Another tradition of forming a super-hero team: the members having a little bit of conflict first.

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If Mexican Gothic left you craving more South American fantasy horror, Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez of Argentina (translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell) has you covered. This is a family epic intertwined with the dark machinations of a macabre cult and its impact. It's also a splendid allegory for the evils of colonialism and generational trauma. This book was #15 from the "Women in Translation" rec list.

The book begins with Juan, a powerful but ill man who acts as a "medium" for the cult to commune with its dark god. Juan, struggling with the health of his defective heart, the wear-and-tear of years as the medium, and the grief and rage of his wife's recent death (he suspects, at the orders of the cult he serves) is desperate to keep his son Gaspar from stepping into his shoes, as the cult wants. Juan's opening segment of the book is about his efforts to protect Gaspar.

From there, the book branches off into other perspectives which give background to both the cult and the family. This is a great way of giving us a holistic and generational view of the cult, but it does drag occasionally. Gaspar's sections--in his childhood and then later in his teens/young adulthood--together make up the majority of the book, and while enjoyable, do amble off into great detail about his and his friends' day-to-day lives, such that I did wonder sometimes when we were getting back to the plot. I don't like to cite pacing issues, because I think that gets thrown around a lot whenever someone didn't vibe with a book, but the drawn-out length of these quotidian sections doesn't fit well with how quickly the climax of the book passes and is wrapped up. I would have liked to have spent less time with Gaspar at soccer games and more on his plans for addressing the cult.

However, on the whole, the book is a fun, if very dark read. It also serves well as a critique of Argentina's moneyed class and of colonialism in general, and how money sticks with money even across borders. Here, Argentina's wealthy have more in common with English money than with the Argentine lower classes (and that's how they want it). The cult, populated at its upper echelons by the privileged, is an almost literal blight on the land, willing to sacrifice an endless amount of blood, local and otherwise, to beg power off a hungry and unknown supernatural entity.

It brutalizes its mediums, which it often plucks from poverty to wring for power and then discard. Juan was adopted away from his own poor family at six, under the insistence his parents would not be able to pay for the medical care he needed, and he is the least-abused of the cult's line of mediums. As soon as the cult sets their eye on his son, Juan must begin scheming how to keep Gaspar away from them.

Although he acts out of love of his son, Juan is also a deeply flawed person. He is secretive, moody, lies constantly (there is actual gaslighting here) and doesn't hesitate to knock Gaspar around to make him obey. The more he deteriorates--a common problem with all cult mediums--the less human he becomes. Part of this is his work, but much of it is also attributable to years of being used by the cult for its ends and the accumulated emotional trauma. This, of course, is then inflicted on Gaspar through his father's tempers and secrets.

Similarly flawed are the other members of the immediate family. Juan's wife Rosario, despite a better nature than her parents, still supports this cult and is eager for Gaspar to follow in his father's footsteps as a cult medium, in part for the prestige it will bring her as his mother. Gaspar, although far more empathetic and gentle than either of his parents, eventually grows up with his father's temper. Watching him grow from a sweet-natured little boy into the troubled young adult he becomes after years of his father's abuse and neglect is painful, but realistic.

The book is also unexpectedly queer. It's not often a book surprises me with its queerness, because that's usually what landed it on my radar in the first place, but this one did. Juan and Rosario are both bisexual and later in the book we spend some active time in Argentina's queer scene, including during the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. 

The translation was great! It read very naturally, even the dialogue, and it never felt stilted or awkward in its phrasing.

An ambitious novel that for the most part, pulls off what it's trying to do. As mentioned, I wish the ending had gotten more room to breathe, and I would not have minded this coming at the cost of some of the middle bits of navel-gazing, but I still felt the story was satisfying. 

 

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Rok of the Reds is a strip written by John Wagner and Alan Grant, and illustrated by Dan Cornwell. Elevator pitch: Doomlord meets Roy of the Rovers, so a powerful alien comes to Earth to judge humanity, and must assume human form to fit in while doing so.

The first two volumes were independently published, with this third and final volume premiering in the Judge Dredd Megazine starting last month.

Previously, hero Rok had been somewhat preoccupied with getting the Reds to the FA Cup final, but now it's time to get down to his duty of saving humanity from itself to save the whole species from being annihilated by an intergalactic court ruling.

For the good of... humanity.



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From the ashes of Death Metal, a new Multiverse was forged with new worlds born and reborn... This is one such world. A world where everything we know is turned upside down! Where the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. Where Benedict Arnold was a Founding Father of Amerika and tyranny reigns. A world where good does not always triumph in the end. Welcome... to the NEW Earth-3.

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Forget the Shadows of Tomorrow, let's just beat up some fascists!

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I said something like, "Oh, he should look a bit like a pulp character because he's not a superhero anymore. He's sort of from before superheroes." But that might have been Alex [Ross] who said that to me, because we were emailing on the same wavelength. He's a really smart guy. He drew this incredible pulp illustration, like Doc Savage or something. And the sketches he did of Sigurd, they belong on these detective novel covers from the 50s and 60s. -- Al Ewing

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The Keith Giffen Guy Gardner is an unpredictable sort. He can be creepy or compassionate, stupid or cleverer than you expect, full of righteous fury or full of petty fury, sometimes all in one afternoon. This makes reading about him fun and interesting. But it seems like it’d make dating him exhausting.

( Some people can’t get enough drama in their relationships, but Guy seems like he’d be the cure for that. )

Context! It's for the weak. Half a page from Fantastic Four 7 (2026).
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… but it’s under the Red Band label which means no digital release. Talk about a monkey’s paw situation. (For me at least; I just prefer digital at this point.)

Still, it’s nice to see Jessica Jones kicking around. Bendis and Gaydos’ original run remains one of my favorites and Jessica was his best original character by far. She had such an interesting personality there that she really hasn’t had under other writers. Hopefully the mature label will bring some of that back.

ALIAS: RED BAND #1 (OF 5)
Written by SAM HUMPHRIES
Art by GERALDO BORGES
Cover by DAVID MACK
Variant Cover by ELENA CASAGRANDE
Variant Cover by JEEHYUNG LEE
Virgin Variant Cover by JEEHYUNG LEE
On Sale 3/11
THE RETURN OF JESSICA JONES! A series of grisly murders in Hell's Kitchen pulls Jessica Jones into a mystery more sinister than she could've ever imagined. As the wife of Mayor Luke Cage, she'll have to tread carefully as she forms a dangerous alliance with Typhoid Mary to track down the killer. But as she delves deeper into Hell's Kitchen's dark underbelly, the evidence she finds presents more questions than answers…

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"Luna Snow's been a blast to write ever since she debuted in comics in the War of the Realms: Agents of Atlas book. But this new story is something special – we get to focus on her as the hero and dig deep into what it means to be a pop star and a super hero at a time when fascists and exploiters have very specific uses for pop stars and super heroes." -- Greg Pak

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Giffen, DeMatteis, Hughes.

This story arc begins with a “heroic” Justice League associate using wealth and power to crush a reporter researching the truth about the team. You probably think I’m talking about Max Lord, right?

( I mean, when Batman or Iron Man want to suppress reporting about themselves, at least they have the decency to sleep with the reporter to create conflict of interest. )

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, Vol. 14 by Kanehito Yamada

Spoilers ahead for the earlier ones.

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We're at the start of a new arc in World's Finest, and this one is going to feature Earth-3

( So it's topsy-turvy time... but a GRIM sort of topsy-turvy )

 

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In the comments to these weekly posts (and only these posts), it's your chance to go as off topic as you like.

Talk about non-comics stuff, thread derail, and just generally chat among yourselves.

The intent of these posts is to chat and have some fun and, sure, vent a little as required. Reasoned debate is fine, as always, but if you have to ask if something is going over the line, think carefully before posting please.

Normal board rules about conduct and behaviour still apply, of course.

It's been suggested that, if discussing spoilers for recent media events, it might be advisable to consider using the rot13 method to prevent other members seeing spoilers in passing.

The world situation is the world situation. If you're following the news, you know it as much as I do, if you're not, then there are better sources than scans_daily. But please, no doomscrolling, for your own sake.

Today marks the Chinese New Year, so Happy New Year of the Fire Horse!

It's also Shrove Tuesday, or Pancake Day if you prefer, so enjoy!

Toy Fair 2026 took place in New York, with nostalgia being mined to a level I don't think I've never seen before. Licences getting figures include the 1977 Battlestar Galactica, the original Duck Tales and even the 80's Tigersharks cartoon (Think Thundercats, but more watery).

Credit to Hasbro though, for announcing their 40th Anniversary celebration of The Transformers: The Movie by announcing their apology tour! :)

Sentai's first successor: "Gavan Infinity", a new take on Space Sheriff Gavan has debuted and... he's very shiny, isn't he?

Legendary screen actor Robert Duvall passed at 95 and better known for his TV work actor James Van Der Beek passed at 48, and I overlooked mentioning Catherine O'Hara's passing a couple of weeks back, but she more than earned an honourable mention.

I'd completely missed that there were a couple of trailers out for "Monarch: Legacy of Monsters" Season 2: The first, and the final

Also, as I type this the news is coming in that Jesse Jackson, one of the original Civil Rights champions of the 60's has passed away at the age of 84.

But not to end on a down note, the first kākāpō chick in four years hatched on Valentines Day, the first of hopefully many to arrive this year to help bolster a critically endangered species. (Kākāpō only breed ever 2 to 4 years, and there are only 236 left, so it's a long slog for the poor things)