, let’s be fair, it had made a pretty good splash and gathered quite the following in short order. And on the last page of the “Cement” story were these concluding panels:


Yes, a good 18 years, more or less, before Chadwick introduced the idea of Concrete’s ability to reproduce, there were Richardson and Bradrick giving it their own spin, presenting a humorous twist on what would eventually be played straight in the original work:


Yes, I know it was perhaps just an obvious punchline to a gag strip, but it’s still amusing how one presaged the other.

Not quite through digesting yet.

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[NOTE: due to medical stuff and other commitments, I’m on a Tuesday/Thursday schedule this week. I should be back to the regular routine next week.]

So funny that I was talking about digests last Friday, when on Saturday some came in and sold me the following collection:


And in that collection, a whole lotta digests:


Now, this collection wasn’t in the best condition. It was hauled in by the seller within a couple of pieces of wheeled luggage, piled kinda every which way, and not pictured in that first image are the two sizeable piles of comics with heavy water damage. Those were just kinda dumped on me along with the comics I actually wanted, so I’ll be figuring out what to do with those in (hopefully) short order.

But back to the digests. Boy, that’s a pretty good pile of them, including many that I remember buying myself. A brief perusal through a handful of them demonstrated to me that my aged peepers are no longer quite up to the challenge of their printed contents, but I can still admire these wonderful covers with (usually) new art on the front and back.

That said, I did keep one digest for myself, despite the fact I can feel my eyes throw up their hands and declare “I give up” when I look inside. It’s just I’m still in the process of finishing a run of Turok Son of Stone and I feel I need this, Golden Comics Digest #31 from 1973:


This reprints Turok’s first two appearances in Four Color Comics plus material from a couple of other issues…I have those comics, so I can read the stories if I want, but it’s nice to finally have the digest in my weary hands.

As for those other giants…you folks reminded me in Friday’s comments section about Adventure Comics, which changed format from a regular-sized comic book into a digest, starting with #492 in 1982:


This anthology title focused heavily on reprinting Legion of Super-Heroes stories from the 1960s, as well as re-presenting Aquaman stories, Plastic Man, the Challengers of the Unknown, and several others, rangings from the Golden Age even up into the very early 1980s. Alex Toth fans may want to know that there’s a Black Canary story he drew into that very issue I have pictured here.

This run of Adventure was of particular interest to me because, well, yes, those Legion reprints, I wanted those, but there was a new Captain Marvel/Shazam story by E. Nelson Bridwell and Don Newton in that first issue (wrapping up the run of their stories that had been in the regular-formatted comic). After that, there were several Golden Age reprints of Shazam! stories in later issues. With the DC Archives for the Legion, and the hardcover collections that continued that chronological reprinting, having those stories in those digests is largely redundant. Plus, those hardcovers are a lot easier to read. (And the new Shazam! stories by Bridwell/Newton were all reprinted in this series of books.)

I gave up my copies to the shop when I opened, and like with other items I put in the store to sell, I regret it just a little bit. It was a nice little 13-issue oddity to own (with DC ending this, one of their oldest titles, at #503 in September 1983), and I liked a lot of the new covers. I mean, on that #492, there’s Captain Marvel being chomped on by Satan, as depicted by Keith Giffen and Mike DeCarlo. Friends, I know art when I see it, ande we’re all lookin’ at it right there.

Aside from the digests, there was one other particular comic of note that showed up in this collection, and that comic is, of course, Superman #369, featuring my one and only letter of comment to a comic book:


If you want to read what Young Mike had to say, I put a scan of that letter in my very first anniversary post. Guess maybe that was the origin of my blog, that one letter I wrote when I was 12 years old.

Anyway, that copy of Superman #369 is for sale. Only $1,500, cheap! $2,000 if you want it autographed!

Digesting some thoughts.

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Pictured above, Golden Comics Digest #45 from 1975, which I’m pretty sure I had back then.

Mark Evanier wrote an interesting article about the Gold Key Digests of the ’60s and ’70s. I don’t encounter these too often in the wild, unfortunately…I had a collection come in with some Boris Karloff digests, but it was so far back that I can’t remember if it was at my current store or at the shop at which I used to work.

Any, Mr. Evanier presents some surprising revelations about how these digests sold, depending on whether or not other regular-sized comics were available as well. I’m going to ask you to read his post first so I don’t spoil it — okay, have you read it?

Good. Basically, he says that Gold Key’s digests tended to sell poorly when the digests were available in the same retail space as regular-sized comics, or even if regular-sized comics happened to be in a nearby store. However, if the digests were the only comics game in town, they sold pretty well.

That surprises me a little, given that a money-conscious child should find that a relatively thick digest a better deal than a normal comic book…twice or three times the price for maybe four or five or more times the content?

Evanier believes that sales were poor in comparison to the typical comic book size as the digests looked “cheap and unimportant,” which could be possible. A problem with perceived value could have set in, with kids comparing the smaller, pricier format to the more familiar, less expensive, larger format and deciding “bigger is better,” I suppose. Even if the the digests were, page-to-penny, a better deal.

And perhaps there was the perceived nature of “newness” — the periodicals came in new every month or two. So did the digests (perhaps not as frequently) but they may have read as “books” and “non-periodicals” to a child’s eye, and did not seem as “fresh.”

Not that comic digests died with Gold Key/Western’s offerings. Archie had been selling digests for years, probably helped quite a bit by being grandfathered into those grocery store racks right near the registers in prime “impulse buy/kids begging their parents for one” spacing. I do wonder what their particular sell-throughs were on those, given that anything distributed through retail chains like that would be returnable. These sales numbers on Comichron can give you an idea of how Archies sold in general, and it includes the note that, eventually, the digests outsold the periodicals. (However, the digests are having their own issues at the moment.)

Personally, at my previous place of employment and my own store, the Archie digests sold…in bursts, actually. I’d order ’em, they’d sit on the shelf for a while, then someone would come in, exclaim “ARCHIE DIGESTS!” then buy an armload of them. So they weren’t consistent sellers so much as eventual ones.

One thing I did get reminded of with Mr. Evanier’s post was, of course, the DC Comics digest.


Starting in the late ’70s, not too long after the Gold Key digests took their final bow, these were primarily reprints of older comics, but the occasional new story would slip in here and there. You had Best of DC (which ran 71 issues from 1979 to 1986), and DC Special Blue Ribbon Digest (24 issues from 1980 to 1982) as the primary series, though the DC Special Series had a couple of digests in its run as well.

I have no idea if these suffered the same sales fate as what Mr. Evanier described for the Gold Key digests. Alas, I didn’t check with my former boss about how they sold for him at the time, so Watch This Space for updates once I ask him. But I’m guessing they didn’t…this was a slightly different target audience, and one (at least among your already-converted comic book fans) that may have had a stronger appeal. There’s a not-insignificant portion of that audience that wants reprints of material they might have missed.

I know I picked up just about every digest DC put out for a while…I was still relatively new to following the DC Universe, and these digests made for great catch-up tools. Origins were reprinted, interesting multi-issue storylines were gathered together (making for mini graphic novels, of sorts). Sometime some new editorial content was provided, like Bob Rozakis explaining how he scripted the heroes vs. villains baseball game in this “Strange Sports Stories” digest. Or sometimes there would be text pieces, usually by E. Nelson Bridwell, contextualizing the reprinted stories.

I would generally find these in locations like convenience stores tha talso carried your standard-sized periodical comics, so again, I’m guessing they didn’t take quite the same sales hit as the Gold Key digest line did. Regardless, by the mid-1980s, this format was essentially dead, replaced by the more costly, but probably more bookstore-friendly, trade paperbacks. (Marvel had its own short-lived line of digests in the mid-to-late 1980s, reprinting some of their licensed material like G.I. Joe, which may warrant its own post.)

The digest format is missed, I think, as it was a quick and easy and inexpensive way to catch people up on some classic comics. I always liked DC’s digests, particularly with some of the wild new covers some of them got. Unfortunately, my current eyeball status probably precludes enjoying the reprints therein, but for Young Mike, they were just the perfect size and format.

It’s not quite the same, but DC seems to be having some success with the current Compact format, which are essentially manga-sized paperbacks representing many of their classic books in a smaller format, at a flat $9.99 price point. At least, they sell well for me, and they keep making them, so DC must be making some money on them. Titles like Watchmen, New Frontier, Supergirl: World of Tomorrow…not quite the diverse and weird themes that would be collected in digests (like “here are all the weird secret identities Superman used!”) but it’s nice to have a lot of this work in more affordable formats.

Again, maybe just a little too small for easy readability by yours truly, but those of you with young, spritely peepers should be fine. However, I imagine even the sharpest of eyeballs will feel my pain once that Compact edition of Crisis on Infinite Earths comes out. Keep your magnifying glasses at the ready!

The only article you’ll see today mentioning both Lobo and The Scarlet Letter.

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[This post contains SPOILERS for the endings of Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, the Supergirl movie, and also one chapter of The Ballad of Halo Jones.]

So one of my favorite incomplete works from Alan Moore is the science fiction strip The Ballad of Halo Jones, drawn by Ian Gibson, in which we follow the life and times of the titular character. Alas, a disagreement between Moore and the publisher truncated the comics’ run, and all we got is what we got.

I bring it up here because I wanted to point out this sequence (scanned from Quality Comics’ 1988 reprint of the story, in which the art was “stretched” to fit a standard comic book page). In this sequence, Halo Jones is a member of the military, and while on patrol on this planet, they shoot and kill an enemy sniper, to which the team has this response:


The obvious point here is that they can’t believe they just shot a child, and attempt to justify the incident by talking themselves into the idea that this wasn’t just a little girl, but an of-age adult. And as things progress, they talk themselves into thinking she’s progressively older and older until, as the caption says, “she’d practically died of old age.”

Now, it’s clear what’s going on here. The girl isn’t literally aging, it’s a psychological response by the squad to having killed a child and trying to rationalize it. The art shows what happened, the dialogue and captions tell a different story.

In a 1987 issue of The Comics Journal, in a review of an earlier reprint of Halo Jones from Titan Books, the otherwise insightful and informative article has this to say about that same sequence:


I mean, the person who wrote this article is a smart person, so I’m just chalking this up to a brain fart. “Whomst amongst us…” and all that. Who knows how he missed this? Was he reading just too many comics he had to write about, rushing through the volume and not allowing the implication to sink in? I don’t know. Regardless, what was written in that review is not what was happening in the comic.

Again, it happens. Look, even Roger Ebert didn’t quite get the “multiple choice origins” for the Joker in The Dark Knight, so none of us are infallible before God.

Which brings me to Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow by Tom King and Bilquis Evely.

This 2021 comic book series was the primary inspiration for the new Supergirl movie, which heavily borrowed characters and plot elements from it, but not every detail. And the movie also included folks who did not appear in the comic, like, oh, say, Lobo. One of the frequent complaints I’ve seen about the translation of the comic to film is that the book’s ending had been altered, or drastically misinterpreted.

I hadn’t read the comic before I watched the movie, as I noted in my look at the film. However, I’ve since perused the source material, as well as did some searching online for more reactions.

And what I found was interesting: there is a portion of the comics’ readers who are confused by its ending. Which…I find puzzling.

Here is the last page of the book, more or less (I cropped the panels for increased legibility, where I could). At this point, the bad guy, Krem, has been released from the Phantom Zone, aged and repentant, begging Ruthye for forgiveness for what he’s done. Ruthye had been talked out of killing Krem as vengeance for her father’s death, and Supergirl stands by her here.

In panel one, we see Ruthye smack the kneeling Krem with her walking stick:


In panel two, we see Krem on the ground with his hands apparenly flailing in the air, as Ruthye walks away.


Then we see Supergirl and Krypto walk away in the opposite direction, as Krem reaches for his head.


And here, is Krem, alone, just remaining on the ground.


What Ruthye does to Krem here is slightly open to interpretation. Does she kill Krem, despite the point of entire book being about eschewing vengeance, giving the story a darkly ironic ending? Or does she simply bop him on the head, indicating that despite whatever personal growth he underwent while imprisoned, she still hates his guts?

Well, it’s the latter, Tom King his own self said so. Krem is still alive, just with a likely bleeding and sore crack on his noggin.

While there is admittedly some ambiguity there, there is no ambiguity about what’s going on in the captions. An additional note about what’s going on here: it’s been 300 years since the events earlier in the book. Ruthye is elderly. Supergirl and Krypto are, it seems, immortal. In that time that’s passed, Ruthye wrote a book about the events in this story, about which she’s said


Ruthye straight up tells Supergirl, and the reader, what she wrote is a whole lotta bullshit. As such, those excerpts, describing Supergirl’s dispatching of Krem with a sword, is a fictional rewriting of the actual end of the adventure. That book had been written as some point in the past, and since Krem is still alive now under the captions presenting those excerpts, clearly Supergirl ain’t killed nobody with no sword. (Apparently it was a ruse by Ruthye to keep Krem’s comrades from seeking their own vengeance on her.)

That all seeems pretty clear. And yet, when researching responses online, I found people confused by the ending. Okay, yes, I’ll give a pass to those who thought Old Ruthye killed Krem at the end. It’s contrary to the spirit of the book, and shouldn’t be interpreted as such, and c’mon Supergirl was standing right there, but you can’t put it past that wily Tom King to give such a dark punchline to a story that tried so hard to avoid it.

But there were folks confused by those captions. They were saying one thing, we were seeing something else in the artwork. Even though it should be understood that Supergirl hasn’t killed anyone, some readers were apparently still confused by what they were being told. It’s not what’s shown, the timing doesn’t work out (the book relating a death that happened in the past, though the person killed is still alive in the present), but the old Unreliable Narrator trick can still muddy the waters, it seems.

Interestingly, Ana Nogueira, the screenwriter for the Supergirl film, also didn’t quite grasp the book’s ending. She straight up says in this Variety article

“[Krem] essentially has changed, and she kills him anyway, because she still just has this anger, and you understand there’s this element of deserve, right?”

Now, again, I’m not going to fault someone entirely for not getting that, for all the reasons I stated previously, while also saying that same someone probably shouldn’t have thought that, also for previously-given reasons.

What that seemingly leads to, though, is that Krem’s death still has to happen in the film, and the responsibility is transferred to Supergirl.

“So, we wanted to craft a villain who would deserve this, but we also wanted Kara to really care about preserving Ruthye’s innocence, and to feel like she could take on [killing him], that she could be the one to bring justice to this man, and do it without burdening this child.”

This change to the story’s ending took on a more deliberate stategy, despite seemingly being based on a misunderstanding. In this article on Comic Book Resources, director Craig Gillespie related

“I met with James [Gunn, head of DC Studios], and we talked about it, and James was adamant about it. I think it’s an amazing thing. To lean into – knowing the kind of movie that we’re making, and where her character is heading, that she has to go through this emotional journey. There’s no other logical conclusion to what she would do.”

Realistically, I don’t know how this more brutal interpretation of Supergirl will play into future DC films, as frankly, how many more will feature the character? She’s on deck for the next Superman movie, but it certainly doesn’t seem likely we’re getting any more standalone Supergirl films. To whatever end this choice was made, to have Supergirl capable of taking a life, they probably just have the one shot for it to play out. Whatever arc they intended will likely never see a conclusion.

These are a couple of extreme examples of misinterpreting the text. One is a simple misunderstanding of a description of a mental state in an otherwise solid print article. The other dictated the course of a multi-million dollar franchise, for good or ill. (Possibly “ill,” given how the film’s doing.)

Does the change in the Supergirl ending ultimately matter? No, not really. Whatever story is there for the films to work out will either work out or it’ll just dry up into nothingness, awaiting the next attempt at getting DC superheroes onscreen. It’s probably disappointing to fans of the original comics, but hey, if they could fiddle with the ending of Watchmen, or even The Scarlet Letter, nothing is sacrosanct.

I still think Supergirl is a pretty good film. I also think Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow is a pretty good comic. That one is different from the other is…nothing new, given the Hollywood of it all.

Of course, that hopefully still-upcoming Swamp Thing movie had better be 100% faithful to the comics or I’m writing letters. Letters, I tell you.

Diamond would also have traveling sales reps who’d come to your store…PICK UP THE SLACK, LUNAR.

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So the other night, as I was working on my Final ’90s Countdown post about Strange Attractors, I did what I usually do when prepping these and tried to log into the old Diamond Comics retailer portal. While that version of Diamond was no longer an operative business, having since become “Diamond Select Brands,” a division of Enesco, the product database was still (mostly) functioning on the old site and I would use it for research.

When I tried to log in last night, and received an error message (503 Service Unvailable”), which I figured wasn’t a good sign. Then I checked the page on Wednesday afternoon, and I got this:


I don’t know how long the page has been this way — I think I logged in last week, but that’s a thing of the past now. All that information, shipping dates, cancellation notices, production descriptions, all gone. I’d hoped there would have been some kind of bulk download of this info, or a back-up on the Internet Archive, but no dice. But if anyone from Diamond is reading this and needs to offload a copy of that product database, you know how to get a hold of me.

I pointed this out here and there online, and “end of an era” has been a common refrain. Not a 100% good era, not a 100% bad era, but it was definitely an era, and it was very easy to see a possible path to its end bringing about the end of the comics retail business as we know it.

Thankfully, there were companies…um, optimistic enough to pick up comics distribution, though some small press items have been lost in the shuffle. And aside from some early glitches here and there, it’s been a relatively smooth transition and as things stand now, my ordering from these new companies has become a regular and trouble-free routine, at least for me. (I know other retailers’ mileage may vary.) I’ve even picked up a toy and merchandise distributor to cover that end of the market, and am currently in the process of signing up with another such company.

I’ve even ordered a couple of things from The New Diamond…actually, one item I got in was a carryover from an order placed with Old Diamond before it fell. However I’ve since ordered a couple of figures from this latest iteration, which is now primarily toys, statues, game items, and other related products.

It’s sad to see that old website go…I can still remember logging into the Diamond BBS (that’s “Bulletin Board System,” for the terminally young amongst you) to enter and upload orders. And of course, prior to that, stores had to fill out order sheets and mail ’em off. I’m not sure what the next version of “Comics Ordering” is going to be, if it’ll be like “please submit your numbers via TikTok video,” but whatever it is, I’m sure I’ll be doing that too.

The Final ’90s Countdown, Part Twenty-Two.

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Nearing the end of the titles that received single votes in the fave ’90s indies poll! (Again, that doesn’t say anything about the comic, just about how many different good comics that came out in the 1990s!)

Stranger Attractors (RetroGrafix, 1993-1997)

I’ve noted before the main difference between this series of posts and the series I did focusing on 1980s books is that I’m largely more familiar with the ’80s titles. Even if I didn’t read the title itself, I usually had enough working familiarity with it so that I can discuss it at least somewhat non-foolishly.

Once the ’90s rolled along, I just didn’t have the time to keep up with every new title, sometimes only knowing things by their titles and not being aware of the actual contents. Just the sheer number of books available made that difficult, and my ability to keep up with every ‘zine and trade paper that possibly would have filled in the blanks fell to the wayside as well.

Which is a long way of me saying, yeah, I don’t know a whole lot about this comic. We absolutely carried the comic at my previous place of employment, and I recognize many of the covers. Couldn’t tell you how it sold for us, other than having a vague recollection that I had a couple of pull list customers for it.

I apologize for this oversight of mine, and certainly not a reflection on the quality of this comic. I did a little bit of research, thanks to my copy of the Slings and Arrows Comics Guide and judicious usage of the ‘zine search engine, so I can at least tell you that the book, by Michael Cohen and Mark Sherman centers around Sophie, a curator of an extensive museum of unusual artifacts. Normally an introverted and reserved person, she finds herself drawn further and further into an adventurous and exciting life. In space, I should probably mention.

The series also features flashbacks to Sophie’s childhood, and her fascination with sci-fi comic books. In a 1997 Comic Buyer’s Guide interview, Sherman says

“Sophie is a kind of mirror for all of us who are involved in this comics world. I think a lot of us see ourselves in Sophie and herencyclopedic knowledge of comic books. […] We get an almost transcendental thrill out of reading this fantastic literature called comic book. That is kind of where much of Strange Attractors comes from.”

From the sounds of it, it’s a sci-fi comic book adventure informed by sci-fi comic book adventure. Not in the sense of “the writers have only ever read comics, and that’s their only influence,” but in the sense of trying to impart that old energy and appeal into modern storytelling.

That original series ran 15 issues, with a mini published by Caliber Press in 1997. There was at least one reprint collection, Chaos Jitterbug, released by RetroGrafix in 1996, reprinting the first seven issues. In 2021 It’s Alive Press began reprinting the series, releasing at least six issues. (There is an unrelated series with the same name written by Charles Soule and illustrated by Greg Scott.)

All that is out of print, of course, but I imagine it wouldn’t cost too much to assemble a collection of these. The trick would be finding them, I would think. I can’t even say for sure I have any copies in my shop currently.

I hope this was a sufficient if brief overview of the title. I can only beg your pardon for having a hole like this in my knowledge, where I know the title, I know the covers, but could only relate what others have said about it. It’s like asking an A.I. bot, but getting your repsonse from a genuine if flawed human brain. If any of you have anything to add, my comment section is, as always, wide open.

Supergirl (2026).

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So ahead of seeing the new Supergirl movie, I believed I was in bit of a quandary. As you may have noticed, the film had already attracted some negative chatter, primarily from The Usual Suspects. You know, the folks that regularly dogpile upon any superhero-or-related-genre mass media that focuses on a character or characters that aren’t straight, while males. Or, to borrow phrasing from my review of the 2025 Superman movie, “the usual parade of grifters out for your attention and your wallet” griping about things being “WOKE,” whatever they think that means.

As the movie appears to have, shall we say, faltered at the box office, it’s those very folks out in force right now crowing about some imagined “victory” in the culture war they’re fighting in their heads. And, going back to that quandary I mentioned, it puts someone like me, Just Some Dude on the Internet, in the position of fearing to critique the movie and being lumped in with Those Folks. (AKA “The Last Jedi Syndrome.”)

Prior to seeing the movie, I had heard some real, actual critique of the movie from people who are presumably Not Insane, ranging from a simple “I liked it!” to actual concerns about the film’s structure/direction/scripting, etc. Nearly all noted that Milly Alcock, the titular Supergirl, was excellent, regardless of their opinion of the project in its entirety. As such, I had those thoughts with me as I entered the theater that evening.

And…I liked it!

Alcock does a wonderful job giving us a troubled Supergirl, submerging her trauma and her (literal) alienation in partying and alcohol, and her struggle to emerge from that emotional burden. I know, I know, that sounds like a bummer, but it really isn’t. Alcock is absolutely a riveting presence onscreen, and you can’t help but feel sympathy for her character.

There is a layer of melancholy laid over the story, regarding Supergirl’s personal history and flashbacks to her life on Argo City (which survied the destruction of Krypton). But there is a sense of fun, too, as we’re given some exciting action set pieces, especially when Supergirl lets loose at full power (which she isn’t always at, due to story demands). Jason Momoa as Lobo is an entertaining addition to the proceedings as well, and is involved far more than I was led to believe, since a number of people said he had no more than a cameo. Oh, no, he’s in there quite a bit.

I thought the storyline was clear and straightforward, and plot points like the color of various suns and their effects on Supergirl as they travel from star system to star system were handled well. The action scenes were clearly directed, which is a typical complaint I have about these sorts of movies, but here I could tell who was doing what and where. And overall, the pacing was good and the story kept my interest from beginning to end.

If I had any quibbles, it would be maybe not having a major established villain at the core…forgive me, but I didn’t read the Tom King/Bilquis Evely Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow mini that apparently provied some inspiration for the film, so I don’t know if the bad guys are a transplant from that story. But on the other hand, a departure from formula probably didn’t hurt (or maybe it did, given the film’s performance, but more on that in a moment). I mean, it’s true enough that the Supergirl Rogues Gallery isn’t exactly overflowing with villains distinct from Superman’s own enemies (I mean, Lesla-Lar, sure, but I don’t think I would have wanted a “me, but evil” adversary. Again.)

The other qualm I have is (and here we enter some SPOILER territory, which I’ve tried to avoid so far, but really can’t for this point) how the main bad guy is ultimately…dealt with by Supergirl. I get this establishes her as a different person with different standards than her cousin Superman, but it seems contrary to the message of “being good” instilled in her by her mother, and brought up several times during the film. But then, her mother also added that “being good” isn’t the same as “being nice,” so that plays into her decision, as well.

I know this could upset the purists, of which I’m usually one, but in this case it makes for a morally complex character, and that could have been further developed in future Supergirl films, of which, it seems, there will be none. Maybe it’ll get touched on in other upcoming DC films, assuming Warner Bros. doesn’t pull the plug on the whole thing.

And why did this film do so poorly right out of the gate? Look, as the internet’s only champion of Frank Miller’s The Spririt, I’m used to having the outlaying opinion on a piece of media, but surely other people thought this movie was good, too. But maybe the tone of the film was a downer to most folks, not the Big, Flashy adventure that people want from their superhero films. Maybe not having that big name villain reduced interest. Maybe it’s just the now-typical “Superhero Fatique,” where audiences already had one Super-movie last year, that was enough for the time being.

Or maybe the Usual Suspects, the ones I mentioned at the beginning of this wall of text, succeeded in poisoning the discourse, convincing John and Jane Q. Public that the Supergirl movie was Bad, Actually. Which, may I say again, that would be wrong — it’s Good, Actually.

But maybe being good isn’t enough (ironic, given the advice from Supergirl’s mom). In this new post-COVID superhero film economic ecosystem, one of these types of films has to be an event. And it has to be something that at least appears new. Last year’s Superman was an event, the beginning of the new DC Cinematic Universe. This year’s Supergirl didn’t reach that perceived status, and, like I said, it came out on top of a another movie that had a hero with a big “S” on the chest. Superman turned into a must-see, Supergirl got the “wait for streaming” treatment.

And I hope the people who avoided it in theaters do discover it on streaming. By that point, it’ll be too late…Supergirl will be dubbed, by every metric important to the studio beancounters, a “failure,” even if everyone who catches it on MAX or whatever other service Warner Bros. sells the film to decides “hey, I like this!”

I say, give it a shot on the big screen. I was glad I did.

Also, Krypto the Superdog is in the film. Surely you want to see more Krypto.

Okay, fine, my hands are actually tender and pink-skinned, like a baby’s.

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So I was happy to discover the other day that I, in fact, did not give up all my copies of Dark Horse Presents to the store when I opened back in 2014, but kept them in what remains of the Vast Mikester Comic Archives. In particular, I was happy because I had a sudden urge to reread the short Concrete stories that appeared therein, inspired by the release of the new series.

Amongst my DHP collection was issue #24 from 1988, notable for containing an early Aliens story:


Now, I had rid myself of all my Dark Horse Aliens comics via the shop, so I figured “might as well get rid of this one, too.” I seemed to remember it usually selling for a good price, especially if it were in nice shape (as my copy was, natch), and thus put it aside for the “destined for the shop” pile.

However, a quick perusal of the price guide startled me with this notation:


Okay, wait, hold on, I’m still a fan of Michael T. Gilbert’s Mr. Monster, and as such I now can’t sell this comic, because Sluggo forbid that I have a hole in my collection.

I decided to take a quick peek inside, handling this precious artifact with my weathered and weary hands, and…no Mr. Monster. Not a bit of him. Not even an ad. Not even hiding behind a Xenomorph. This comic was entirely befeft of Mr. Monster.

Searching online, I saw several references to this comic in sales listings far and wide, all proclaiming that, along with this Aliens story, Mr. Monster also appeared within.

I looked again inside the comic; Mr. Monster had not sneakily made his way into the pages in the interim, and the comic remained free of his presence. I even double-checked the Grand Comics Database listing, which confirms said lack of character. Er, that character.

However, in my investigations, I did notice something interesting. In #24 of the third series of Dark Horse Presents, published in 2016, Mr. Monster does appear. The source of the confusion, perhaps? If so, it’s lightly reassuring if somewhat dismaying to know even Overstreet has trouble keeping all these straight.

Therefore, let it be shouted to the hilltops: despite what Overstreet says, despite what various online sellers say, Dark Horse Presents #24 (1988) does not have any any Mr. Monster. So let it be written, so let it be done.

And that’s how my copy of Dark Horse Presents #24, in NM condition, has ended up in my shop, ready for sale:


Before you ask…yes, I will feel a slight twinge when it eventually sells. I bought that comic new off the stand and I’ve had it in my possession for nearly the same length of time I’ve been in the comics retail biz. Hopefully it goes to someone who will appreciate it.

Twenty-year-old me is happy to finally read this.

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Just a quick note to remind you that Swamp Thing 1989 #3 (aka #90) is out this week, and the mini-series speeds along to its long-delayed conclusion.

Things are very clearly building to a head, and given the number of plotlines all converging, it does leave one wondering how they’ll be able to squeeze the conclusion into the final issue of this series. I mean, I know (well, sorta remember) how it ends, given, as I’ve mentioned before, writer Rick Veitch published his synopses for his final four then-unpublished issues in the Comic Buyer’s Guide shortly after he left the book back in ’89. I’m looking forward to seeing a particular scene in illustrated form that had been related back then.

The period ads and the (mostly) period editorial material still successfully adds context to the time in which these stories were intended to be released. The “Bill & Ted” ad on the back cover is certainly a welcome call-back. More importably is the “comics this week” item on the inside front cover, reminding you just where in the DC Universe this series sit. In particular, a plot point hinges on events in Sandman, and if you were to look at that comics release list, you’d see just exactly where Sandman was at this point.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the “Meanwhile” column by pal Rich Handley, which, despite some folks believing otherwise, is all brand new! And if you’re new to Swamp Thing funnybooks, it’s essential reading giving you background on just what’s goin’ on. And the back matter features letterer Todd Klein and what he had to do to duplicate original letter John Costanza’s work, which is something I really wondered about so it was a welcome expainer.

All in all, this third issue of Swamp Thing 1989 succeeds in making one feel like he’s thirty-something years younger. Alas, the cover price is very much of today, but we can’t have everything!