Legion of Super-Heroes Archives, Volume 8 by Jim Shooter et al.

Legion of Super-Heroes Archives, Volume 8

Collection published: 1998
Contents originally published: 1968-69
Acquired: July 2025
Read: August 2026

Writers: Jim Shooter, E. Nelson Bridwell[, Edmond Hamilton]
Layouts: Jim Shooter
Penciller: Curt Swan, Pete Costanza, George Papp, Win Mortimer
Inker: George Klein, Pete Costanza, Jack Abel with Curt Swan, George Papp, Win Mortimer
Letterer: Charlotte Jeter, Milton Snapinn, Ben Oda with Joe Letterese, Gaspar Saladino

The last Legion of Super-Heroes Archive I read was volume 5, covering 1966, but I've already read volumes 6 and 7, so here I jump ahead to volume 8, covering 1968-69. (Someday I'll reread the whole series in order, but first I want to make sure I give everything a first-time read!) Jim Shooter is still the writer, and Shooter is still cranking out solid work. Even when the stories don't ultimately pan out, you can tell he's always trying to do something interesting, and he's almost always succeeding.

Probably the most interesting of his stories here—and certainly the most impactful—is the Mordru two-parter. Like a lot of Shooter's stories, this one starts in media res: a few Legionnaires are on the run from the sorcerer Mordru, a previously unmentioned enemy of the Legion that has escaped custody. He's so powerful, all they can do is travel back in time to Superboy's era in Smallville and lay low. I thought this was tense stuff. Shooter's eye for strong layouts is on particularly good form, Curt Swan draws some of his most dynamic Legion art I can remember, and the story is cool and different. I did think it kind of fell apart near the end, as it swerves into the Legion being on trial for their "anti-crimes," but up until then I was digging it. You can see why later writers brought Mordru back so much. Did anyone ever do a retroactive story about Mordru's "original" battle with the Legion?

Lots of great imagery in this one.
from Adventure Comics vol. 1 #370 (script & layouts by Jim Shooter, art by Curt Swan & Jack Abel)

I thought the one where Colossal Boy "goes bad" had a bit of a silly premise (he just immediately sells out to the mob when his parents are threatened? without even trying to talk to his friends?) but had some good moments; Shrinking Violet becoming small enough to ride a photon in order to track down where a signal is going is a great, inventive use of her powers, and Curt Swan draws the hell out of it again. I also liked the group of Legionnaires who have to go undercover to infiltrate the school where Colossal Boy is training bad guys to fight the Legion.

Does Vi ever do this again? It's a cool power.
from Adventure Comics vol. 1 #372 (script & layouts by Jim Shooter, art by Curt Swan & Jack Abel)

The story of the Tornado Twins is a classic Legion subgenre: mysterious new heroes do obnoxious things to the regular characters. But the reveal of who they are is fun, and they themselves are fun characters even before that happened. I'm surprised later writers didn't do much with them, at least not that I remember, because they're great. This is also the story where Win Mortimer takes over as Legion artist, and I like how he does faces, but sometimes his storytelling is hard to follow.

The one part that doesn't quite make sense is, that if the Tornado Twins are doing this as publicity for honoring their ancestor, the Flash... why not wear versions of his costume from the beginning?
from Adventure Comics vol. 1 #373 (script & layouts by Jim Shooter, art by Win Mortimer)

The last story is also pretty interesting: this is where Shooter introduces the Wanderers, a friendly group of deep-space superheroes; I was amazed how tossed-off their introduction was, though I guess that's what Shooter was good at. He didn't waste time! Chameleon Boy's transdimensional romance was appropriately tragic, poor guy. (I feel like he gets way more successful with the ladies later on.) I do think the competition the Legion holds here does Saturn Girl dirty, though; she should always come out on top! And the bit where Supergirl holds herself back so Brainiac 5 can win is dumb.

Not my Supergirl.
from Adventure Comics vol. 1 #375 (script & layouts by Jim Shooter, art by Win Mortimer)

Shooter doesn't always write bangers, of course; the one about the evils of feminism is funny in parts but as bad as you might expect, and I though the one about the Legion infiltrating two rival gangs really overly convoluted, though as usual, the story begins very energetically.

Seriously, did Jim Shooter hate woman? (Probably yes.)
from Adventure Comics vol. 1 #368 (script & layouts by Jim Shooter, art by Curt Swan & George Klein)

I wish my students called women “dishes.” It’s kind of adorable.
from Superboy vol. 1 #147 (script by E. Nelson Bridwell, art by Pete Costanza)

There are two stories here not by Jim Shooter. The first is by E. Nelson Bridwell and Pete Costanza, and it's the first to completely spell out the origin of the Legion, a story that  has since been retold a million times. Bridwell will never be a great writer, but I appreciated this. However, given how out of sequence my reading of the classic Legion has been, I can't remember what Bridwell made up and what was preexisting lore!

Lastly, there's a story about Superboy quitting the Legion, though the Legion is actually barely in it. The writer is given as "unknown" here, but the Grand Comics Database says:

This is a slightly re-worked version of "The Valhalla of Super-Companions" from Superboy #101, with two panels altered to include an appearance by the Legion along with a few textual references added.

Showcase Presents: Legion of Super-Heroes (DC, 2007 series) #4 gives the writer as Jim Shooter, but since the original issue came out in 1962 and Shooter didn't have his first story published until 1966, it's not correct. It is possible that Shooter did the additional panels that were added to this story to include the Legion.

Ed Hamilton credit from GCD index of Superboy (1949 series) #101. 

I'm not surprised to learn it was a reprint; when I read it, its old-fashioned writing and art made me think it was an inventory story finally seeing print years after it was created. It originally came out in 1962; I wonder why they bothered to reprint it (it was even the cover story), and I wonder why they additionally bother to add the Legion panels.

Anyway, overall, this is an above-average volume of the Legion Archives. I can't believe I only have one to go! It has been a mere thirteen years since I read my first one. 

I read a Legion of Super-Heroes collection every six months. Next up in sequence: Legion of Super-Heroes Archives, Volume 9

Rearranging My iTunes Genres

I got my first iPod back in 2011. I know this was quite late; I think most people were moving away from iPods right at the time I was getting into mine! At the time I had a laptop with Ubuntu, and I used some kind of weird Ubuntu iPod management software, but I quickly gave up on both of those experiments and began using iTunes like a regular person.

I love iTunes. I don't know why people denigrate it. You can do a lot of incredibly cool stuff with "Smart Playlists," and I have all sorts of them that I use for a variety of purposes. But to make some of these features useful, you have to be consistent and thoughtful in the way you use genres. At the time, the bulk of my music collection was soundtrack music. (It still is, but that was even more true back then.*) I was a very late arrival to pop/rock music, not until my mid-20s!

By the end of 2012, I had 880 non-soundtrack/classical tracks on my iPod. Over time I ended up with the bulk of those tracks in four genres. (To be honest, I don't know if people who actually know things about music would agree with these designations.) In parentheses, I'll tell you what artists dominated those genres as of 2012, as I mostly made my choices based on similarity: what existing artist did a new-to-me one resemble? I would place additions based on that.

• Alternative Rock: Music with a rock edge (Rogue Traders and Yeah Yeah Yeahs)
• Electronica: Electronic-inflected dance music (Goldfish and Nortec Collective)
• Indie: Singer-songwriter or folksy stuff (The Decemberists and Regina Spektor)
• Pop: More mainstream (Kate Nash and Adele)

I should note I had some other genres floating around for stuff that didn't fit in these four, but none of them had much in them: Blues/R&B, Folk, Geek, Jazz, Musicals, and Rock.

But the genre system that worked fifteen years ago when I had 900 tracks has been working less well now that I have almost 3,000. Some of my buckets were huge. So, this summer, I started thinking about how I might rearrange my genres.

Only, as I said, I don't know much about music! If I was going to split, say, "Pop" up into subgenres... what would those be?

In order to solve this problem, I ended up signing up for an account on Rate Your Music, whose users have some incredibly in-depth genre classifications. For example, my most recent library addition, Kate Nash's 9 Sad Symphonies (2018), has been classified with a main genre of "Alt-Pop," and other genres of "Indie Pop," "Chamber Pop," and "Singer-Songwriter"! Working with RYM's genres as inspirations, I managed to split things up a bit and came up with this:

• Alternative Rock: Still music with a rock edge (They Might Be Giants, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Rogue Traders)
• Art Pop: This pulled from the existing Indie, Pop, and Alternative Rock genres, grabbing poppy music with less of a singer-songwriter vibe, a more weird edge, and more lush instrumentation (Regina Spektor, Kate Nash, Florence + the Machine)
• Electronica: Still electronic-inflected dance music (Goldfish and Nortec Collective)
• Indie Folk: Half of my Indie music went here, stuff that was more, well, folky (The Decemberists, The Weepies)
• Indie Pop: The other of my existing Indie music went here, the more poppy stuff (Ingrid Michaelson, Alfa)
• Mainstream Pop: All the pop music that was left, typically with a more mainstream style than Art Pop or Indie Pop (Lena, Lily Allen, Adele)

My biggest difficulty was that I now have a lot of They Might Be Giants tracks, a full 533. (That's over a sixth of my library!) I did not want Alternative Rock to be even more dominated by TMBG than it already is, so I could not split Alternative Rock up very much if I want shuffling Alternative Rock to not just be de facto shuffling TMBG. So it remains very big. (My wife suggested making TMBG into its own genre! I feel like this has some merit, but I would sometimes like to listen to it mixed in with other stuff.)

Since I was doing this, I also took a look at rearranging my soundtrack music. While I have 900 tracks of pop/rock music, I have around 7,000 of soundtrack! This was originally in two big buckets: Orchestral and Electronic. I ended up rearranging this into four. Mostly, I split Orchestral up into two parts, "TV Orchestral" and "Film Orchestral." But I also created a new Games genre, that mostly drew from Electronic, but also one orchestral game soundtrack I owned.

I used ChatGPT to create a cool Sankey diagram of my rearranged genres: 

(You'll see I also merged some of my little-used genres, combining Geek with Musicals and Jazz with Blues/R&B.) 

I am pretty happy with the result! In particular, I think the new "Art Pop" genre is putting together some stuff that plays well together but I have not previously listened to together, and the new Indie genres mean some artists are getting more play time because they're no longer buried. I do wish there was a way to further split Alternative Rock, but I guess that will have to wait until I have more non-TMBG tracks in that genre.

* For the most part, it's been a gradual shift, but it has shifted over time. You can see it here:

Reading Roundup Wrapup: October 2026

Pick of the month: Make Believe by Mac Barnett. Short and sweet, see my full review at the link!

All books read:

1. Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
2. Make Believe: On Telling Stories to Children by Mac Barnett
3. Star Trek: Vanguard: Storming Heaven by David Mack
4. Sea Sirens: A Trot & Cap’n Bill Adventure by Amy Chu and Janet K. Lee
5. The Collected Short Stories of Philip K. Dick, Volume Five: We Can Remember It For You Wholesale by Philip K. Dick

Another low month. :( A combo of long books and short attention span. (And I keep falling asleep before doing my usual evening reading!)

All books acquired:

1. The Collected Short Stories of Philip K. Dick, Volume Five: We Can Remember It For You Wholesale by Philip K. Dick 
2. The New Doctor Who Adventures: Death and Diplomacy by Dave Stone
3. The Queerest of Folk: A Life in Television by Russell T Davies with Boyd Hilton

Currently reading:

• The Hollow Crown: A History of Britain in the Late Middle Ages by Miri Rubin
• Three Californias by Kim Stanley Robinson
• Again, Dangerous Visions edited by Harlan Ellison 
• Star Trek: Vanguard: In Tempest’s Wake by Dayton Ward
• The Queerest of Folk: A Life in Television by Russell T Davies with Boyd Hilton
• To Ride a Rising Storm: The Second Book of Nampeshiweisit by Moniquill Blackgoose

I started Again, Dangerous Visions back in August. Will November be the month I finally finish it? (Doubtful.)

Up next in my rotations:

1. The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Sixteenth Annual Collection edited by Gardner Dozois
2. The Poe Clan Vol. 1 by Moto Hagio 
3. On Progress in Physics and Subjectivity Theory: An Amateur’s Meanderings as Inspiration for Actual Physicists by N. Otre Le Vant 
4. Doctor Who: The Way through the Woods by Una McCormack 

Books remaining on "To be read" list: 675 (down 1)

Star Trek: The Unsettling Stars by Alan Dean Foster

Though I'm posting these reviews of the "Kelvin timeline" comics and novels as complete units, I've actually been jumping around them chronologically. There's a four-month gap between chapters 9 and 10 of The Unsettling Stars; following a timeline I found on the TrekBBS, I inserted into that gap these stories in this order:

• IDW issues #56-58 (Legacy of Spock, parts 2-4)
• More Beautiful than Death
• IDW issues #1-6 (Where No Man Has Gone Before / The Galileo Seven / Operation: Annihilate)
• IDW issues #15-16 (Mirrored)
• IDW issues #7-8 (Vulcan's Vengeance) 

Surprisingly, given that I think there was no coordination between the IDW comics and the Simon & Schuster novels, it all hung together! This does mean I wrote up The Unsettling Stars in two parts. 

Star Trek: The Unsettling Stars
by Alan Dean Foster

Published: 2020
Acquired: May 2023
Read: November 2025

Chapters 1-9
The first half of this book chronicles what the Enterprise was doing on its shakedown cruise while Spock Prime was off hanging out with his people. On its very first mission, supposed to be a calm cruise around the edge of Federation space, the Enterprise comes across an alien ship carrying refugees under attack from another group of aliens. The Enterprise defends the refugees, then helps them resettle on the closest uninhabited inhabitable planet, a moon belonging to yet another group of aliens.

As a story, it's fine so far. I feel like not a lot has actually happened: the aliens are essentially friendly, but capable of learning thing surprisingly fast, and have a tendency... not to lie per se, but to not reveal relevant information until forced by circumstances. This makes the Enterprise vaguely suspicious but there's nothing concrete for them to point at. This is reiterated again and again and again in a variety of ways, and soon it starts to drag a bit. This half of the book ends with the Enterprise resuming its shakedown cruise; presumably events will call them back in the second half.

What I did enjoy was Foster's grasp of the characters. Foster is a Star Trek writer of the old school (few older), so he of course knows them well, but he adapts them well to the new circumstances of the Kelvin timeline. His Kirk and Spock speak dialogue that is recognizable, but with a twist—these are younger, less experienced versions of the characters. His Kirk, for example, is confident in his battle tactics, thanks both to acing Academy classes and his showdown with Nero, but nervous about his continued presence as captain of the Enterprise, and wondering if he has what it takes when it comes to, say, diplomacy and making first contacts, and thus eager to prove himself with an easy win. His Spock is also recognizable as the character we know of old, but disturbed by the great tragedy that befell his people. Uhura is probably the other character who is the most different; she doesn't play a big role here, but Foster captures what we saw of her in the movie just fine.

McCoy seems like basically the same person in both realities, but I found Foster's McCoy fun; his Scotty is recognizably the Simon Pegg version rather than the James Doohan one per se. (The idea that Kirk has ordered Scott to give up drinking because when Kirk first met Scott he was drinking on duty is an interesting one I hadn't ever really thought about!) Sulu and Chekov don't play big roles here, but get some good banter.

So, it's a little thin but it's also better than I expected; I had found Foster's novelization of the 2009 film weak, but the character touches here made this more fun and enjoyable than I anticipated. 

Chapters 10-16
As was obvious from the first half of the book, the Enterprise is summoned back to the planet of SiBor, where they resettled the Perenoreans. Like the first half of the book, it's a bit thin as a premise: the Perenoreans are helpful to a fault, and here the crew must fight back against them before their "help" endangers the autonomy of the Federation itself. It's a perfectly fine premise for a Star Trek story, but I didn't really feel there was enough of interest to sustain a novel. Weirdly, though, it all wraps up very fast; given how short this book feels, surely there was room to expand the ending some! But once the story climaxes, there's a short little chapter of wrapup and then it's all over.

Foster writes Chris Pine's Kirk with almost parodic levels of self-aggrandizement. When the admiral at the beginning of this section calls Kirk up to chew him out over the situation he caused by leaving the Perenoreans on SiBor, Kirk thinks he's being called to receive some kind of amazing commendation. It felt over the top... though I guess given the last time Kirk violated orders he got promoted from cadet to captain, maybe it's natural he would think this way! 

This is the fifth in a series of posts about the Kelvin timeline Star Trek comics (and novels). The next covers Star Trek, Volume 3. Previous installments are listed below:

1. The Official Motion Picture Adaptation
2. More Beautiful than Death
3. Volume 1
4. Volume 2

Marvel's The Transformers Year Four, Part II: Legion of the Lost! (US #40 / UK #160-73)

What... a run of stories from the Til All Are One Compendium that I read in the order they were presented with no alterations? Has this ever happened!? If so, not for a long time.

Salvage! / "Pretender to the Throne!" / City of Fear! / Legion of the Lost! / Meltdown! / Deadly Games! / Wrecking Havoc, from The Transformers US #40 (May 1988) / The Transformers UK #160-73 (9 Apr.–9 July 1988), reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium Two (2025)

scripts by Simon Furman and Bob Budiansky; pencil art by Lee Sullivan, José Delbo, Dan Reed, Jeff Anderson, Robin Smith, and Bryan Hitch; ink art by Lee Sullivan, Dave Hunt, Dan Reed, Dave Elliott, Robin Smith, and Bryan Hitch; letters by Tom Frame, Glib, Bill Oakley, Annie Halfacree, Glop, and Steve Parkhouse; colour by Euan Peters and Nel Yomtov

 

from The Transformers UK #160

Back in the early days of Transformers UK, the UK stories would weave very carefully in and out of the US ones. As the series went one, Simon Furman largely moved away from this approach; once he gained access to his own cast of future characters in Target: 2006 (see #7 and 8 in the list below), UK stories would tend to be about revisiting what the future characters were up to, rather than trying to slot in between what Bob Budianksy was doing with the present-day cast. But Salvage! in UK issues #160-61 is a rare example of the old approach, slotting in between two issues of the US series (#39 and 40), picking up with the ramifications of Shockwave launching the Decepticons' tropical island base into space. (Furman throws in a little shade from Galvatron's perspective in his recap: "For someone who's usually so logical, few of his recent actions make any sense!") I think in the US stories, Shockwave would be treated as dead from now, on, but Furman establishes he returned to the Decepticons' original base on Earth, bringing some followers with him. 

 

Salvage!, though, does something interesting in how integrates the US and UK storylines, showing how what has happened in the US stories has ramifications for Furman's ongoing plots in the UK ones, specifically Shockwave's fear of Galvatron. Here, Shockwave recovers the body of Megatron from the Thames (where he ended up after the events of Ancient Relics!, see #13 below), so he can use him as a weapon against his own future self in Galvatron. Ultra Magnus is revived, setting up for a rematch with Galvatron. It's not a great story, it's definitely a tale that is primarily there to setup the future, but I found it an interesting example of an approach Furman had largely moved away from.

 

from The Transformers US #40

We then go into the only US story in this run of seven stories, "Pretender to the Throne!" Unfortunately, this story shows just how awful the US comic has become, though in ways that are not really Bob Budiansky's fault. This issue has to introduce the Pretenders, who are surely one of dumbest Transformers concepts ever conceived—Transformers who disguise themselves... as giant monsters!? Like, why would the "robots in disguise" disguise themselves as something like this? In this issue, the humans have to be like, "whoa i thought i was being attacked by giant monsters but actually im being attacked by giant robots im so surprised!" You can tell, I think, how uninterested Bob Budiansky is in this concept because the issue speedruns through it, giving us a whole mess of Decepticon and Autobot Pretenders as fast as possible so that he won't have to deal with the idea any more in future issues. And the story has to set up the return of Optimus Prime, because having killed him off last year, now Hasbro is releasing a new toy of him. I appreciate his instinct there, but it is surely the worst issue of this series thus far.

 

from The Transformers UK #166

After this, we get a good long stretch of UK-original stories, one of the longest in a while, I think... and unusually for Furman, all set in the present. Ultra Magnus returns to Cybertron* with the Sparkler Minibots to meet up with the Wreckers, but they are missing—and Cybertron is overrun by zombies! City of Fear!, Legion of the Lost!, and Meltdown! all have separate titles, but really make up one big story. It's not great art, but it's fun enough, though I am starting to realize Furman has no way to characterize Autobot leader characters than giving them crippling self-doubt; Springer's problem here is the same one we see in his takes on Ultra Magnus, Rodimus, and Optimus. But aside from that, I enjoyed this with all its weird twists and turns.

 

from The Transformers UK #173

Then we get two final one-off stories. In Deadly Games!, Ultra Magnus breaks up an alien syndicate forcing Autobots and Decepticons to fight each other. Ultra Magnus keeps quoting intergalactic law to the aliens; I wonder if this was the spark of inspiration for when Furman reinvented Magnus as duly-appointed enforcer of the Tyrest Accord in the IDW continuity. The other, Wrecking Havoc, shows what the Wreckers are doing at the same time, as they follow Galvatron to Earth without Magnus, only to battle him when Cyclonus and Scourge have also caught up to Galvatron. Even though the events of Headmasters forced Furman to relocate Cyclonus and Scourge from 2008 to 1988 (see #15 below), he cleverly is able to keep them going as characters, something I had not remembered at all. I enjoyed this story a lot. Fun twists and turns, good use of lots of the UK characters.

 

This is the sixteenth in a series of posts about Marvel's The Transformers. The next covers US issues #41-44 and UK issues #174-87. Previous installments are listed below:

1. US #1-3 & 33-34 / UK #1-6 & 9-17 (1984-85)
2. US #4-8 / UK #7-8 & 18-30 (1984-85) 
3. US #9-12 / UK #31-41 (1985-86) 
4. US #13-14 / UK #42-54 (1985-86) 
5. US #15-16 / UK #54-63 (1985-86)
6. US #17-20 / UK #64-74 (1986)
7. UK #75-84 (1986-87) 
• Budianskian vs. Furmanist 
8. US #21-22 / UK #85-92 (1986-87) 
9. US #23 / UK #93-104 (1986-87)
10. US #24-25 / UK #105-08 & 265-76 (1987) 
11. US #26-27 / UK #109-18 & 277-81 (1987)
12. US #28-30 / UK #119-27 & 130-33 (1987) 
13. US #31 / UK #128-29 & 132-38 (1987)
14. US #32 & 35-36 / UK #138-50 (1987-88) 
15. US #37-39 / UK #130-31, 142-45, & 151-59 (1987-88)

* The Transformers' homeworld. 

Temeraire by Naomi Novik, Book 7: Crucible of Gold

Like many of the Temeraire books, this one reads less as one unified novel and more as a few distinct novellas—in this case, three. Left in exile in Australia at the end of book six, Captain Laurence and Temeraire are readmitted into the Flying Corps to go on a dangerous mission to South America, where Napoleon is seeking an alliance with the Incas.

Crucible of Gold: Book Seven of Temeraire
by Naomi Novik

Originally published: 2012
Acquired: July 2026
Read: August 2026

The first third chronicles their attempt to get there, where their ship is destroyed by the one-two punch of a storm and a fire, and the remaining crew must desperately survive on a desert island. This, for me, was the best part of the book, it's the exact kind of thing Novik has always excelled at throughout this series—one can imagine it as an incident in a Hornblower or Aubrey/Maturin novel... but with dragons. Every aspect is so carefully thought through, the sense of tension is utterly perfect. Novik nails the vibe of the early nineteenth century, and I really enjoyed every excruciating minute of this part.

In the middle third, Crucible of Gold does a thing the Temeraire series often does, which is explore how human/dragon relations operate outside of western Europe (e.g., China in Throne of Jade, Africa in Empire of Ivory). I really appreciate this, and find it fascinating, especially the clash of cultures. In Incan society, dragons actually own people rather than the other way around. There's also some good stuff with Iskierka obtaining a level of fame in Incan society, and we get some neat stuff about her captain, Granby, when the empress of the Inca thinks she might marry him so that her dragon can mate with Iskierka. There are some very good jokes! Unfortunately, it does fall victim to the thing Temeraire books occasionally do, which is it seems like the characters spend a lot of time sitting around waiting for something to happen.

The last "third" is probably the shortest, a little cap about Laurence and company heading off some French ships with good action sequences. 

It would be easy to see this as not very unified, and certainly I wonder how much of the structure of the series owes to Novik's background as a videogame writer. But Crucible of Gold is pulled together thematically through its focus on ownership and forms of enslavement: many of the sailors Laurence is trapped with at the beginning were pressed; the Incan dragons own human slaves, which the English find repellent even though England is involved in its own slave trade (and the Inca treat their slaves much better!); Granby is an officer but still trapped by the authority of the British government; in the last third, they reencounter a freed enslaved woman from an earlier book, working to liberate more of her people. It's not something that the book beats you over the head with, but it's a nice little thread that runs not only through this book, but it clearly building to something across the course of the series. I find the title of the last book, League of Dragons, very intriguing in this regard! Only two to go.

Every ten months I read an installment of Temeraire. Next up in sequence: Blood of Tyrants

(re)Reading L. Frank Baum's The Sea Fairies Aloud to My Kids

As I reread the original Oz books aloud to my kids (for the eight-year-old, this is stuff they heard a long time ago; for the five-year-old, not at all), we've been alternating with other stuff, usually prequels from the 1990s that we read where they take place, not when they were written. We're coming up on a run, though, where there's quite a lot that I want to fit in. 

The Sea Fairies by L. Frank Baum
illustrated by John R. Neill

Originally published: 1911
Acquired: February 2017
Previously read: February 2017 and January 2022
Reread aloud: September 2026

Specifically:

• I want to read Ojo in Oz immediately after Patchwork Girl so the characters of Ojo and Unc Nunkie are fresh in my kids' memories. (I know when I previously read Ojo to my older kid, they barely remembered Ojo.)
• I want to read Queen Ann in Oz immediately after Tik-Tok of Oz for similar reasons. (I haven't read Queen Ann but am curious about it.)
• I want to make sure we read both The Sea Fairies and Sky Island before The Scarecrow of Oz, so that the appearance of Trot and Cap'n Bill in Oz is meaningful. 

Thus, the best place to read The Sea Fairies, if I'm going to alternate, is between Road to Oz and Emerald City, and then we can do Sky Island where it was published, between Emerald City and Patchwork Girl... and hopefully my kids remember who Trot and Cap'n Bill are when we get to Scarecrow!

Rereading my comments on when I read Sea Fairies aloud the last time, I don't think I have much to add. This one is just not up to much. Some of the Oz books that I remember not liking a lot have come alive when read aloud, such as Road to Oz: even though Road doesn't have a very strong plot, each individual incident is fun and colorful on its own. But Sea Fairies doesn't even have that going for it, it's mostly a dull travelogue. It's sort of a Baum take on Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas, but like that book, it is pretty boring.

I think the kids were okay with it, but the five-year-old was definitely happy to hear our next Oz book would be a Dorothy one, not a Trot and Cap'n Bill one. 

Star Trek, Volume 2 by Mike Johnson, Joe Corroney, and Joe Phillips

Star Trek, Volume 2

Collection published: 2013
Acquired: July 2016
Read: November 2025

I should note that I'm reading these stories in chronological order, which means jumping between different collected editions. But I'm reviewing them here one collected edition at a time, which sometimes means—as it does in this post—referencing the events of a story that takes place earlier but was published much later.

Operation: Annihilate, from Star Trek vol. 1 #5-6 (Jan.-Feb. 2012)
written by Mike Johnson, art by Joe Corroney, colors by John Rauch, letters by Neil Uyetake, creative consultant: Roberto Orci

I think my favorite part of this retelling of "Operation -- Annihilate!" (why did you take out the exclamation point, Mike Johnson, you coward) is that when Sam Kirk turns up he is "played" by Chris Pine, just like how in the original episode, he was played by William Shatner. Only here, in a nice twist, he is alive. Other than that, this is fine; we get a couple flashbacks to the Kirks' childhood, but I don't think this story is very much of an interesting variant on the original. I sort of miss the flying pancakes.

In part one, Zahra is a dark-ish skinned woman with black hair. (On screen, the actress who played her was African, though she doesn't read that way to me here; compare her with her fellow security guard Edwards, who definitely is black.) In part two, Zahra transforms into a fair-skinned woman with blonde hair... and also acquires the weird hairdo Rand had in The Galileo Seven.

Vulcan's Vengeance, from Star Trek vol. 1 #7-8 (Mar.-Apr. 2012)
written by Mike Johnson, art by Joe Phillips, colors by John Rauch, letters by Neil Uyetake, creative consultant: Roberto Orci

This story reads weirdly in chronological order, in that parts of it read like a repeat of Legacy of Spock. But Legacy of Spock was published much later, so it's not Vulcan's Vengeance that's the repetitive one in actuality. But it's all about Romulans stealing red matter and Vulcans doing dumb shit, just like Legacy of Spock. And, like that story, I found the politics and character motivations kind of glib and unconvincing. So, good on Mike Johnson for finally writing an original story I guess... but maybe let's do a good one next time? I think this story answers my question of how the Romulans ended up with leftover red matter back in Legacy of Spock, except that story clearly takes place earlier. Oops?

Zahra is in part two. She has dark hair again, but her skin is no darker than Kirk's or McCoy's when they appear in the same panel. I think she also appears in part one; her name isn't used in that part, but she looks pretty much the same... except that John Rauch does color her as dark-skinned in that issue if it is her. I found Joe Phillips's pencils kind of off throughout; his likeness are close enough that you know what he's going for, but often a bit off in a way that distracts.

THE MANY FACES OF ZAHRA 

from Star Trek vol. 1 #5	from Star Trek vol. 1 #6
from Star Trek vol. 1 #7	from Star Trek vol. 1 #8

This is the fourth in a series of posts about the Kelvin timeline Star Trek comics (and novels). The next covers The Unsettling Stars. Previous installments are listed below:

1. The Official Motion Picture Adaptation
2. More Beautiful than Death
3. Volume 1

Marvel's The Transformers Year Four, Part I: Enemy Action! (US #37-39 / UK #130-31, 142-45, & 151-59)

Here, we come to the end of the Headmasters miniseries. Even though #4 came out before #37 of the regular series, I place it afterwards because that's where it goes chronologically.

My other big change in this sequence is the placement of Worlds Apart!, a UK story from issues #130-31. In the UK, this was run to hype up the Headmasters (I think because the Headmasters miniseries wasn't ready yet); it's a standalone story about the Headmasters on Nebulos. Chronologically, though, it probably goes during Headmasters #4 (though it's not a perfect fit), so I read it after finishing that issue, around 25 issues out of sequence in UK terms!

The Legacy of Unicron!, Part 6 / Enemy Action! / "Toy Soldiers!" / "Brothers in Armor!!" / Worlds Apart!, from The Transformers US #37 (Feb. 1988) and Headmasters #4 (Jan. 1988) / The Transformers UK #130-31 (12-19 Sept. 1987), 142-45 (5-26 Dec. 1987), & 150-55 (6 Feb.–5 Mar. 1988); reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium Two (2025)

scripts by Simon Furman and Bob Budiansky; pencils by Bryan Hitch, Jeff Anderson, José Delbo, Frank Springer, and Will Simpson; inking by Bryan Hitch (with Geoff Senior), Baskerville, Ian Akin & Brian Garvey, and Tim Perkins; letters by Starkings, Glib, Bill Oakley, Jack Morelli, Annie H; colour by Steve White, Nel Yomtov

 

from The Transformers UK #151

The Legacy of Unicron has an okay finish; like I said in my comments on parts 1-5, it feels like kind of a mistake if Death's Head is functionally the protagonist of your Transformers story. Rodimus does some stuff here... but mostly because Death's Head tells him to! But that problem will never happen again, because the story ends with Death's Head, Cyclonus, and Scourge falling through a time portal. Death's Head will never appear in a Transformers story again, because the portal takes him to the Doctor Who universe, where he meets the Doctor in the DWM story The Crossroads of Time.

 

Cyclonus and Scourge travel to Cybertron in the past, neatly explaining how in the US Headmasters stories they are part of the Decepticon contingent under Scorponok's command in 19680s while in the UK stories (which followed the lead of the movie) they weren't even created until 2006. It's kind of a bummer, though, because I enjoyed their characters in the future-set stories, and now they're just two among many Targetmasters.

 

from The Transformers UK #152

This is followed by Enemy Action!, a UK story about Galvatron attacking the Decepticons' underwater base in an effort to seize command. The best part of the story is the tension between Galvatron and the current leader of the Decepticons' Earth forces, Shockwave; the worst part of it is it's clearly one of those stories designed to incorporate a bunch of new toys into the comics at once, and so it features like a dozen new characters all at the same time, most of whom I suspect we'll never hear from again.

 

Then we get a set of stories all about the Headmasters. It begins with a prologue where I.I.I., the US intelligence organization, tries to execute a group of captured Autobots. This is stymied when Walter Barnett is capable of removing their brain modules and installing them in remote control toy cars! It beggars belief even for Trasformers, but what's worse, is that it means the Autobots are pretty much bystanders in their own story. The story ends with Goldbug sending a distress signal, which is picked up by the Autobots on Nebulos, allowing us to transition into Headmasters #4. This is a very rushed story that both has to feature the debut of the Targetmasters (Transformers where Nebulans transform into their weapons) and both the Autobots and Decepticons leaving Nebulos for Earth. The former part is dumb, like every other aspect of the Head/Targetmasters concept, but the latter is decent. Galen and Lord Zarak essentially agree to throw Earth under the bus to let Nebulos live in peace!

 

from The Transformers UK #131

Like I noted above, I read Worlds Apart! here because that's where it goes chronologically. It's not a perfect fit. Even though it, like all Headmasters stories, inherently has too many characters, you can see Furman trying to make something of the premise in a way that I think Bob Budiansky never quite managed: he really focuses on how the "binary bonding" process in some cases pairs Nebulans and Transformers with very different philosophies.

 

"The Final Conflict", from The Transformers Annual [1987], reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium Four (2025)

[written by Ian Rimmer]

This is the last text story retelling the events of the Headmasters miniseries for a UK annual. The first two of these (see post #13 in the list below) were clearly written by someone who had an outline of the events of issues #1-2; the details weren't always right, but the broad strokes were. This story is completely different than Headmasters #4: while the comic ends with the Nebulan Decepticons following the Autobots to Earth, this has the Nebulan Autobots following the Decepticons to Earth! Also, instead of actual Nebulans transforming into the weapons of the Targetmasters, here we have Nebulan engrams being copied into robots that transform into weapons. (I actually find this more plausible, to be honest.) Perhaps because the anonymous writer (probably Ian Rimmer) had to come up with his own plot here, it's less character-focused than the first two parts were, and thus less enjoyable.

 

"Trial by Fire!" / "The Desert Island of Space!", from The Transformers US #38-39 (Mar.-Apr 1988) / The Transformers UK #156-59 (12 Mar.–2 Apr. 1988), reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium Two (2025)

written by Bob Budiansky, penciled by José Delbo, inked by Dave Hunt, lettered by Bill Oakley, colored by Nel Yomtov

 

from The Transformers US #38

US issue #38 begins with the Headmasters making it to Earth. The story introduces changes clearly designed to bring the comics in closer alignment to the broader Transformers brand. First, in the Headmasters miniseries, Galen transformed into the head of Fortress Maximus. But I guess the toy worked differently, so now Galen transforms into the head of an Autobot named Cerebros, who then transforms into the head of Fortress Maximus. This is one of those ideas that I'm sure makes for a cool toy, but saddles the comics with unneeded extra characters. I don't think Cerebros even ever says anything. Where did he come from? Why would anyone design this?

 

The other consistency problem was that in the comics, we had Buster Witwicky... but the cartoon, it was Spike Witwicky, and Spike became the head of Cerebros. So here, three years into this comic, we suddenly learn Buster has a previously unmentioned older brother named Spike, who's been away at college! And Buster and his father Sparkplug have apparently neither seen nor talked to him for three years! In short order, Galen (who we spent four whole issues getting to know) is killed off and Spike replaces him as the head of Cerebros.

 

from The Transformers US #39

Obviously, the downside of the narrative consistency of any Transformers story is that it always exists to sell toys and nothing else, but this is a pretty egregious example.

 

Still, there's some fun bits here, mostly in the second part, where Shockwave and Ratbat need to keep Buster alive as a hostage, and the Decepticons' island base turns out to be a rocket ship. But overall, it feels like what Bob Budiansky made work for the first couple years of the comic is slowing being drained out of it.

 

This is the fifteenth in a series of posts about Marvel's The Transformers. The next covers US issue #40 and UK issues #160-73. Previous installments are listed below:

1. US #1-3 & 33-34 / UK #1-6 & 9-17 (1984-85)
2. US #4-8 / UK #7-8 & 18-30 (1984-85) 
3. US #9-12 / UK #31-41 (1985-86) 
4. US #13-14 / UK #42-54 (1985-86) 
5. US #15-16 / UK #54-63 (1985-86)
6. US #17-20 / UK #64-74 (1986)
7. UK #75-84 (1986-87) 
• Budianskian vs. Furmanist 
8. US #21-22 / UK #85-92 (1986-87) 
9. US #23 / UK #93-104 (1986-87)
10. US #24-25 / UK #105-08 & 265-76 (1987) 
11. US #26-27 / UK #109-18 & 277-81 (1987)
12. US #28-30 / UK #119-27 & 130-33 (1987) 
13. US #31 / UK #128-29 & 132-38 (1987)
14. US #32 & 35-36 / UK #138-50 (1987-88) 

Young Avengers Omnibus by Allan Heinberg, Jim Cheung, et al., Part Three

Young Avengers by Heinberg & Cheung

stories from Secret Invasion: Runaways/Young Avengers #1-3, Dark Reign: Young Avengers #1-5, Siege: Young Avengers #1, Uncanny X-Men vol. 1 #526, Avengers: The Children's Crusade #1-9, and Avengers: The Children's Crusade: Young Avengers #1

Collection published: 2022
Contents originally published: 2008-12
Acquired: June 2025
Read: August 2026

Writers: Christopher Yost, Paul Cornell, Sean McKeever, Allan Heinberg

Pencilers: Takeshi Miyazawa, Mark Brooks, Mahmud Asrar, Olivier Coipel, Jim Cheung, Alan Davis

Inkers: Takeshi Miyazawa, Mark Brooks, Walden Wong, Scott Hanna & Victor Olazaba, Mark Morales, Mark Farmer, with Dexter Vines, Jim Cheung, Dave Meikis, Livesay

Colorists: Christina Strain, L. Molinar with Emily Warren & A. Street, Matt Milla & Jorge Maese, Justin Ponsor with Paul Mounts, Javier Rodríguez

Letterers: Joe Caramagna, Cory Petit, Chris Eliopoulos, Joe Sabino, Dave Sharpe

Last year, I read the first half of this omnibus in two parts (see other installments in the list below). Now, I am finally wrapping it up. 

At first, we continue to have a number of short stories that show what the Young Avengers are up to during various Marvel events: a three-issue Secret Invasion crossover with Runaways, then a five-issue Dark Reign tie-in, and finally a one-issue Siege tie-in.

There's very much a sense across all of these stories that the Young Avengers are treading water, being held in stasis until Allan Heinberg and Jim Cheung can return for their next big story. Young Avengers Presents in the previous volume set up a number of possible character threads, but we don't really see any of them here. The Secret Invasion tie-in, despite that fact that the Young Avengers contain a Skrull hybrid during a Skrull invasion, comes across much more as a Runaways story that the Young Avengers happen to be guest starring in. I did, of course, appreciate getting to see some Takeshi Miyazawa artwork (a favorite of mine since his Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane days), but drawing a bunch of Skrulls actually is a bad mix for his manga-influenced art style, because his simple designs mean you can't tell them apart!

I had actually previously read Dark Reign: Young Avengers because it's by one of my favorite writers, Paul Cornell... but long before reading any actual Young Avengers. (Amused to note my old review calls Young Avengers "a series I've never had a desire to read." I was such a grump when I was a young comics fan.) I think I liked it both more and less than my old review indicates; obviously, I was better able to track all the characters this time around. On the other hand, its occasional moment of incredibly gruesome death feels very mid-2000s comics, and not in a good way. I think Cornell is up to something interesting here, but is it interesting enough.... that's a different question. The story feels like it goes in circles a bit, and again, the actual Young Avengers feel like guest stars.

I did like the new Enchantress; she's the only one of these characters I'd've liked to see more of. She's funny. I wonder if she was ever used again? I bet she was brutally killed off in some awful crossover to prove the situation was serious.
from Dark Reign: Young Avengers #2 (script by Paul Cornell, art by Mark Brooks and Walden Wong with Dexter Vines & Mark Morales)

The Siege tie-in comes across as particularly pointless, despite writer Sean McKeever (the other half of the Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane creative team, actually) doing his best to give us some character insight as the team works to take care of an Asgard that crashed in Oklahoma.

I guess this happens.
from Siege: Young Avengers #1 (script by Sean McKeever, art by Mahmud Asrar and Scott Hanna & Victor Olazaba)

Finally, though, we get the return of Heinberg and Cheung in The Children's Crusade—clearly all of the treading water was to keep the Young Avengers in their status quo so that their original creators could return for this. It's a big story: the Young Avengers decide to hunt down Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch, who they suspect of spiritually (though not physically) being the mother of Wiccan and Speed—they are the souls of the children magically born to Wanda and Vision. But Wanda also caused a mutant genocide and disappeared, so neither the Avengers nor the X-Men are excited about the idea of her coming back. Who is excited? Magneto, who is Wanda's father, and during this era, reformed and a member of the X-Men.

Obviously one wears one's sexy bustier to market day.
from Avengers: The Children's Crusade #2 (script by Allan Heinberg, art by Jim Cheung & Mark Morales)

It's a big story... and the problem is is that it's not really a Young Avengers story. (Probably why it was originally released as Avengers: The Children's Crusade.) Oh, they instigate things, and Heinberg clearly works really hard to give them key moments throughout, but it's a Wanda Maximoff story, and to a lesser extent, an Avengers and X-Men story. While the Young Avengers kick things off, after that, all the key decisions come down to ones made by Wanda and the Avengers and the X-Men. Was Wanda wrong? Can Wanda reform? Can she be forgiven? These are the questions the story turns around... and they are questions that have little to do with Wiccan and Hulkling and Speed and especially with Stature and Hawkeye and Patriot and Iron Lad and Vision.

Moreover, when the Young Avengers do contribute to the story, it's usually by doing something stupid.
from Avengers: The Children's Crusade #7 (script by Allan Heinberg, art by Jim Cheung and Mark Morales with Livesay & Dexter Vines)

from Avengers: The Children's Crusade #3 (script by Allan Heinberg, art by Jim Cheung & Mark Morales)

There's a kind of superhero tendency that annoys me, when superhero stories become entirely about the lore of the superhero themselves. A long, long time ago I wrote a review of Mark Waid and Leinil Francis Yu's Superman: Birthright, and while the tone of the review is probably undeservedly harsh (I was a callow youth, about half of my present age), I think one point from it is very important—superhero stories have to be about something beyond the heroes themselves. If Superman stories are only about Superman lore, then there's no point to Superman. Superheroes need to do heroic things. Unfortunately, Young Avengers has a great cast of characters, but aside from the clearly water-treading crossover stories, has mostly been about the lore of the Young Avengers. Do they do other things than explore their convoluted backstories or solve problems they themselves were responsible for? Well, alas, not really! I think they totally could; I think Heinberg and Cheung came up with some great characters here. But The Children's Crusade is far more about lore relating to a story I have never and will probably never read (House of M) than it is about the Young Avengers themselves.

This is probably why the character deaths here gall so much. If Stature or Vision died in a story about Stature or Vision, it would tell us something about them. Unfortunately, my second-favorite Young Avenger dies to prove that Doctor Doom is a bad person. And Vision dies for even less reason than that. I just feel like this story really did most of its supposed main characters dirty so we could see Cyclops snarl at Magneto, which is totally not what drew me toward this series to begin with.

I miss these guys.
from Avengers: The Children's Crusade: Young Avengers #1 (script by Allan Heinberg, art by Alan Davis & Mark Farmer)

I did sort of feel like Allan Heinberg wrote the whole story around giving Jim Cheung reasons to draw the Scarlet Witch's cleavage. (See also above.)
from Avengers: The Children's Crusade #4 (script by Allan Heinberg, art by Jim Cheung & Mark Morales)

It has its moments. The surprise return of Iron Lad is very good. I liked the flashback to the original four Young Avengers' first mission. All of the kid characters are always a pleasure to spend time with. Jim Cheung is overall a great artist. (Though he kind of draws all adult women with the same face.) 

I'm sure everyone who died here will be back eventually anyway. But I think I'm glad I could read all seven years' worth of the original Young Avengers run in quick succession; I think it would have been quite a disappointment to wait for The Children's Crusade in real time.

This is the third in a series of posts about the Young Avengers, Loki, and Hawkeye. The next installment covers Thor by Kieron Gillen. Previous installments are listed below:

1. Young Avengers by Heinberg & Cheung, part 1 (2005-06) 
2. Young Avengers Presents (2008)