OVERWINTER COMICS PAGE

Catwoman (2018) #51-58, #65-68: So I read these because of Scandal which is why the numbering is kind of weird, but this is mostly Tini Howard's Catwoman leading up to Gotham War, and then the second half of the Nine Lives arc. I am very conflicted about this story, and I will start off by saying that my opinion of it is extremely tainted by the fact that I knew Marquise was Scandal going in and strongly dislike the way Howard and Zdarsky and basically every modern author write her. Scandal is one of my all time favorite comic characters, tied only with Duke and Babs, so I have strong feelings on her characterization. That being said, otherwise I liked this pretty well. I wasn't enthralled or anything but I enjoyed all of Selina's prison friends and I generally liked what was going on and found the prison stuff to be interesting and dynamic. That being said, I read this in 2025 after it had all been printed already. I think if I was reading this as it came out I would be banging my head against the wall begging something anything to happen. This comic is very light and doesn't really have a ton happening, so I'm sure it could have been frustrating to readers at release, waiting an entire month for basically nothing to happen. The Nine Lives arc I found very eh. The art was stunning, I especially adored the sections with Bast in them. I am overall not mad at this comic, but it isn't anything I'd recommend, and it's pretty heavily soured by Scandal and Gotham War.

Secret Six (2015): Knocked the whole thing out on my day off and I'm not quite sure how to feel about it. There were some things I really liked, and other things I found very disappointing. The final issue was quite a let down, especially compared to the 2008 series's finale, which I consider to be the best single issue I've ever read. This series was fun and enjoyable and I loved all of the characters, but it felt like it desperately wanted what Villains United/Secret Six 2006/Secret Six 2008 had. You have this team of people who have nothing, are nothing, and they all come together and love each other and are loyal to each other despite everything in their nature telling them it's themselves against the world. Okay great. These guys didn't earn it. At all. The Secret Six 2008 team had to fight tooth and nail for what they had by the end, and it still blew up in their faces (in the end because of how much Bane loved them). These guys just suddenly are family. Blake calling them his pride felt insane, because like... no they aren't??? Like Simone does a fantastic job selling it don't get me wrong, but how did they get here? They didn't, they just suddenly were. And there's this really nice moment at the end where Scandal asks Blake to be the donor for her, Kay, and Liana's child, and it's a really lovely moment... Until you remember this Scandal and Blake hardly know each other, this Scandal has never said that Blake is one of the only three men she's ever loved, this Blake has never fought tooth and nail to save Scandal from Vandal's grip, and it just feels... cheap...? And Peter!!! I can't decide if I'm glad he's here or not. He mattered so little I'm pretty sure he's never even called Peter at all in this series, and he's called Ragdoll maybe once. He just kind of shows up, references things he used to talk about back in the 2008 series when he actually got to matter and do stuff and have a personality and a life, and then he disappears. I think Peter kind of represents one of the things that feels empty about this series, being that it's so... toothless...? I won't claim to know what was going on over at DC when Simone was writing this, but the post-crisis Secret Six team was awful, they did awful things, they said awful things, they had no code. Hell it takes them like five issues to finally decide they can't be complicit in actual slavery. This has none of that, and I don't mean to say I want it to be some edgefest or whatever, but one of the best things about the 2008 series was Simone's ability to show you these people that were genuinely rephrehensible in so many ways, but you loved them anyways and you wanted the best for them no matter what. I don't know if Simone wasn't allowed to write stories like she did before the reboot, or if she just didn't want to, but the story about these people coming together against all odds, especially when one of those people is THOMAS BLAKE, just doesn't hit as hard when there's really not a whole lot bad to say about them. Blake calls himself a bad guy a couple times in this comic but like... he hardly does anything bad other than the arc where they almost end the world, but they were planning to save it and it was to save an actual child they all loved dearly so I feel like you can't really fault him for that. Also! This team hardly even fights, they fight like twice at the very beginning and thats it. Maybe I'm comparing this to the 2008 series too much, but I just felt like it wanted to be the 2008 series with none of the stakes, none of the teeth. Oh also Lawton isn't here :[

Birds of Prey: Worlds Without End: Read The first two arcs of BoP2023 in pretty much one go and am really enjoying them so far. I actually bought the first six or so issues of BoP2023 a while back but gave up on it when Barbara wasn't showing up. It just felt wrong to be reading a BoP book without Barbara in it, and I'm still really bitter about the "Birds of Prey movie" that was actually just a Harley movie (which also made me hesitant about her inclusion here... I'm sorry Harley it isn't your fault DC is putting you everywhere. But I ended up adoring her in the first arc) so I dropped it. But then a while ago I saw... BARBARA GORDON!!!!! on the cover of one of the new BoP issues (Nov 2024 issue, took me a while to get to this lol) and she... actually looked like Barbara??? which was very exciting to me because I will be honest... I'm not a reboot Barbara fan, I'm of course really pissed by them magicuring her, but I also just don't like her new personality and how young she's been made to be. OH I got so distracted. BoP: WWE it was good. I liked it. There was kind of a lot going on all of a sudden but I liked that I thought that was fun. I think Thompson really Gets what makes BoP BoP which makes the series very enjoyable. I do hope in the future we maybe get a Dinah/Babs duo adventure BoP98 Dixon style.... I will have to wait and see.... At the time of writing this a new issue comes out tomorrow, so maybe I can bang out the rest of the series tonight and read that when it comes out :]

Batman+Arsenal: devin grayson how does it feel to be THE roy harper author of all time oh my god. ONE DAY i will own this comic and i will have it signed by her. ONE DAY...

Strange Love Adventures: another anthology! so many anthologies lately lol. i 100% read this one because of "Service" (the alfred comic), but i ended up adoring "In the Name of Love" and "Dinner for Two" as well! Such a solid anthology overall. I'll be keeping an eye out for this one in stores. "Service" was sososo good, necessary alfred reading i feel like, and duke was in it!

DC Pride 2022: mostly solid, i really enjoyed super pride, confessions, think of me, the gumshoe in green, and bat's in the cradle! i even found special delivery quite endearing despite my ever present timbern grudge. i occasionally found the writing to feel kind of lesson-of-the-week kids cartoon special or stilted (public display of electromagnetism stood out in this regard) but i think thats kind of the nature of this sort of thing so i don't begrudge it. ALSO the dialogue change from super pride was a great choice, the original was awkward and kind of ignorant (although people blow it way out of proportion, i've seen people say grayson should have been fired for it like chill), but "when a community's under political attack, it's vulnerable to literal attack" goes hard and i adore damian for it.

Batgirl (2024) #5: great issue!!! and stephcass moment :0 augh i love it dearly. fantastic art as always too :]

Black Canary: Best of the Best #4: significantly better than the past three issues :] this issue really put the past three into perspective and i feel a lot more positively about them now (although shiva is still woefully out of character).

Batman: Gates of Gotham #1: solid first issue. i really like the way it flips between past and present, i'm excited to read more.