My practice of Catholicism has a singular purpose: praying, more and better. In my pursuit of that purpose, I have several values - one of those values is that my faith be collaborative, and not confrontational. God is in everyone, and is revealed to me uniquely in every person I meet. So I cannot pray more and better without continually learning how to better know and love those around me. If the people in my life ever feel rejected, or judged, or misunderstood because of my faith, I know I'm not on the path towards praying more and better.

There are LOTS of people, both religious and non-religious, who just don't operate this way. The very fact of having a faith can be interpreted by others as confrontational. Justifiably, many people assume that anyone self-describing as religious is judging them in some way. Why is that a justifiable assumption? Because many people who self-describe as religious are incredibly judgy. Making my faith and unifying (and not an othering) force is something that takes work, and gets tiring. And it's discouraging, because often you try your best and it still doesn't work.

This encyclical felt like a cool glass of refreshing water, to rejuvenate that work. It felt like a de-emphasizing of the divisive cultural particulars that surround a given day, story, or situation, and reminder to focus on the basics: God loves us, and we are meant to contemplate that love and share it.

I wouldn't necessarily describe it as accessible; it felt extremely Catholic, and a little slow at times. But the focus was clear: love one another. And sometimes that's all you need to hear. I'll end with a quote, which could have been written either by Pope Francis or by Thomas Merton:

"We see, then, that in the heart of each person there is a mysterious connection between self-knowledge and openness to others, between the encounter with one's personal uniqueness and the willingness to give oneself to others. We become ourselves only to the extent that we acquire the ability to acknowledge others, while only those who can acknowledge and accept themselves are then able to encounter others."

These High Republic Star Wars books are... not good.

In a comic book shop in 2022, I overhead a conversation between the clerk and a customer. The clerk had shared they liked Star Wars, and the customer launched into a long, impassioned, and relatively well-informed speech about all the reasons Star Wars wasn't good: the stories were derivative, the science made no sense, the characters were slapdash, whatever. The clerk listened while scanning books and futzing with the cash register. When the customer was done, the clerk responded "yeah, it sucks. I like it though."

I heard that exchange from across the store and felt like I was listening to the Buddha. That "it sucks, I like it though" counts as a valid perspective had never occurred to me. It's also really the only way to find peace in fandom; you'll rarely find yourself satisfied with everything, and once you do, you can be sure it won't last.

This book was a prime example of "it sucks, I like it though." The nonsense science in this book was an active distraction - the plot didn't hold together worth a darn at any single point. At one point a character is repairing something with a tool called a "turbohammer," which immediately invokes the classic sci-fi epithet: "I got on my cyber bike to go to the cyber bar where I ordered a cyber beer." This book was absolute trash.

I liked it, though.

I fell a touch short of my regular book count last year… part of the reason for that is that I’ve never included comic books in my list, even though I’ve increasingly been reading more and more comic books, including big collections of comics like this one. Writing reviews for individual comic books doesn’t really seem like a fruitful use of time, but maybe I’ll start including these. 

There are a few main types of Captain America stories:

1. Group conspiracy against Captain America
2. Two Captain Americas fight
3. Captain America quits

This volume doesn’t have #2 (that’s in the previous volume), but it has good content for #1 and #3. Without giving any solid details, Cap quits because “the country he’s fighting for is no longer the place he knows from 1941,” and it is softly implied that when he Scooby-Doo style unmasked a bad guy, it was the president. So sort of topical, I guess, although I didn’t really love that it drove him to un-claim his title as Captain America.

That reaction feels in deep contrast to what Sheriff Billings said in the recent season of Silo: “I didn’t cross the line; the line moved.”  “Captain America quits” is definitely the hardest plot to execute well… but it’s sort of a necessary precursor to another classic Captain America story, “Captain America Comes Back”

I like Steve Englehart for a few reasons:

1. He’s from Indiana, like me
2. He’s an involved narrator
3. He’s super campy

Im currently collecting Englehart’s Fantastic Four and West Coast Avengers runs as individual issues, and I love the relationship-driven, soap-opera drama they have. These Captain America stories don’t have that same drama, but they’re fun all the same. I love all the wacky villains. 

I read these collections on glossy print with remastered colors, which people often complain about for being garish and over-the-top. I also felt this way when I started reading them, but now, at least for campy Marvel-style writers like Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the over-the-top colors help capture an psychedelic, sort of punk attitude. I have a few other of these old Cap “Epic Collection” volumes; and am excited to read them soon