February Book List

The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling

I didn't dislike this book, it just wasn’t weird enough. Three women, with complicated relationships between them, trapped in a sieged castle, running out of food… and then their Saints appear, bringing about an orgiastic, cannibalistic feast. And then it kinda ends in a whimper, not a bang.

Also, I didn't care for the disillusioned knight pov. The heretic madwoman and the pragmatic survivalist were cool though (even if the latter makes a couple of decisions against her best interests that the narrative doesn’t explain satisfactorily. If you have the chance to escape, run screw doing the right thing!)

Still want to try other books by the same author. And I would totally watch the Bryan Fuller adaptation.

 

Descendant Machine by Gareth L. Powell - book 2 in the Continuance series

Fun space opera, exploring some big sci-fi concepts. I was a bit disappointed by the lack of connection to the first book, though.

 

Avengers Season One by Peter David, Mike Bowden, Andrea di Vito, Jon Buran

Another adaptation set in present day, although this one is not a direct retelling. Loki tries to destroy the Avengers by tricking Thor, Iron Man and Captain America (Ant-Man and the Wasp are on vacation) to suspect each other. It works, until the Hulk, of all people, talks some sense into them. In, conclusion, it was fine.

 

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Beautiful space friendship. I really liked all the science talk and problem solving going on.

MRL - Tales of Suspense (1959) #49-50

Tales of Suspense (1959) #49-50 -Stan Lee/Steve Ditko/Don Heck

Iron Man and the X-Men crossover when Angel goes evil!

Angel is taking a shortcut over Tony Stark's factory as a nuclear bomb test is about to start. Iron Man tries to warn him away, but Angel doesn't understand and the radiation blast changes his personality: he renounces the X-Men and decides to join the evil mutants.

The X-Men call for the Avengers help in a special radio frequency used by crime fighting groups, while Xavier worries that he's training future villains.

The only Avenger available is Iron Man and he goes searching for Angel. He's easy to track because his first idea to attract evil mutants is to blow up some TNT over New York - no evil mutants appear.

In the end, Iron Man's plan is to appeal to Angel's better nature. He exhausts his transistors and seeing him in free fall finally snaps Angel out of his evil personality.

After that, we have the introduction of the Mandarin, Iron Man’s biggest enemy. He was inspired by Fu Manchu, who is a peak example of Yellow Peril tropes - there’s a lot here that I don’t feel qualified to unpack, but there’s a reason he’s not actually in Iron Man 3…

Despite being Chinese, the Mandarin has no consideration for the current communist government - or anyone else, tbh. He wants to rule the world. The American government asks Iron Man to check the Mandarin’s castle out and discover his intentions.

Tony goes, but finds the Mandarin was expecting him. His power comes not from technology, but from ten magical rings. He’s also a master of Karate, and he almost beats Iron Man. Tony evades his attack with some last minute math to turn his body to the best angle to avoid the Mandarin’s karate chop - yes, it’s that ridiculous.

Iron Man escapes and the Mandarin lives to plan his revenge.