Physical Comics Read: 0 (111/127)
Digital Comics Read: 0 (435/435)
Trades/Graphic Novels Read: 0 (4/12)
Books Read: 2 (92/99)
Movies Watched: 4 (188/200)
TV Shows Watched: 0 (45/45)
TV Seasons Watched: 0 (78/78)
Podcast Episodes to Listen to: 97

“Hey, wait, I thought you were supposed to be getting these lists down.”

Yeah, well, the library happened. And so did the DC Infinite app.

So I was at the library a few weeks ago picking up the book that Stella and I were going to be discussing on Required Reading when I decided to peruse the graphic novels shelves (as one does). I picked up a couple of graphic novels that I’d spotted in my LCS a while back and had taken pictures of (as in, “I’ll read this one day) and then spotted a few Wonder Woman trades. Now, I can read all the comics in those trades on the DC app, but I was like, “Hey, they’re free”, and checked them out.

One of the trades was the first storyline that Meredith and David Finch did in the New 52 right after Brian Azzarello’s run (which is when I dropped the book) and the other three were from the Rebirth era–two from Greg Rucka’s run and one that was published right after Dark Nights: Death Metal. That one had Diana in Asgard. Which I was all in for.

Anyway, I decided to read them in chronological order and after finishing the first one, got on the app and filled in the blanks, moving from the New 52 to Rebirth and all the way up to the end of that series before the Tom King run started (a run I’ve been reading and enjoying, though I have to confess it’s often for the art). What also happened, though, is that I got sucked down a rabbit hole of crossover events. So over the course of a month, I read Heroes in Crisis, Dark Nights: Metal, Event Leviathan, Year of the Villain, and Dark Nights: Heavy Metal. There may have be one or two more? At any rate, it was a lot of DC events.

And they all seemed to come out on top of one another. Talk about event fatigue.

Reading like this is something I mentioned in my conversation with Professor Alan last year; it’s one of the greatest advantages of subscribing to both DC and Marvel’s app (though I’ve dropped Marvel Unlimited at the same time I dropped Hulu and Disney+): I can read massive comic events or huge runs without having to buy them off the rack for what ends up being a ton of money or trying to hunt them down either in trade or individual issue which can also cost a ton of money. AND they don’t take up space in my house.

I think that on some level, the lack of a “sunk cost” makes those events more enjoyable. I mean, some of them still weren’t great, but at least I could apply the “watching something crappy” mentality. The best one out of all of them was Event Leviathan. It was intriguing as hell and a great mystery. Also, it was kind of Millennium done right. Dark Nights: Metal and Death Metal were fun cosmic-level crossovers although I think DC put a little too much into The Batman Who Laughs. Year of the Villain was a bit of a re-heated Underworld Unleashed but was still entertaining. Heroes in Crisis? Yeesh. Such a great concept. Such a terrible execution.

And the Wonder Woman stuff? Well, right now, I’m about ten issues away from the end of this journey. It’s been fun. I’ve read just about everything WW from Crisis onward (although I skipped most of the Messner-Loebs run, so I might go back to that). There are stories that haven’t been so great (I thought the New 52 version was a little too “use a lot of modern slang” in the dialogue) and there have been some excellent ones (loved that Asgard story and it made me want to see a legit Wonder Woman/Thor crossover in the same vein as Wonder Woman/Conan).

So that’s my “excuse” for not having a lot on this list. But since it’s using what I have (i.e., the subscription), it’s still Uncollecting.