BATMAN: THE CULT (graphic novel) by Jim Starlin (Author), Bernie Wrightson (Illustrator)

Originally published in 1988 by DC Comics. 
Republished in 2024 by DC Comics.

Synopsis

The homeless in Gotham are disapearing and Batman investigates in Batman: The Cult. As he moves into the sewers, he is taken captive by a mysterious man named Deacon Blackfire, a a man who was operating on the surface with a ministry designed to help the homeless and downtrodden in Gotham's worse neighborhoods.

Of course, that was a cover. It turns out that Blackfire is an ancient man who has lived in the shadows in an around Gotham for centuries.  He is powerfully charismatic. When combined with traditional brainwashing techniques, even the strongest of personalities break and fall under his sway. He has an army of the city's forgotten people eager to inflict their version of justice on Gotham City, including Batman himself!

As the city's leaders fall prey to vicious attacks it is up to Alfred and Robin to retrace Batman's steps, save Batman, and save the city...

My Review

I've read some unispired graphic novels this summer (summertime is graphic novel time for DWD's Reviews), but I found this one to be a pretty tight story that worked. It gets off to a befuddled start, but once it gets going it's well worth reading. 

Bonus: the modification of the Batmobile into a monster truck was a lot of fun - and it made sense!

I rate this graphic novel 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Batman: The Cult. 

THE MOON IS DOWN (audiobook) by John Steinbeck

Originally published in 1942.
Audiobook originally published in 1999.
Read by George Guidall
Duration: 3 hours, 42 minutes.
Unabridged.

John Steinbeck's The Moon Is Down is about the Nazi German invasion of Norway even though none of the countries involved is ever named and the names of the characters are generic names that you would find in any American town.

This is the story of a small town that is taken over by a small part of the German army led by a colonel. The town is important because it has a coal mine and a port and the colonel's job is to keep the coal moving out to Germany as fast as possible.

The book is not about the village fighting back, as in we do not see armed partisans attacking Germans in the streets (you do hear about them, though.) Instead, it is a discussion of the nature of humankind in the midst of the tragedy of war.

This sounds like it would be a boring book, but I found it to be interesting and engrossing. I recommend it highly.

I give this book a rating of 5 stars. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The Moon Is Down by John Steinbeck. 

STAR WARS LEGENDS: BOBA FETT - BLOOD TIES by multiple authors and illustrators.

Published in 2021 by Marvel.

Blood Ties is a graphic novel collection of Boba Fett stories orginally published from 1997 to 2010.

For me, the best of the collection is the title story. It is also the longest story by far. In this story, Jango Fett is hired to kill one of the clones that was created from him because it has gone AWOL and started a family. 

Jango Fett kills the clone and then discovers that he has a son. 

Much later, Boba Fett is given a job to find a man named Connor Freeman - the child of that clone when he is all grown up. It turns out that Jango Fett has been providing a stipend for the child ever since he executed his father. Boba Fett decides to protect Freeman and figure out what is going on for himself while still fulfilling the contract.

The rest of the stories pretty much fall along the line of telling a story in which Boba Fett is really cool because he is a heartless tough guy. Personally, I prefer a story more like the Disney+ Book of Boba Fett show where the heartless villain shows a bit of heart and finds himself doing the right thing in his own heartless and villainous way. 

I rate this collection 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Star Wars Legends: Boba Fett - Blood Ties.

THE LITTLE BOOK of WREXHAM AFC edited by Mark Pearson

Published by OH in 2023.

I am a fan of the Hulu/Disney+ documentary show Welcome to Wrexham. If you are not familiar with the show, Hollywood actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney bought a professional soccer team in Wales. 

In the U.K. there are multiple levels of pro soccer, kind of like professional baseball in the U.S. But, there is a difference - in the U.S. if your team loses or wins, they stay at their league. In the U.K., teams at the bottom of the rankings drop down a level and teams at the top of the rankings move up.

Reynolds and McElhenney bought a team that had dropped pretty low in the rankings with the determination to make the investments to push the team up as high as it would go. Meanwhile, they would document the whole thing for Americans to watch. 

This is not a review of the documentary which just concluded its fifth season, though. Instead, this a review of this little book of more than 170 quotes and facts based on the show, the team, and the town of Wrexham. The book was published after the second season, so it seems a bit dated.

It's an easy read, but not an amazing one. I rate this book 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE LITTLE BOOK of WREXHAM AFC edited by Mark Pearson.

SUPERMAN: SPACE AGE by by Mark Russell (Author), Michael Allred (Illustrator)

Published in 2023 by DC Comics.

2023 Eisner Nominee - Best Limited Series

2023 Eisner Nominee - Best Writer, Mark Russell

Synopsis

Superman: Space Age tells a slightly different Superman story. We join a late teen Superman helping his father on the farm in Smallville, Kansas in November of 1963. His father opens up about his rough experiences in World War II and talks to Clark about what a hero is. 

That same day, Kennedy is assassinated and Soviet-U.S. tensions climb so high that there is real fear that a nuclear war may start. Clark Kent takes to the air and flies to the Arctic in his overalls and work shirt to try to prevent World War III. But, his enthusiasm and inexperience nearly cause the war he is trying to prevent. Luckily, he is shot down by a pilot named Hal Jordan.

Clark Kent awakens to find the Fortress of Solitude.

This book tracks Superman from 1963 to 1985. As time goes on we add Bruce Wayne, Lex Luthor, Wonder Woman, and the rest of the Justice League. We get a lot of Lois Lane as she demonstrates heroism in a non-superhero way. 

News events that we are all familiar with come into the story, such as the Civil Rights movement. But, that all changes when Lex Luthor gets a couple of nuclear weapons and actually uses them...

Nice advice from Mr. Kent

My Review

There are a lot of clever things done in this graphic novel. The Batman/Bruce Wayne setup is very well done, with Bruce Wayne and Batman actually seemingly being on different wavelengths throughout the book (for example, Bruce Wayne funds the Hall of Justice but Batman stomps out of the group for a while.)

The solution to the major crisis of the book (surprisingly, it is not Lex Luthor's foray into nuclear weapons) is quite clever and I did not see it coming until the very end. It was a very different way for Superman to be a hero and save the world.

Nitpicking note: The book starts with Clark Kent and his father baling hay in Kansas in NOVEMBER. As a person who has put up hay (much like they were doing in the graphic novel) in Indiana, I can guarantee you that no one is baling hay in the midwest in November. It's always done in the summer and always seems to happen on the hottest day you can imagine. The heat has nothing to do with it, it's just the bad luck of everyone that is putting up hay. The only time I ever had heat stroke-type of event was when I was putting up hay on what had to be the hottest day of the year when I was in high school. It wasn't full blown heat stroke, but I was well on my way.

I rate this graphic novel 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Superman: Space Age

Nice quotes from the book: 

"As Americans we talk about being American as if we all agree on what that means. But the truth is that some judge truth and justice by how well they support the American Way while others judge the American Way by how well it stands up for truth and justice."

"The people who do the most good in this world are not the strongest, the smartest, the most prepared, but simply those who show up."

WAMPETERS, FOMA and GRANFALLONS (OPINION) by Kurt Vonnegut

Originally Published in 1974.

Wampeters, Foma and Granfallons is a collection of interviews, speeches, nonfiction pieces and one sci-fi play published from 1965-1974. The title comes from terms in Vonnegut's novel Cat's Cradle. In Vonnegut's own words from the preface:

"A wampeter is an object around which the lives of many otherwise unrelated people may revolve. The Holy Grail would be a case in point. Foma are harmless untruths, intended to comfort simple souls. An example: "Prosperity is just around the corner." A granfalloon is a proud and meaningless association of human beings."

So, it's his way of saying that these are harmless little thoughts that people who are interested in what he has to say will gravitate to. 

The memorable pieces include the only piece of fiction in the group. This was a play about a woman being kept by extreme artificial means with a theme of loneliness - a common theme from Vonnegut. In another entry, Vonnegut travelled to the short-lived country of Biafra, a breakaway piece of what is now Nigeria as they were losing their short (failed) war of independence. I can't think of a better author to tell of the last days of a dying country.

The last 51 pages of the book is a Playboy interview. Playboy used to be famous for two things - the pictures of the girls and fantastic interviews. This interview was merely adequate. I think the interviewer was fumbling around most of the time, almost like Playboy didn't know what Vonnegut was like as an interview subject.

I rate this collection 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Wampeters, Foma and Granfallons (Opinion) by Kurt Vonnegut.

STAR WARS: LEGACY of VADER - THE REIGN of KYLO REN, VOLUME 1 by Charles Soule (Author), Luke Ross (Illustrator), Stefano Raffaele (Illustrator), Derrick Chew (Cover Art)

Published in 2025 by Marvel Universe.

Synopsis

Legacy of Vader is set between Episode VIII and Episode IX. Kylo Ren was embarrassed by Luke Skywalker at the end of Episode VIII, but he has still consolidated control of The First Order.

This collection consists of six installments, each describing the consolidation of his power or his investigation into the pre-Vader life of Anakin Skywalker. He is looking into his grandfather's life because he wants to really know what made Vader so powerful.

So, Ren travels to Mustafar, Tatooine, and Naboo with Vader's former bodyservant leading the way.

My Review

Kylo Ren's style as he takes over The First Order is ridicuously flamboyment. For example, he demands that Hux (his main rival for control of The First Order) build him a proper throne, But then, he heads off to study Darth Vader and leaves everything behind for weeks and weeks. Hux hates him with a passion and Kylo Ren should have been aware that being gone for all of that time is just asking for trouble.

Oddly, Hux just uses that time to do nothing to secure his own alternate power sources in The First Order. Instead, he just builds Kylo Ren's throne. Hux is nothing in this story but a toady, not the conniving monster shown in the movies.

The fifth installment in this series is simply bizarre. It makes no sense - just some sort of ego stroking on the part of Kylo Ren. It's completely bizarre behavior.

I rate this graphic novel 3 stars out of 5 (barely.) It can be found on Amazon.com here: Star Wars: Legacy of Vader - The Reign of Kylo Ren, Volume 1.