You know what’s weird? Russian Doll’s first season came out this season. It feels like 62 years ago. That’s not related to anything, really, but it felt relevant in a particularly busy week, as the holiday season continues to try to break me, and I look down in response and whisper, “okay, sounds good.”

Big week. Let’s look at what’s happening within it in Comics Disassembled, my look at ten things I liked or didn’t like from the week of comics, led by the return of the G.O.A.T.. Please read the last part of that sentence as Mark Morrison would.

1. Lottie Grote, Superstar

Here’s a quick all time fictional character power rankings, just off the top of my head:

1. Charlotte “Lottie” Grote
2. Luna Lovegood
3. Ellen Ripley
4. Baby Yoda
5. Michael Pena’s character Luis from Ant-Man. He’s in the system.

Okay, while that might not be a comprehensive list, the #1 pick is undeniable. Lottie Grote is truly the G.O.A.T. – or the greatest of all time, in case you’re unfamiliar with such lingo or Kobe Bryant fans – in terms of fictional characters. As a staple of John Allison’s larger Tackleverse, Lottie is the character equivalent of Vin Diesel’s Dominic Toretto injecting NOS into his car’s system in the Fast and the Furious movies, except it continues to get better the more you do it in this case. Also, I presume Lottie lives life a quarter mile at a time, but I cannot confirm that.

Fast and the Furious analogies notwithstanding, Grote is getting her first solo series, as the character is graduating from her deep youth of Giant Days and teen years of Bad Machinery into full blown adulthood in a new mini-series called Wicked Things. But she isn’t living mysteries behind! Allison is channeling his favorite crime television stories through his greatest, non-Bobby Swaps creation with his old Giant Days pal Max Sarin returning for art duties.

Sarin’s art looks unbelievable in the preview pages you can find in the above link, and the whole thing sounds spectacular, pairing a whole lot of favorite things with other favorite things, while even bringing at least one old Bad Machinery favorite back beyond Lottie. It’s a mini-series as noted, but every part of me is hoping this is one of those stealth ongoings BOOM! loves to roll out because I need this in my life like Dominic Toretto needs family. Needless to say, that’s a lot. Also, why am I using so many Fast and the Furious related analogies today?

It’s coming in March 2020. Prepare yourself for glory. Set phasers to pre-order. Contact your local CGC rep. Lottie is coming, and she’s going to save comics singlehandedly. Let’s do this.

2. Secret Character Teasers, Delighting

As I’ve noted a time or two, one of my great comic marketing weaknesses – at least from a superhero standpoint – are team book teasers where part of the cast is cast in shadows of some sort, identities yet to be revealed. I love the teasers that get us as readers and fans speculating, however that happens. And these do just that.

This week Marvel rolled out a series of teasers touting “the most dysfunctional X-Men team you could possibly imagine!” with that very method employed, and man, did I love it. The combination of that hype sentence and the quite odd shape of some of the characters had even this guy throwing ideas in the hat. And you know what? The team HAS been just as weird as they promised, as it started with two relative X-Men staples – Psylocke (well…Kwannon, but the Psylocke look) and Havok – and then quickly got strange, with Nanny, Orphanmaker, Scalphunter and Mister Sinister joining them. It’s got a real Inferno-ish theme going on, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some connection there with the cast of characters involved.

I’m into how wackadoo the whole thing is, though, and it’s certainly a motley crew, even if it unfortunately does not involve Maggott as several speculated. These teasers are normally better when they have some surprised, and given that three of the characters are about as outside the box as you can ask for, I’d say they’re delivering that so far. Good job by you, Marvel!

Update: As I was finishing this, the last two characters were revealed – Wild Child (WHICH I WAS RIGHT ABOUT) and Hellion – as well as the title and creative team. It’s HELLIONS, it’s a Mister Sinister driven team, and it’s from Zeb Wells and Stephen Segovia. I like Wells, Segovia’s not bad for a Leinil Yu clone, and that team is…utter nonsense. I’m moderately intrigued. I’m 4 out of 10 on the Dawn of X scale of intrigued and 6 out of 10 on the usual scale.