Devin Grayson’s “X-Men: Evolution – Volume 1” collects the first four issues of the comic featuring artwork and colors by Udon with Long Vo, Charles Park & Saka with letters by Randy Gentile. The issues serve as a prequel to the series of the same name that aired on Kids’ WB from 2000-2003. The series, based on the early “X-Men” comics, features a younger version of the team set in contemporary times that debuted shortly after “X-Men: The Movie.” The stories focus on Charles Xavier forming his school and recruiting other mutants to the cause of peaceful co-existence with humanity, beginning with Ororo Munroe, Wolverine, Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Kurt Wagner. Each issue focuses on a specific character. It also briefly showcases the ideological split between Magneto and Professor X. It’s a fun companion to the animated series for fans of the show and works well as a prelude to the series episodes.

Meg Cabot’s “Black Canary: Ignite” features art by Cara McGee, colors by Caitlin Quirk, and letters by Clayton Cowles. The story focuses on a middle-school-aged Dinah Lance who plays in a band with her friends Kat Van Dorn and Vee Ramirez. Dinah wants to eventually become a police officer like her father, but he worries about her as she begins showing signs of having powers when she can break things with her voice. Meanwhile, a mysterious figure lurks nearby observing her as a villain from Dinah’s mother’s past returns. Cabot delightfully introduces the Black Canary to a new generation of readers in this reimagining of the character. The story resembles the magical girl genre of manga, though with elements of punk rock akin to Marvel’s “Spider-Gwen.” McGee’s illustrations and Quirk’s colors perfectly match the energy of the story. This would be a fun book for DC fans to give to their younger children as well as to read themselves.

In “Docile: Memoirs of a Not-So-Perfect Asian Girl,” Hyeseung Song describes her life immigrating to Texas from Korea as a young child, growing up in poverty even while her family expects her to succeed. Her family struggles early on due to her father’s various failed business ideas and they only gain some security when her mother gets a job. The financial insecurity combined with her parents’ vastly different personalities leads to domestic violence, further adding to Hyeseung’s sense of uncertainty. Over time, she begins to make friends and find success at school, but her parents’ strict expectations leave her feeling adrift in her own home. She writes, “You learned love was entirely conditional, and you could vanish – even to your own mother – at any moment” (p. 72). Even getting into Princeton and succeeding at her classes isn’t enough to allay her feelings of displacement. Hyeseung writes, “Pinning everything on the nail of achievement had meant that failure was death and life was small. Ultimately, I had suffered anyway and my belief in this ontological structure had faltered” (p. 125). In her philosophy studies, Hyeseung found a way to describe what had been bothering her. She writes, “Descartes had devoted his life to locating contradictions and striking those that turned out to be false, in order to see if science were possible. But I wanted to know if I in any consistent way were possible. The solution up until then had been to amass achievement visible in both cultures, pursue a workable synthesis of beliefs, and shift my behavior depending on the local culture, while trying not to disappear through it all” (p. 165). Describing her mounting mental health struggles and how she perceived them during her combined law degree and philosophy PhD studies, Hyeseung writes, “My self-worth was tied to Work, as if Work were a star. Work and Worth were bound together and if one fell, then the other did, too” (p. 202). She links this to the added stress of her immigrant background and feelings of dual identities between her American and Korean cultural heritages, but this sense of self-worth will resonate with nearly anyone who has pursued graduate studies, particularly if their family treated their success or failure at these studies as reflective of the family’s worth. Hyeseung concludes, “In my life, I had tried to be a great daughter, a great student, a great wife, an American, a Korean, even a great artist – and through these pursuits, I had always chased an ought, forgetting to revel in what I actually already was” (p. 288). Song’s book will resonate with anyone who has felt torn between identities or struggled with their mental health. In particular, those with extensive experience in academia cannot help but find themselves in her words. Her honest narrative is a moving read for anyone who finds themselves feeling lost without the words to articulate the feeling.

Esmé Louise James’ “Kinky History: A Rollicking Journey through Our Sexual Past, Present, and Future” explores the history of sexuality in a compelling manner that will entertain and educate readers from academics through to casual readers while building on her social media and graduate work. She structures her book into five main subjects: sin, pleasure, queer identities, kink, and pornography. Each explores these works using classical texts as well as current historical analyses. Discussing contraception under the heading of sin, James explores historical forms of contraception, many of which may horrify modern readers. In the modern era, she links contraception to syphilis in the early sixteenth century following Jared Diamond’s research (p. 24). Similarly, in exploring sexual toys as a form of pleasure, James argues that correcting the false history of the vibrator is of critical importance. She writes, “It matters how we tell history. In linking the story of hysteria and the vibrator, we achieve a story that is funny, cheeky, and a little bit sexy – perfect for Hollywood and Broadway adaptations. It’s also insanely harmful. It paints women from recent history as mindless creatures who would allow doctors to essentially assault their bodies because their husbands said they’d been acting irrational. This isn’t the story we should be telling” (p. 84). Addressing queer history, James argues, “These stories have always been in the history books – we just need the right reading tools to be able to find them again. This is a task of great importance” (p. 95). To illuminate these stories, James highlights the lives of Elagabalus and Julius Caesar from ancient Rome, Anastasia the Patrician from sixth-century Byzantium, François-Timoléon de Choisy from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and an unnamed person from newspaper reports in the 1930s (p. 121-123). Further, she highlights cultures that recognized an intersex or third sex including the Galli in ancient Rome, the Mahu from pre-colonial Hawai‘i, and he Muxe people among the Zapotec community in pre-colonial and modern Mexico (p. 125). Though she cautions against mapping our current concepts of gender onto the past, James illuminates how LGBTQIA people have always been part of the human tapestry and have played a role throughout history while understanding gender as much more than a simple binary in their own times and terms. Turning to kink, James uses sources from the ancient world through James Joyce. She questions, “How much more could we learn about the function of a human if we stopped treating these desires as ‘freaky quirks’ and instead worked to show that they function in a holistic view of a human?” (p. 166). She moves from body parts to clothing to pain and more, alternating between literature, letters, scientific studies, and evidence from the ancient world through early modern history. In her final section, James examines pornography, though she touched on notions of pornographic materials throughout her study. She writes, “While we have a range of erotic art and literature dating back to the ancient world that we now classify as pornography, this was not even considered as a distinctly separate category until the early nineteenth century” (p. 210). Further, “pornography – a genre now often associated with heteronormative depictions of sexuality – was actually popularized as a genre by two (likely) queer men who wrote through the eyes of female sex workers” (p. 215). Above all, ethical production and consumption is important and James notes how one may healthily consume the material under these conditions, bringing her to her conclusion. James argues that sexuality is a form of empathy, best understood as a way to connect and worthy of understanding while dispelling myths. “Kinky History” is critical reading for the public with research that straddles the boundaries between popular and academic writing.

In “The Vice President’s Black Wife: The Untold Life of Julia Chinn,” Dr. Amrita Chakrabarti Myers argues, “Lying at the crossroads of race, sex, and politics, Julia’s life illuminates how some Black women in the Old South utilized interracial partnerships to negotiate and acquire a modicum of power for themselves and their families while simultaneously highlighting the clear limits of that power: the farther away the Johnson women moved from home and their networks of privilege, the less authority they had” (p. 1). Dr. Myers thoroughly researches Julia Chinn’s family from the historical record, including what personal correspondence survive as well as contemporary letters and newspaper coverage, while also incorporating later popular historiography and family histories to contextualize Julia Chinn’s legacy. Acknowledging the gaps in the historical record, Dr. Myers acknowledges that “to reconstruct the lives of enslaved women, to write Black women back into the historical narrative,” she “must use materials created by white folks, white men, who never intended for their documents to highlight Black women’s voices” (p. 7). Dr. Myers argues, “Although sexual unions in the Old South between white slave owners and Black enslaved women were common, these ‘relationships’ were always complicated affairs, where enslaved women had limited options, none of which were good, and little choice in the matter because of the intersection of slavery, racism, and patriarchy” (p. 35). Julia Chinn’s narrative, then, should not be read as one of romance as there always existed a power imbalance between her and Richard Johnson while the society in which they lived inscribed its own rules on all relationships. As Dr. Myers notes, “The Johnsons’ relationship was…never a love story. Richard was always a slaveholder. Julia was always his property” (p. 85). Despite these constraints, Dr. Myers argues, “This was Julia Chinn’s main mission. Like Black mothers well before her and those who would come long after, every step she took was carefully planned so her descendants would rise up higher, and go much further, than she herself ever would” (p. 55). When Richard Johnson opened the Choctaw Academy on his property for Native American children, it revealed the complicated racial hierarchy that shaped the lives of white settlers, enslaved and free Black people, and Native Americans. Dr. Myers argues that the episode reveals “how settler colonialism and white supremacy warps everyone” (p. 88). Similarly, the liminal semi-public space of the church afforded another realm in which Julia Chinn and her daughters might enjoy an elevated position due to class within the confines of race due to the church’s place outside of civil governance (p. 91-115). Though most modern national histories may offer only a brief discussion of Richard Johnson’s political career, Dr. Myers reveals how his relationships played a critical role in shaping that career in his own time. She examines contemporary newspaper coverage and argues, “Having sex with a Black woman and fathering children of color hasn’t prevented other white men from running for political office in the United States… The problem for Richard, however, was that he… was open about his relationship with Julia. He never married a white woman for cover” (p. 132). Going public nearly derailed his national political ambitions. As it was, Johnson became the first – and only – Vice President elected under the Twelfth Amendment (p. 157-158). Even then, he could not secure a second term as Vice President. In death, his brothers sought to disavow his and Julia’s union as well as their children (p. 169). As a result, “National attitudes toward Blackness, slavery, and interracial sex all played a role in erasing Julia Chinn and her daughters, Imogene Johnson Pence and Adaline Johnson Scott, from US history textbooks as well as from the memories of their own families” (p. 189-190). Their descendants crossed the color line, though some retained an inkling of their family’s history. Dr. Myers’ book reveals the critical intersection of race and gender in U.S. history with a focus on local, state, and national politics. Julia Chinn’s connection to a Vice President of the United States makes this history all the more important as Johnson and Chinn’s connection was known in their own time, but has since faded into the mists of history. The Vice President’s Black Wife reveals the complicated narrative of U.S. history while recovering the story of a forgotten figure who helped shape that history. This book is critical reading for any historian of nineteenth-century America.

Lauren Myracle’s “Victor and Nora: A Gotham Love Story” features art by Isaac Goodhart, colors by Cris Peter, and letters by Steve Wands. The story reimagines the meeting of Victor Fries and Nora Faria, both of whom have experienced tragedy in their seventeen years. Victor researches cryonics in order to treat disease after losing his older brother, Otto, in a fire when they were younger. Nora, suffering from chrysalisis, knows that her degenerative disease will inevitably lead her to lose herself before losing her life. Each touched by tragedy, they meet in a graveyard and find renewed life in each other’s company. Victor’s drive begins to extend to Nora, trying to give her perfect days while also researching ways to forestall the effects of her disease. The result is a great tragic retelling of Victor Fries and Nora set in the modern day. Goodhart’s art uses visual language to alternate between hope, with butterflies, and doom, with dark birds, flitting around the story. Peter’s colors similarly punctuate the story as she alternates between warm oranges and reds and colder blues and purples depending on the character or the scene. Myracle brings this classic comic book narrative into the modern era in the style of contemporary YA fiction as a great introduction to these characters for newcomers and a fun retelling for established fans.

In “The Sentimental State: How Women-Led Reform Built the American Welfare State,” Dr. Elizabeth Garner Masarik argues, “Grief and sentimentalism were major factors that influenced [women’s] political activity” and “sentimentalism gave middle-class women the language to demand protections of the mother and child connection, particularly when it came to issues of infant and maternal mortality or the sexual ‘fall’ of girls and women” (p. 2). Masarik further argues that her “subjects created the associative welfare state by creating organizations that eventually became associational arms of local and state governments, which later fed into national government entities such as the U.S. Children’s Bureau” (p. 10). She draws upon the work of scholars such as Laura Wexler and Ellis Hawley, though she counters Hawley’s rhetoric against big government despite his useful model for examining government development (p. 9). She structures her work around an examination of sentimental fiction, the development of social ideas regarding maternal bonds in the Victorian era, the actions of Black women in segregated post-Civil War America, and the actions during the Progressive Era that bridge early nineteenth-century activities with modern politics. Describing the role of early sentimental fiction, Masarik writes, “These sentimental writers used emotion to push readers to feel anger, sadness, or empathy for the characters that they read about, as well as feel anger or frustration at the social conditions that forced protagonists into horrific situations” (p. 19). She argues, “Sentimental culture captured the anxieties of two periods of danger, death, and grief in mother’s lives. One trop celebrated and mourned the purity and innocence of infancy and early childhood, the other warned of and mourned the loss of purity in late girlhood… The dangers to the family led some women to eventually move beyond sentimental reads to social activism by taking not just their own but ‘the sorrows of others’ to their hearts as well and acting upon those sorrows. Sentimentalism and emotion were core, driving forces behind middle-class women’s push into the political realm” (p. 39). Turning to political activity, Masarik opines, “It is worth noting how the funding that supported many philanthropic endeavors was coded male, while the reproductive labor of the day-to-day operations was coded female” (p. 42). Masarik writes of Victorian concepts of motherhood, “Nineteenth-century sentimental understandings of the mother and child bond, and the manner in which girls should transition into women, meant that any deviation from a sexually pure childhood and legally sanctioned sexuality in marriage was anathema. Therefore, social purity reformers were not just lamenting the rise of sex work on city streets but also the affront to middle-class standards of sexuality in young adulthood” (p. 56). Further, “The infantilization of young girls in need of rescue rallied middle-class women to their cause and perhaps filled a need for women who felt compassion in a different way, through their love of their own daughters both living and dead” (p. 65). Reformers did not solely focus on women and children. Masarik writes, “Raising moral boys was imperative to changing the status quo. Additionally, astute reformers argued that it was also a way to curb the sexual violence white men committed against Black women… [Martha] Schofield unabashedly highlighted the constant danger that some white men posed to Black girls and women, noting that white people were aware of this threat and did nothing” (p. 66). Age of consent laws offered an avenue for women to advocate for significant political change. Masarik writes, “…The battle over the age of consent caused a variety of reformers with different backgrounds to come together and argue that women had to be the maternal protectors and shields of the home. Many social purity reformers’ outspokenness was always couched in the understanding that these reforms were for the protection of the home, and particularly for the children that inhabited it” (p. 67). Describing urbanization in the New South, Masarik writes, “Women’s bodies became a central flashpoint in determining the future image of Atlanta. Prominent Atlanta citizens viewed women as either the city’s ‘best hope’ for future progress as respectable mothers raising prosperous citizens, or as the city’s ‘greatest threat,’ by embodying sin and vice” (p. 75). Contrary to the expectation of women’s labor occurring in the background, Masarik notes that “maternalists like Waller Barrett were very aware of the fine line they had to tow when entering the political realm, a space historically off-limits to women. They were stepping out of the Victorian home and into the turn-of-the-century public sphere by extending a woman’s capacity to mother, care, and nurture from her own family to the vulnerable of society” (p. 80). Addressing the early Progressive Era, Masarik writes, “As the Victorian nineteenth century gave way to the Progressive Era of the early twentieth, ideas about betrayed and fallen women took on more biological meanings, and a transition in the way reformers and social workers understood female sexuality took place” (p. 87). This entailed the transition from strictly moral language to terms incorporating eugenics and linking biology to morality in a far different manner. To this end, “The increasing connections between private charity and public welfare created spaces for women to hold positions of authority… This network of reform-minded women’s clubs was part of the Progressive Era movement toward an expanding state and federal apparatus in support of social benefits. However, this network largely maintained vestiges of nineteenth-century sentimental ideas about family and motherhood, and their romanticized views worked their way into public policy” (p. 93). Masarik notes that Black women faced their own challenges and paths to sentimental activism in the post-Civil War era. She writes, “Through social welfare, middle-class women would guide the race toward uplift and respectability. Black women reformers founded social welfare organizations, such as settlement houses, kindergartens, and rescue homes, to build their communities while imposing a moral ideological framework centered on middle-class values” (p. 98). Further, “Black women reformers developed a reliance on a Victorian sexual morality based on an ideology of sexual control or even denial to counteract the white social construction of ‘devious’ blackness. Members of the Black middle class felt intense pressure to adhere to Victorian sexual respectability, for their own safety against white men, and to control their tenuous grasp on their middle-class economic and social power” (p. 105). The labor market brought its own moral pitfalls. As Masarik notes, “Within the Victorian code of sexuality, the appearance of purity or moral sexuality was easier to claim when one labored inside of one’s own home. A majority of Black women of all economic statuses worked outside of the home, primarily out of economic necessity” (p. 110). Activism from club and other associational organizations achieved official success through the creation of the U.S. Children’s Bureau in 1912 (p. 135). Further, “to make lawmakers listen and act, large numbers of American women agitated en masse for their demands through the women’s welfare network” (p. 137). Of sentimental organizations, Masarik concludes, “Longstanding women’s voluntary organizations, coupled with the long histoy of grief and sentimentalism surrounding child and maternal death, wove the threads that knitted the associational state to the realm of reform and volunteerism” (p. 141). Masarik continues, “Groups like the GFWC, DAR, and the National Congress of Mothers were at the forefront of demanding change,” helping to advocate and publicize the work of the Children’s Bureau (p. 147). Masarik argues, “Despite a small budget, the Bureau was able to accomplish so much because of the support of the women’s welfare network” and that “the government relied on the groundwork that local organizations laid while local organizations benefited by having their causes supported and taken seriously by the government” (p. 153). These efforts were chronically underfunded and – as a result – understaffed while mothers’ pensions similarly suffered from a lack of funding and political will. Masarik writes, “Thus the need for an associational welfare state continued” (p. 161). Masarik concludes, “Sentimentalism is still an important element in public discourse surrounding children, sexuality, and welfare… The piecemeal, associational welfare state that we have today has of course aided in lowering child mortality in the United States, but the country is in no way at the vanguard of safeguarding infant and maternal health” (p. 171). She argues, “The limited supports of the current welfare state have their roots in the powerful networks of women who marshalled both sentiment and social science to advance women’s presumed shared interests” (p. 172). She argues that such collective action and modern sentimentalism offers hope for policy change to “promote the welfare of all” (p. 172). Masarik’s “The Sentimental State” offers an excellent study connecting several threads of nineteenth-century political thought as well as the role of race and gender in the United States to explore the link between decades of activism and modern political efforts. She uncovers the often-obscured role of women in these activities, highlighting how gender could offer an avenue for entry into the political arena that would normally be denied to women.

In “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – A Stitch in Time,” author and actor Andrew J. Robinson explores the backstory of his character Elim Garak. The novel alternates between three different time periods. In the present, Garak is dictating a letter to Julian Bashir after the events of “What You Leave Behind” as he helps with the clean-up on Cardassia Prime, finally able to return to his homeworld but finding that it is no longer his home. In the recent past, Garak is struggling to decode Cardassian codes prior to the invasion of Cardassia. His meetings with Dr. Julain Bashir force him to examine what it would mean to return home while he hopes for a chance at redemption both for himself personally and for the Cardassian people after actions such as the occupation of Bajor. Odo similarly begins to wonder what it would mean to return to the Founders. Finally, in the distant past, Robinson explores Garak’s life from a young boy through his time in the Bamarren Institute of State Intelligence. Following the lessons he learns there, he goes on to the Obsidian Order, eventually learning the truth about his father Enabran Tain and becoming enmeshed in Tain’s webs of intrigue. Robinson reads this audiobook adaptation himself, bringing the author’s voice to his own story and adding a touch of verisimilitude to these entries as a voice message for Dr. Bashir. Of great delight is hearing Robinson switch from his melodious voice to imitations of Julian (Alexander Siddig), Quark (Armin Shimerman), and Odo (the late René Auberjonois). In addition to the regular “DS9” cast and recurring guests, he incorporates other Cardassian characters such as Gul Madred as portrayed by the late David Warner in the “Star Trek: The Next Generation” two-parter, “Chain of Command,” revealing that Madred survived the Dominion War and seeks a new position in the changing Cardassian society. Garak in Robinson’s writing does not understand Sisko’s guilt over the death of the Romulan senator – as seen in “In the Pale Moonlight” – but attributes Sisko’s breakdown at the end of “Tears of the Prophets” to a combination of these actions as well as the loss of Jadzia Dax. Seeing Garak’s side of these events is particularly poignant given the larger role his character took on in later seasons of “Deep Space Nine.” This novel is a must-read for any “DS9” fan with the audiobook being a particular treat!

In “The Pharaoh Key,” Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child pick up with Gideon Crew who learns that his medical condition and its associated death sentence continue to hang over his head. Meanwhile, his former employer – Eli Glinn, of Effective Engineering Solutions – has shut down the company following their most recent mission. Gideon and his coworker, Manuel Garza, are given the chance to clear out the remainder of their property from the office. Garza fumes over the unceremonious end to their jobs while Gideon feels apathetic. They learn that a computer program recently decrypted the Phaistos Disc, an ancient object with unknown writing and symbols. Thinking that it holds the secret to a treasure and wanting some last measure of security, Garza and Gideon heist the translation and plan an expedition to recover and sell whatever treasure the disc leads them to. They travel to a remote region of Egypt and find more and more complications, from disasters surrounding their means of travel to a compelling Lara Croft-type character named Imogen Blackburn to the discovery of an extant Coptic village in a mist valley cut off from the outside world. The story is a great adventure story from Preston & Child, masters of the thriller. They instantly drop the reader in the adventure, making them care about these characters while they take them from cliffhanger to cliffhanger. The story has a great MacGuffin that works well as a main subject for the quest while Imogen Blackburn nicely balances out the Gideon-Garza dynamic. Even as the twists and turns resemble an adventure serial, Preston & Child keep the reader involved and pay off their MacGuffin in a satisfying way. David W. Collins does an admirable job reading the story, creating distinct voices for each character with particular emphasis on Garza’s NYC accent. The story will appeal to fans of Gideon Crew and to Preston & Child’s writing.

James Tynion IV’s “The Sandman Universe: Nightmare Country – The Glass House” collects the first six issues of the “Sandman” spin-off comic as well as “The Sandman Universe Special: Thessaly” #1 featuring art by Lisandro Estherren, Patricio Delpeche, and Maria Llovet, colors by Delpeche and Llovet, letters by Simon Bowland, and covers by Reiko Murakami. In the story, the new Corinthian and the cat that was Madison Flynn investigate the Prophet organization and its connections to a new club, The King of Pain. The angel Moroni continues to work to spread the life story of Madison in order to attain new power while the owner of The King of Pain, Azazel, seeks to tempt the Corinthian to embrace his old ways. Drawn into the investigation, Thessaly finds herself an unlikely ally of Lucien, Madison, and the Corinthian, though she remains at odds with the Dream King. The story reveals that all of these occurrances connect to the larger conflict between Dream and Desire, with Desire launching their plan back during the events of “Three Septembers and a January” from “The Sandman” #31. These additions to the Sandman Universe continue to expand the world beyond Neil Gaiman’s original epic, though Dream only makes minor appearances so as to leave his narrative largely intact should Gaiman return at a later date. Tynion ably adds to the larger meta-narrative than began in the 1990s with various “Sandman” spin-offs. This second volume resolves much of a story points from the first volume, though it leaves the door open to continue exploring Desire’s plans. The ending may strike some readers as abrupt, however. Hopefully the larger narrative of Dream and Desire continues to play out in future volumes.