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Weekly Update for March 1-7th
Mar. 7th, 2026 07:53 pmWe'll see if I stick with this but this'll be a (maybe) weekly post where I just talk a bit about some things I've read/played/watched (though probably mostly comics) that I probably won't make a full essay for but wanna talk a bit about.
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Henchgirl is a fun little creator owned (for context the difference in comics between the terms creator owned and indie is all about whether the book is being published by one of the big comic studios) that is a fun semi-parody of Superhero comics. At 11 issues long it tells the story of a girl who is well, a henchgirl for one of the big supervillains of her city and what starts as mostly some fun gags exploring the mundanity of supervillainy slowly transforms into a more personal story of how the main character sorta slowly blows up her whole life, with her being a henchgirl just being the first of many bad decisions she makes.
Kristen Gudsnuck is a double threat here, doing all the writing and drawing for the book and you can tell by how much the art fits the different tones of the book. I'd be lying if I said I really remembered anything about this book outside of the cover but it was one I read early into my comics reading career and it's good to know that this is still a fun read.
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Star Trek: The City on The Edge of Forever. If any of you are classic sci-fi fans you might be thinking I'm about to start talking about the original ST episode. But no actually. A few years back Harlan Ellison's original script for the episode was adapted into a comic book, and it's great! There was a famous falling out with Ellison and Rodenberry over this script and more importantly some drama and words said in the heat of the moment it seems. Which is funny because quite frankly the original episode kept the heart of the episode in tact, with there really only being one major change that does make this feel better but isn't a huge deal so the fact that there was drama over it seems a bit silly.
But for those of you who don't know the episode, lemme give a synopsis. A member of the Enterprise, due to some shenanigans that differ highly from each version of the story (This is the major change) ends up trying to flee onto a seemingly abandoned planet and ends up finding a way to time travel, leaping without knowing into Depression Era America. His presence causes the butterfly effect you would expect. Kirk and Spock go a bit further into the past before him to stop him when he shows up. The main conflict of the story is Kirk starting to go native, falling in love with a woman in the past and all the drama that comes from that. It's great classic sci-fi drama in both the episode and this comic. The speeches are as grandiose as you would expect and it's a trope of the era that I love, as a writer of overwrought monologues myself.
Also the art by JK Woodward is spectacular.
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Spinerette is...interesting. It's a webcomic that is yet another semi-parody of superheroes that slowly becomes it's own unique thing. I like quite a few of those. I will say upfront that unlike the two last entries that this one has not just problems but specifically it could probably be considered a bit problematic in some areas. Specifically it's a mixture of superhero stuff and anime and manga tropes, so there's some choices that feel more problematic anime than anything else, specifically there's at least 3 characters with huge gag boobs and yeah, that's definitely a turn off. That being said, for an indie superhero story I'm willing to wade through some stuff to see if there's anything worth digging for and in this case there is!
The main conceit of Spinnerette is a girl gets Spider-powers but in this case gains 4 extra arms and shoots webbing out of her ass instead of her wrist. From there for the first few issues it becomes a typical self aware origin story of her becoming...the third best hero in Ohio. She ends up joining the already established duo of Tiger and Mecha Maid. Now Mecha Maid is where this story begins to shift a bit, not just because she's a more interesting character than Spinny herself, being a Korean woman with ALS that ends up developing a mecha suit for herself to try to change the world into one that won't use her inventions as weapons before she dies in the next few years. But also because she ends up becoming Spinny's love interest, which pulls the story in a cool queer direction since despite the straight man-ness of some of the sexualization of the characters the depiction of these two figuring themselves out, especially as Spinny herself never really thought of herself as gay before meeting Mecha Maid, is genuinely really well done and their relationship continues to be a highlight. There's also a bunch of fun superhero shenanigans as well, especially with a "villain" called Dr. Universe who was a scientist who wanted to help humanity until the US government imprisoned him, and that, alongside only having Ayn Rand novels to read while imprisoned drives him in a not necessarily evil but much more pragmatic direction in a way that conflicts with the heroes' morality.
It's a fun comic that does a lot of things well, it just probably needed a woman on the team so they could speak up about the less savory parts.
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Finally, let's talk about Monstress. Or well, okay, it's a lot harder to talk about Monstress than the others here because even in the first 6 issues, which is all I've read of it thus far (For comic book club lol) there's so much world building and character moments. It's a comic that feels like the best manga in that sense. An endless page turner that fully establishes a new world and has some beautiful are to go along with a narrative that will send you down a full maze of motivations and plot twists.
Maika Halfwolf is a woman who is reeling from the aftermath of a war she participated in. A war between essentially magical creatures (And half human hybrids) and humans with magical powers. It's a bit more complicated than that but that's the simple version. She is a dangerous and violent woman and doesn't know why, which is why when we first see her she's willingly letting herself get captured to be sold off so she can get close to the woman who knew her mother. From there she's sent spiraling on an adventure to learn more about herself and the beast inside her while everyone on all sides covets her power and tries to capture her.
It might sound a bit generic when I sum it up like that but I assure you that Majorie Liu's writing is almost as beautiful as Sana Takeda's art work.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Henchgirl is a fun little creator owned (for context the difference in comics between the terms creator owned and indie is all about whether the book is being published by one of the big comic studios) that is a fun semi-parody of Superhero comics. At 11 issues long it tells the story of a girl who is well, a henchgirl for one of the big supervillains of her city and what starts as mostly some fun gags exploring the mundanity of supervillainy slowly transforms into a more personal story of how the main character sorta slowly blows up her whole life, with her being a henchgirl just being the first of many bad decisions she makes.
Kristen Gudsnuck is a double threat here, doing all the writing and drawing for the book and you can tell by how much the art fits the different tones of the book. I'd be lying if I said I really remembered anything about this book outside of the cover but it was one I read early into my comics reading career and it's good to know that this is still a fun read.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Star Trek: The City on The Edge of Forever. If any of you are classic sci-fi fans you might be thinking I'm about to start talking about the original ST episode. But no actually. A few years back Harlan Ellison's original script for the episode was adapted into a comic book, and it's great! There was a famous falling out with Ellison and Rodenberry over this script and more importantly some drama and words said in the heat of the moment it seems. Which is funny because quite frankly the original episode kept the heart of the episode in tact, with there really only being one major change that does make this feel better but isn't a huge deal so the fact that there was drama over it seems a bit silly.
But for those of you who don't know the episode, lemme give a synopsis. A member of the Enterprise, due to some shenanigans that differ highly from each version of the story (This is the major change) ends up trying to flee onto a seemingly abandoned planet and ends up finding a way to time travel, leaping without knowing into Depression Era America. His presence causes the butterfly effect you would expect. Kirk and Spock go a bit further into the past before him to stop him when he shows up. The main conflict of the story is Kirk starting to go native, falling in love with a woman in the past and all the drama that comes from that. It's great classic sci-fi drama in both the episode and this comic. The speeches are as grandiose as you would expect and it's a trope of the era that I love, as a writer of overwrought monologues myself.
Also the art by JK Woodward is spectacular.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spinerette is...interesting. It's a webcomic that is yet another semi-parody of superheroes that slowly becomes it's own unique thing. I like quite a few of those. I will say upfront that unlike the two last entries that this one has not just problems but specifically it could probably be considered a bit problematic in some areas. Specifically it's a mixture of superhero stuff and anime and manga tropes, so there's some choices that feel more problematic anime than anything else, specifically there's at least 3 characters with huge gag boobs and yeah, that's definitely a turn off. That being said, for an indie superhero story I'm willing to wade through some stuff to see if there's anything worth digging for and in this case there is!
The main conceit of Spinnerette is a girl gets Spider-powers but in this case gains 4 extra arms and shoots webbing out of her ass instead of her wrist. From there for the first few issues it becomes a typical self aware origin story of her becoming...the third best hero in Ohio. She ends up joining the already established duo of Tiger and Mecha Maid. Now Mecha Maid is where this story begins to shift a bit, not just because she's a more interesting character than Spinny herself, being a Korean woman with ALS that ends up developing a mecha suit for herself to try to change the world into one that won't use her inventions as weapons before she dies in the next few years. But also because she ends up becoming Spinny's love interest, which pulls the story in a cool queer direction since despite the straight man-ness of some of the sexualization of the characters the depiction of these two figuring themselves out, especially as Spinny herself never really thought of herself as gay before meeting Mecha Maid, is genuinely really well done and their relationship continues to be a highlight. There's also a bunch of fun superhero shenanigans as well, especially with a "villain" called Dr. Universe who was a scientist who wanted to help humanity until the US government imprisoned him, and that, alongside only having Ayn Rand novels to read while imprisoned drives him in a not necessarily evil but much more pragmatic direction in a way that conflicts with the heroes' morality.
It's a fun comic that does a lot of things well, it just probably needed a woman on the team so they could speak up about the less savory parts.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Finally, let's talk about Monstress. Or well, okay, it's a lot harder to talk about Monstress than the others here because even in the first 6 issues, which is all I've read of it thus far (For comic book club lol) there's so much world building and character moments. It's a comic that feels like the best manga in that sense. An endless page turner that fully establishes a new world and has some beautiful are to go along with a narrative that will send you down a full maze of motivations and plot twists.
Maika Halfwolf is a woman who is reeling from the aftermath of a war she participated in. A war between essentially magical creatures (And half human hybrids) and humans with magical powers. It's a bit more complicated than that but that's the simple version. She is a dangerous and violent woman and doesn't know why, which is why when we first see her she's willingly letting herself get captured to be sold off so she can get close to the woman who knew her mother. From there she's sent spiraling on an adventure to learn more about herself and the beast inside her while everyone on all sides covets her power and tries to capture her.
It might sound a bit generic when I sum it up like that but I assure you that Majorie Liu's writing is almost as beautiful as Sana Takeda's art work.
