My Reading From Week 36 of 2019 - Beyond Tannhauser Gate

This week in my reading, Superman teams up with his son, there’s an illegal pig/wolf relationship that gets steamy in Unnatural, Jesus continues to be tutored by a superhero in Second Coming, Yorick’s sister shows up in San Francisco in Y The Last Man, and the mutants get totally confusing in Powers of X. Oh yeah, and little Canto finds out that to save his true love he must seek out the Shrouded Man that lives in the Emerald Tower in Canto #3. It was a good week of reading.

A Tier

These 5 represent the best comics I read this week.

Unnatural #3
Unnatural #4 After a slow start, I enjoyed where Unnatural went in the second half of the storyline. This was completely unexpected after the drudge of the first two issues and I was glad to see the turnaround. After hoping I could drop the story after the first issue, I’m looking forward to diving into the second volume to see where this is headed.
Canto #3 I continue to love Canto and I can’t wait to read the next installment (which I’m pretty sure is on my pull list for this week!).
Second Coming #2 I enjoyed the second issue of this series more than the first primarily because it seemed to open up the possibilities of where the story is headed. Sure, it’s still controversial and I still have a negative view of this author, but I enjoyed this issue enough to put it in my top tier this week.
Y The Last Man #30
Y The Last Man #31 This was a really good conclusion to the arc and it opens up quite a few possibilities for future volumes. While most of the issues in this volume were good these last two set the stage for some interesting stories to come.

B Tier

The second tier of comics I read this week was pretty good as well. I almost placed almost all of Superman from 2016 on this tier and most of Y The Last Man Volume 5 as well. Some issues of both of these were a bit better or worse than the others but I think they all fall into the B Tier.

Y The Last Man #24
Y The Last Man #25
Y The Last Man #26
Y The Last Man #27
Y The Last Man #29
Superman #1
Superman #2
Superman #3
Superman #4

C Tier

These guys were worth reading mostly for their placement in story arcs. If they were stand-alone issues I would probably recommend skipping them.

Unnatural #2 Unnatural needed a lot of ramp up as the first issue was horrible in my mind while issue 2 started getting better and landed here.
Superman #5
Superman #6 Superman really fell off after the first 4 issues and the last 2 installments of this arc dropped into this tier.
Powers of X #4 Powers of X #4 was the worst of the Powers/House of X series so far and I almost placed it in Tier D…it was just so confusing – perhaps on a second reading or reading within the entire arc it might rate higher but this was bad for me.
Y The Last Man #28 This issue just happened to be the worst of the arc.

D Tier

We have our first entry into the D tier since I started tracking my weekly reading in tiers.

Unnatural #1 This first installment in the story arc was a world-building issue and not only did I not like the way the world was laid out, I felt like there were some many tropes and memes that this world was too much of a caricature. I don’t like being beat over the head with political statements in any of my media much less in comics but if this graphic novel was not assigned for my book club I would have dropped this a couple of pages in. I placed it in the D Tier since I can foresee something worse but this was not something I was expecting to enjoy.
Fortunately as it developed, the series hooked me in issues 3 and 4 and I’m looking forward to the next volume.

This week I dove into 21 comics and I felt like I put a dent in my backlog. I’d recommend any of the A Tier books and the B Tier are good as well. Too bad there are some clunkers you have to get through to read entire story arcs, but that’s gonna happen sometimes.

These comics can be found on Marvel Unlimited, DC Universe, Comixology or at your local comic book shop.

Comics Corner | Reading From Week 36 of 2019