If you're thinking about reading this, make sure you read the Black Hammer comics FIRST especially the one where they're on "Black Hammer Farm".

This was very cool and the art was better than the original Black Hammer comics (not sure if it's the same artist or not). You get a bunch of appearances by the Original heroes and some touching nostalgic scenes, as well as a totally new "universe" and plot. Lemire has done it again. ( )

Quantum Age: From the World of Black Hammer Volume 1
Author: Jeff Lemire (Author), Wilfredo Torres (Illustrator)
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Publishing Date: 2019
Pgs: 176
Disposition: Hoopla e-Book
_________________________________________________
REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

Summary:
A thousand years after the events the Fall of Anti-God and the events at Black Hammer Farm, a collection of superheroes from across the universe gather to form the Quantum League. After years of adventures, they fall apart in the face of a galactic threat, which though they won leads to an racist, authoritarian regime taking control of the galaxy. Humans are scourging the universe. The surviving heroes of the Quantum League must rise, along with a few of the surviving heroes of long ago.
_________________________________________________
Genre:
Dark Horse Comics
Graphic Novels
Trade Paperbacks
Superheroes

Why this book:
I’m loving Lemire’s Black Hammer stories.
_________________________________________________
The Feel:
It feels like a Legion of Superheroes meets the world of Black Hammer. Awesome.

Favorite Scene / Quote/Concept:
Love the Colonel Weird-Golden Gail “shape of things” vignette, “no, your sunglasses are over there.”

Love the young Martian with the Barbalien doll watching as the adults are herded away.

Hmm Moments:
Love the Legion pastiche. Love the callback to Legion tryouts.

Hmmm, did Hammer Lass know what was going to happen when she threw the Martian out of her bar.

I wonder, did Gravitus’s black hole powers really twist his mind...or is he under another’s control, ala this universe’s Universo...someone who always has a plan...someone who always has plan B and C and etc, etc? Is Brainiac the real bad guy? ...sorry, Archive?

The Unexpected:
Talky and the Colonel...aww. I guess a thousand years you forgive a whole lot….even whatever the hell Weird and Dragonfly were up to on Black Hammer Farm.

...Dragonfly and Randall...I thought Talky...Randall is a slut. Air Force from the 50s...what did I expect.

Missed Opportunity:
The phoenix like rebirth of Anti-God and the return of the heroes of Black Hammer Farm to fight alongside the Quantum League.
_________________________________________________
Last Page Sound:
Well, it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Utopian hope filled future, dystopia, utopian hope filled future. ...until they discover that Gravitus did a Superman One Million and arises out of a black hole to reconquer the universe in their utopian future-future, not sure about that last one, but it’s how it feels for next time.

Questions I’m Left With:
So the Farmers never make it home? They had to, didn’t they? That’s sad. Of course, comic books, this could all be an alternate future. And, if they didn’t make it home, how come that person is there...and that person...and that person?

Author Assessment:
Always back for more.
_________________________________________________ ( )

Black Hammer has made it obvious that Jeff Lemire and I read a lot of same comic books growing up. This spin off is just a big homage to DC's Legion of Super-Heroes, throwing in the Brainiac/Supergirl romance, the Time Trapper, the alien telepath Tellus, and even Keith Giffen's Five Years Later storyline. I'm happy to wallow in the nostalgia, but once again I have to wonder what a young reader without a giant stack of old comic books in his basement gets out of this series?

Also, I can only feel there is a fundamental flaw in a franchise where there are as many spin-off volumes as there are volumes of the mother series. ( )

I had never read anything by Louis L'amour until I listened to the first book in his series about the Sackett family. I enjoyed the book and the narrator and decided to continue with the series.

Set in the early 1600's this volume continues the story of Barnabas Sackett as he manages to elude a warrant in England and make his way back to the new world and the Blue Ridge Mountains he's been dreaming of ever since he returned to England.

It's part adventure and part family saga. Sackett manages to fight pirates and make friends with the Native Americans. There are plenty of hard to believe coincidences but it's entertaining and easy to let that kind of thing slide by.

I enjoy listening to John Curless. He narrates the first few books in the series and I look forward to hearing more. ( )