A group of talented heroes gather before the storm

A REVIEW BEFORE A TEMPORARY HIATUS
By Alex Ness
11/18/2024

SURGERY

I am finally in a place where the surgery long delayed by one false diagnosis or a Surgeon who didn't want to re-address the issue, is plainly in view. No, it isn't for cancer, while I still have a couple enlarged lymph nodes but they aren't growing. However this journey begun the night of February 2, 2019, when I slipped on the ice of my frozen driveway, as I went out to shovel, since my wife and son were coming home from a visit to see family. We had rain early, that froze, then when snow began falling hard it was -10 F. It was an aerial maneuver that might be called a loop de loop. And I landed with all my weight upon the back of my neck and skull. It knocked me unconscious. It took a nasty neighbor cackling about my misfortune to linger in my mind and wake me. She laughed nastily and said, don't know how to walk? I said something in response, that I am not proud of.

But my neck went 18 months before it was figured for what it was. And in November 2020, yes, it was the pandemic year. The doctor told my wife just prior to surgery it'd be 3 cervical discs fused and 45 minutes at most. As it was, spending so long with such an injury, it nearly killed me on numerous occasions, the discs were all messed up majorly, as well my shoulders. When he opened me up, he took 3 hours to fix one disc, that had ossified and was a big problem to fix. He only fixed one of the three messed up discs. By 2022 the same doctor said after my new MRI I just need more physical therapy. Well no, that turns out to be false. That MRI was looked at, by numerous others recently, and they agreed, I should have requested a second opinion immediately. My neck was in serious danger from every accidental fall, of leaving me dead or paralyzed for life. So, something big has to happen.

REVIEW

The writer of this book, has sent me numerous works to read in my many hiatuses. This is one of the many, and I am reviewing it.

The editorial description is "Monster Hunt 2: Let’s Get Kraken is an incredible indie comic crossover featuring Mike S. Miller’s Lonestar and his Unknown Soldiers together with Doug TenNapel’s Bigfoot Bill and a few of his cryptid friends as they join forces with Mike Baron and Steve Rude’s intergalactic executioner Nexus, one of the most popular independent comic characters of all time! All of them are bound together by fate to save the world from the galactic devourer: GOURMANDO!"

Written by Mike Baron
Illustrated by Matthew Weldon
Colors by Jean-Francois Beaulieu
Letters by Warren Montgomery

I am not wanting to spoil the story but if there were a planet destroyer or sun eater, in Mike Baron's mind there'd be more nuance than to suggest it is a beast, despite it is a massive being. It would something short of a God, for the malice it intends by its desires and hungers. Gourmando is a being that eats galaxies, not planets, it isn't a simple creature it lives in absolute zero of space, and has powers unknown as many as those known.

This response with Nexus, Lonestar and his team, Big Foot Bill and more, seems on the service to be a small band, to attempt to stop a creature with enormous destructive powers. Fortunately for the reader, the art is quite good, the whole group of talent is a group of people who don't count the cost, they consider the obstacle to defeat. It is enormous fun to see the battle, as the odds are so in favor of Gourmando, it hardly seems possible they might turn the tide against it but the reason they are heroes, is because they don't count the cost.

Something wonderful about the creatives in this story and their characters, they consider good and evil something that has very little relativism in it. The universe has dangerous beings, including us humans, and if no one powerful or brave answers the call, who will do so?

This is a comic that is madly entertaining, and it provided me quite a nice break in my pain and times I could not work for the reason of pain. Thank you MikeB for sending it. Here are some images from the comic covers of this comic.

Oh, if you aren't familiar with Mike Baron, you ought to be. Here are some comic cover images of what else he has written. (Click to enlarge)

Yes there are even more...

Final Notes

I can't say when I will be back, but I will have a fun review of the story so far of a comic begun in the early 1990s and remains ongoing.

In the meantime, for all your printing needs, Matt at Speed Print Inc. is amazing.

LINKS

My Poetry AlexNessPoetry.Blogspot.Com 
This place Poplitiko.Blogspot.Com
Published Works AlexNessPoetry.Blogspot.Com/2007/01/My-Work.html
Personal: AlexNessFiction.Blogspot.Com/

Social Media
https://bsky.app/profile/alexanderness63.bsky.social
https://x.com/alexnesspoetry