A rather productive week, at least when it comes to comic books this week, as I wound my way through the remaining books in my “to read” shortbox, and also finished a book and have been working my way through a couple of television shows (although there’s nothing to really “report” here). So let’s get into some of the stuff.

Books: For the Love of Europe by Rick Steves. I’ve been watching Steves’ travel show on PBS for years now and this book was a Christmas present. It contains essays that go over the major parts of various countries in Europe and also a little bit of his own travels. It’s not a guidebook per se, although it does have its fair share of recommendations for travel, but it feels more personal. One of the coolest things about the book is that there is an appendix that lists video clips from his show, so it’s great to read about a particular country and then look at all of that country’s videos. Keep.

Comics and Trades

The New Teen Titans Vol. 11. I’m going along in my Titans re-read, and this was one of the easier ones, as there was only one extra comic to read–an issue of The Omega Men. This collection includes the wedding of Starfire and her fight against her sister, Blackfire, for the fate of Tamaran as well as the emotional breakdown of Dick Grayson and the assault on Cyborg and Changeling by Mento. It’s a storyline that goes on for way too long, to be honest, although I will say that in the trade it reads a lot better than it probably would have if I were buying it off the stands in 1986. When I hit volume 12, I will have run out of trades, and though I have the individual issues, I am going to trade wait because volume 13 is due out on December 7 and I have preordered it. Not sure if I’ll delay things the same way when 14 is solicited. Still, this remains a revisit with old friends. Keep.

Star Trek (vol 2) #17-28, Annual #2, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country adaptation. Overall, pretty solid and better than I remember this new format version of the Trek books from this era. There’s some solid stories involving the continuing effort to make peace with the Klingons, and there’s also a Harry Mudd story that isn’t too bad considering I’m not a Harry Mudd fan. The standouts from this part of the run were the annual, which was about Kirk’s first days at Starfleet Academy, a pretty fun story where he meets Matt Decker, Gary Lockwood, and Carol Marcus; and the adaptation of The Undiscovered Country, which was solid (as I mentioned in my post from earlier this week). So now I have read all of my paper Trek comics and will continue along the various digital books I own. Keep.

Superman (vol 1) #297, 298. I own issue #296 and got these two on sale at my LCS. I had #299 in my hand and thought I might get that as well, but I decided not to. Then, I read these two and was annoyed to see that I should have picked up #299. I’ll get it next week. Anyway, this is this a storyline where Superman and Clark Kent have sort of been separated–when he’s Clark, he doesn’t have his powers. It’s literally a “do the clothes make the man” story that’s got some Bronze Age fun to it. Keep (and finish).

Superman (vol 1) #317. I’m going to admit here that this was half price at my LCS and I bought it because I’ve always wanted this cover, ever since I saw it on the “Superman: Many Lives, Many Worlds” poster I got from the Smithsonian when I was a kid. It’s a classic Neal Adams cover. The story? It’s a solid Metallo story, and the cover really does make the comic. I’m debating whether I want to shell out the money to get Adams to sign it at this year’s Baltimore Comic-Con. The book’s not in perfect condition, but it might be cool to have signed. Keep (for now).

Superman (vol 1) #416. Got this really cheap and was attracted by Old Man Superman standing outside of the Fortress of Solitude. It’s got two interconnecting stories with Lex Luthor that were entertaining and would have been a good read when I was a little kid, although I wish it were available on the DC Infinite app because otherwise, I would not have picked it up. Sell/Donate.

And that’s pretty much it. I’m currently enjoying The Olympics, and am looking forward to working my way through a few more trades and books as well as knocking out some more podcasts.