December Reading Log

 

2022 is over and done, and so too is my reading for the year. I've got lots of unread books on my shelves to tackle in the new year, but first let's take a look at what I finished in December!

Reading Through the Fantastic Four- #41-59 (v. 3), Annual 2001

These twenty issues mark a period of transition for the FF, a stopgap between the Loeb-Pacheco issues and the forthcoming legendary run of Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo. With a series of one-shots, two-part stories, and other light fare, some sense of normalcy was returned to the book after the off-the-wall misfire of the Claremont years.

Two highlights to point out, however. The first and easily most significant is the birth of Valeria Richards. Claremont's run ended with his popular alternate universe creation, Valeria von Doom, being ushered offstage, but with Susan Richards suddenly pregnant again with the daughter she had once miscarried. In a strange twist of fate, that daughter comes to term and, due to complications, is delivered via a mixture of science and sorcery by none other than Doctor Doom himself. His price? He gets to name the child: Valeria.

The second highlight is the revelation in a one-shot issue that Ben Grimm, the Thing, is Jewish. While this was long-assumed by comics fans, given Ben's obvious similarities to his co-creator, artist Jack Kirby, it had never been stated outright. When Ben, desperate to save someone from his old neighborhood and with his famous strength useless, begins to recite the Shema Yisrael, the implicit becomes explicit.

Overall, these issues are far from essential reading, but they're fun enough, and they feel much more like a Fantastic Four comic than the book Claremont had written. But the best is yet to come: next month we start reading the Waid-Wieringo run, considered by many (including me) to be the third-best run the book has ever seen, following only Lee-Kirby and John Byrne. Excited to get started!

INSTITUTES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION by John Calvin

Honestly, how do you write a review of this book? Institutes of the Christian Religion is inarguably one of the most influential Christian books of all time, the magnum opus of one of the church's greatest theologians, the crown jewel of an entire movement that bears its author's name. For those of a Reformed bent, Calvin's Institutes are second only to the Bible in their wisdom. As someone with both an appreciation for Reformed theology's zeal and a healthy skepticism of its excesses, I found Institutes to be a brilliant, surprisingly readable systematic theology which lays the foundation for what would come to be Reformed theology.

If I were to boil Calvin's theology down to one key tenet, it would be the sovereignty of God, and a close second would be the total depravity of man. God is holy and we are nothing apart from him, and there is zero gray area in either of those doctrines as far as Calvin is concerned. Our only hope of salvation is the grace of God, which ultimately is given through the atoning death of Christ on the cross.

You're probably nodding along so far. Nothing remotely controversial yet. Where many depart from Calvin is when he gets to the contention that salvation is predetermined by God for the 'elect'—that if you come to faith in Christ and are saved, this is not so much the result of your faith as of God predestining you to be saved before the foundations of the world. Leaning heavily on passages from Romans and Ephesians, as well as the theology of Augustine, Calvin makes the case for what today is known as double predestination: God already determined before the creation of the world who would be saved and who would be damned.

More controversy, albeit of a less cosmic bent, comes in the final of the four books into which this volume is divided. Here Calvin addresses many of the excesses of the Reformation-era Catholic Church, arguing from Scripture against things like apostolic succession, papal infallibility, transubstantiation, and other definitively Catholic doctrines. While I take little issue with where he lands on these doctrines (I am, after all, a Protestant), his polemical tone is tough to stomach at times, even if it still falls short of the bile Martin Luther directed the pope's way.

I can't say I agreed with everything Calvin put forward in his Institutes—his arguments for double predestination failed to persuade me yet again, his case for infant baptism is so weak I wonder if even he believed it, and he so elevated the Bible that he neglected the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, I was awed by his intellect and faithfulness. It may have taken me all year, but I'm glad I worked through Calvin's Institutes, and am grateful for what I learned along the way.

EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON (AND OTHER LIES I'VE LOVED) by Kate Bowler

We human beings are really bad at grief. Something within us seems to reject the very concept of suffering, and certainly its intrusion into our lives. When we encounter someone who is suffering, we hunt for platitudes or distractions or anything we can find to change the subject from their obvious pain. Oftentimes, it is not until we ourselves are faced with suffering that we learn how to handle it.

In 2015, author and academic Kate Bowler was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer, essentially a death sentence. Having spent her career to that point researching the phenomenon of the prosperity gospel, she suddenly saw her work and her life lining up, as Christian after Christian sought to explain or wish away her pain even as she was having to face it head on. Everything Happens for a Reason (and Other Lies I've Loved) is a memoir of her experience the first year after her diagnosis and how her faith and the faithful both helped her and hurt her as she suffered all the physical, emotional, and spiritual pain her cancer brought with it.

Bowler offers deep lived experience, academic training, and a way with words that makes this book a deep yet easy read. Hers is the voice of that wise friend you love to hang out with and always seem to learn something from. The book offers no easy answers, just questions, but that's kind of the point.

Bowler also hosts a podcast by the same name as her book, where she interviews people about their own dark times, and I highly recommend both the podcast and this book. Grief is something that affects us all sooner or later—better that we begin to wrestle with it before it falls in our lap.

ESSENTIAL PUNISHER VOL. 4 by Mike Baron, Bill Reinhold, Mark Texeira, Neil Hansen, Todd Smith, et al.

After four long months of mostly daily reading, my punishment has finally come to a merciful end.

I've been pretty clear since I first began reading the Punisher's earliest adventures that he's not my cup of tea. Viewed generously, he's Batman without the no-killing rule; viewed harshly, he's a straight-up serial killer whose victims just happen to be criminals. I favor the latter interpretation, so spending my mornings reading about his adventures was never something I looked forward to.

Nevertheless, I can admit that it's possible to tell a good story with a morally repugnant protagonist. Breaking Bad did it. The Sopranos did it. Heck, in the hands of writer Garth Ennis and artist Frank Dillon in the early 2000s, The Punisher did it! But writer Mike Baron, for all his knowledge of weaponry and his clear admiration for action movies of the time, was just not the guy to make Frank Castle compelling in Essential Punisher Vol. 4.

In this volume, which spans comics from 1989-1991, Baron yields to the worst impulses of an already mediocre era, glorifying in sensational violence, gender stereotypes, and action movie tropes. In his hands, Punisher is less a well-rounded character than a Rambo knockoff, devoid of a sense of humor or clear motivation. Microchip, the only consistent supporting character in the series, is a "guy in the chair" cardboard cutout, inserted for convenience and occasional humor. And the villains, with the exception of Kingpin (notably not a Punisher creation) are forgettable and rarely reused.

As for the art, it's of its time, reliant on sketchy lines, exaggerated dimensions, and a general "x-treme" ethos. No single artist sticks around for long, showing how unseriously Marvel was taking this book at the time. The cover image on this Essential is a good representation of what's within—if that appeals to you, great, but it certainly doesn't do anything for me.

Goodbye to the Punisher, and good riddance. Looking forward to spending more time now with comics—and characters—I actually enjoy.