The title says it all...more comics I read.
Spider-Man Worldwide Vol 4: The "Dead No More Clone Conspiracy" begins to ramp up. The evil Hyena is making clones of dead Spidey foes and loved ones of other people like J Jonah Jameson's wife and Electro's girlfriend. His attempt to bring back the Kingpin's wife is far less appreciated--the Kingpin snaps her neck. At the same time, Peter Parker's step-uncle (Jameson's dad/Aunt May's second husband) needs an operation that the Hyena's front operation could help with but Peter convinces him not to go through with it because he senses something is wrong. And after being Peter Parker for over 2 years and then downloading himself into a robot, Doctor Octopus finally gets his body body! It's all just a lot of table-setting for what should be the big event. (2.5/5)
Transformers vs. GI JOE (IDW): Back in the 80s Marvel did a crossover of their Transformers and GI JOE titles. It was notable for GI JOE killing Bumblebee for whatever reason, though he eventually came back as Goldbug. This is a completely different thing. It's an Elseworlds story that starts out making very little sense. Transformers show up on Earth and fight with GI JOE before teaming with COBRA while GI JOE invades the Transformers homeworld of Cybertron, where Megatron has taken control of the planet and banished the Autobots to ghettos while Optimus Prime has gone missing. There are three volumes, the first of which is almost nonsensical. Gradually the threads start coming together to an ending that almost makes sense...in a still pretty gonzo way. There are some nice references, even including the obnoxious "Kremzeek" entity from a terrible Transformers cartoon episode, but besides the story the art looks like Napoleon Dynamite drew it most of the time. IDW makes it look worse by including alternate covers drawn by real artists to promise what might have been. (2/5)
Drift: Empire of Stone: After being banished from the Autobots for taking the fall for a crime he didn't commit, Autobot Drift has been rounding up renegade Decepticons on the edge of the galaxy. But then a threat takes him back to a planet where as a Decepticon Drift encountered an army made of stone that could help to take over the galaxy. Decepticons are trying to revive the army now and only Drift can stop them! The stone army thing reminded me of Hellboy II and the Discworld novel Interesting Times. It was a fun miniseries and helps to fill in what happened to Drift after he left in the More Than Meets the Eye series. (3/5)
Drift Miniseries: This was Drift's first solo appearance after appearing in the All Hail Megatron series. It tells how he tries to overthrow his unit commander and gets banished. Crashing on a seemingly uninhabited planet, he finds some slavers and a Cybertronian wanting to free them. There are more Cybertronians underground, all of them refugees from the Autobot-Decepticon war who have sworn off war. Drift eventually decides to switch sides and help them take down the slavers. Overall a good comic though maybe it should have gone one issue longer to let things have more time to wrap up. (3.5/5)
Autocracy: This is a Transformers prequel from IDW Comics co-written by former Transformers cartoon/1986 movie writer Flint Dille. Decepticons and "insurgents" across the Transformer homeworld of Cybertron have led to a brutal crackdown by Autobot leader Zeta Prime. Orion Pax is a disgruntled cop for the "Autocracy" who ultimately joins forces with Megatron and the Decepticons to stop Zeta's grand scheme. The alliance is short-lived because of course Megatron turns on Orion, who then rises from the grave as...Optimus Prime. There are obvious nods to our post-9/11 world and Transformers history, including a scene from the 1986 movie that goes a bit differently this time around. It's was a fun read to deepen the Transfomers mythos. (3.5/5)
Showing posts with label Comics Recap. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Comics Recap. Show all posts
Friday, March 10, 2017
Friday, January 6, 2017
Comics I Read, Mostly Featuring Transformers and Dr. Strange Because They Were On Sale
Happy Epiphany! At least that's what it is in some religions in parts of the world. The whole "12 Days of Christmas" thing is supposed to be between Christmas and Epiphany. Still don't know who wants all those birds and servants and musicians.
Anyway, I've mostly watched Christmas stuff recently so I thought I'd instead review some comics that I bought over the holiday season.
Transformers: Dark Cybertron: IDW's Transformers series tries to mesh together pretty much all the non-Michael Bay incarnations of Transformers, including Beast Wars characters. It can be kind of confusing. And especially because a lot has happened in the series up to this point. Starscream is heading a unified government on Cybertron, until Shockwave (who is kind of like a Star Trek Vulcan, all logic and no emotions) launches an elaborate scheme to take over the planet and the universe. There are a lot of moving parts with things happening on Cybertron, in deep space, and in the "dead universe" which is some kind of netherworld dimension. I enjoyed it even though I didn't really understand all that happened up to that point. (3/5)
Transformers: Combiner Wars: The series eventually continued with the relaunch of combiner teams. They were Hasbro's answer to Voltron where five mini robots formed one super robot. The evil Menasor is let loose on a Cybertronian colony and then the heroic Superion is sent to fight him. But then there are more combiners introduced (reintroduced) like Devastator, Defensor, Bruticus, and Optimus Maximus, which was something that would have been neat in the old series since it features Optimus Prime and four other Autobots. Like the other it was fun even if I didn't get all the background. (3/5)
Dr. Strange Masterworks Volume 1: This is the original Dr. Strange series featured in Strange Tales back in the early 60s, written by Stan "the Man" Lee. Like Spider-Man it started as a backup feature with the Human Torch carrying the main title for a while and then Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD. Those parts are not included so you just get the 8 page stories of Dr. Strange. Somehow they became popular despite that they were pretty corny. The writing was pretty lame. Everyone uses exclamation points! All the time! It gets annoying! Most of the stories are Dr. Strange fighting his nemesis Baron Mordo, Nightmare, or Dorammadu. It didn't really pick up until the last six issues or so where there's a continuous story of Mordo and Dorammadu teaming up and Strange going on the run. Still, it's really hard to imagine how this launched a title popular enough to get a big movie made. (2/5)
Dr. Strange: The Oath: This 2012 version written by Brian K Vaughn has an almost noirish feel as Dr. Strange is shot by a burglar armed with Hitler's suicide gun, a weapon so evil it could penetrate Strange's magical defenses. Saved by the "Night Nurse" (you might have seen her on Daredevil, Luke Cage, and Jessica Jones on Netflix) Strange, his servant Wong, and the nurse go on the trail of the killer. It soon leads them to a pharmaceutical company and a cure for any disease known to man. It was fun without seeming generically so. Strange has kind of a stuffy know-it-all quality that conflicts perfectly with the more down-to-earth Night Nurse with Wong as the intermediary between them. The story of evil Big Pharma also is pretty relevant to our times. (4/5)
Dr. Strange: The Way of the Weird: I think this was the latest relaunch of the title, but with Marvel who can tell anymore? Dr. Strange faces a threat outside our dimension as some outside force called the Inquisition is tracking down and killing magic users. This is making magic harder to use and eventually the war is going to end up on Strange's doorstep. This story is largely a copy of "Spider-Verse" where an evil family was hunting and killing all the Spider-Men (and Women) from other dimensions. The writing wasn't bad but it just felt generic with the bland, wise-cracking hero. Pick up pretty much any other Marvel title from 2015 and it'll feel exactly the same. I suppose being bought by Disney has led to this homogeneous feel. (2.5/5)
Dr. Strange & Dr. Doom: Triumph & Torment: This graphic novel from the 80s or something pairs up Dr. Strange and Dr. Doom. A wizard has a challenge to see who will be the Sorcerer Supreme of Earth. Dr. Doom shows up because he has some magic ability. Of course Dr. Strange wins but Doom asks him a boon that he can't refuse. That boon is to go to Hell and rescue the soul of Doom's mother. So they go to Hell and fight Mephisto who is the Marvel Universe's Lucifer or whatever. The hell part wasn't as epic as it could have been but the end was good. To pad the book's length they add a couple of random Dr. Strange, Dr. Doom, and Sub-Mariner comics that tangentially apply to this, the Sub-Mariner ones mostly because they're drawn by the same artist, Mike Mignolo, who gained recognition for his Hellboy series. That was kind of lame but oh well. (3/5)
Justice League 3001, Vol 1: Sometime during the New 52 DC started Justice League 3000, which was kind of like Futurama--with superheroes! Cloned versions of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, etc are created to save the universe from "the five" that's like the evil Empire or whatever. The clones are imperfect, though, without all the memories of the originals and in Superman's case he can't fly or use heat vision. Anyway, 3001 obviously picks up a couple of months later. The head of the League has been possessed by an evil Lois Lane who sends them on dangerous missions hoping they'll die. Meanwhile a gender-swapped Guy Gardner Green Lantern joins the team, in case you thought I was the only one to do that sort of thing. It's pretty fun but confusing. For one I didn't read the first year of issues and for another there are a lot of loose threads. I want to read the second (and I think final) volume to see how much gets resolved. This volume has a killer ending (pun intended) where Superman literally loses his head. I'd worry about spoilers if I thought anyone who reads this would ever bother to read it. (3/5)
Amazing Spider-Man, Worldwide, Vol 2: Peter Parker's globe-trotting adventures continue. In this volume he battles Mr. Negative in China and then Scorpio in Paris/England. It's a good continuation of Slott's Spider-Man that has been going for over a decade. (3/5)
Anyway, I've mostly watched Christmas stuff recently so I thought I'd instead review some comics that I bought over the holiday season.
Transformers: Dark Cybertron: IDW's Transformers series tries to mesh together pretty much all the non-Michael Bay incarnations of Transformers, including Beast Wars characters. It can be kind of confusing. And especially because a lot has happened in the series up to this point. Starscream is heading a unified government on Cybertron, until Shockwave (who is kind of like a Star Trek Vulcan, all logic and no emotions) launches an elaborate scheme to take over the planet and the universe. There are a lot of moving parts with things happening on Cybertron, in deep space, and in the "dead universe" which is some kind of netherworld dimension. I enjoyed it even though I didn't really understand all that happened up to that point. (3/5)
Transformers: Combiner Wars: The series eventually continued with the relaunch of combiner teams. They were Hasbro's answer to Voltron where five mini robots formed one super robot. The evil Menasor is let loose on a Cybertronian colony and then the heroic Superion is sent to fight him. But then there are more combiners introduced (reintroduced) like Devastator, Defensor, Bruticus, and Optimus Maximus, which was something that would have been neat in the old series since it features Optimus Prime and four other Autobots. Like the other it was fun even if I didn't get all the background. (3/5)
Dr. Strange Masterworks Volume 1: This is the original Dr. Strange series featured in Strange Tales back in the early 60s, written by Stan "the Man" Lee. Like Spider-Man it started as a backup feature with the Human Torch carrying the main title for a while and then Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD. Those parts are not included so you just get the 8 page stories of Dr. Strange. Somehow they became popular despite that they were pretty corny. The writing was pretty lame. Everyone uses exclamation points! All the time! It gets annoying! Most of the stories are Dr. Strange fighting his nemesis Baron Mordo, Nightmare, or Dorammadu. It didn't really pick up until the last six issues or so where there's a continuous story of Mordo and Dorammadu teaming up and Strange going on the run. Still, it's really hard to imagine how this launched a title popular enough to get a big movie made. (2/5)
Dr. Strange: The Oath: This 2012 version written by Brian K Vaughn has an almost noirish feel as Dr. Strange is shot by a burglar armed with Hitler's suicide gun, a weapon so evil it could penetrate Strange's magical defenses. Saved by the "Night Nurse" (you might have seen her on Daredevil, Luke Cage, and Jessica Jones on Netflix) Strange, his servant Wong, and the nurse go on the trail of the killer. It soon leads them to a pharmaceutical company and a cure for any disease known to man. It was fun without seeming generically so. Strange has kind of a stuffy know-it-all quality that conflicts perfectly with the more down-to-earth Night Nurse with Wong as the intermediary between them. The story of evil Big Pharma also is pretty relevant to our times. (4/5)
Dr. Strange: The Way of the Weird: I think this was the latest relaunch of the title, but with Marvel who can tell anymore? Dr. Strange faces a threat outside our dimension as some outside force called the Inquisition is tracking down and killing magic users. This is making magic harder to use and eventually the war is going to end up on Strange's doorstep. This story is largely a copy of "Spider-Verse" where an evil family was hunting and killing all the Spider-Men (and Women) from other dimensions. The writing wasn't bad but it just felt generic with the bland, wise-cracking hero. Pick up pretty much any other Marvel title from 2015 and it'll feel exactly the same. I suppose being bought by Disney has led to this homogeneous feel. (2.5/5)
Dr. Strange & Dr. Doom: Triumph & Torment: This graphic novel from the 80s or something pairs up Dr. Strange and Dr. Doom. A wizard has a challenge to see who will be the Sorcerer Supreme of Earth. Dr. Doom shows up because he has some magic ability. Of course Dr. Strange wins but Doom asks him a boon that he can't refuse. That boon is to go to Hell and rescue the soul of Doom's mother. So they go to Hell and fight Mephisto who is the Marvel Universe's Lucifer or whatever. The hell part wasn't as epic as it could have been but the end was good. To pad the book's length they add a couple of random Dr. Strange, Dr. Doom, and Sub-Mariner comics that tangentially apply to this, the Sub-Mariner ones mostly because they're drawn by the same artist, Mike Mignolo, who gained recognition for his Hellboy series. That was kind of lame but oh well. (3/5)
Justice League 3001, Vol 1: Sometime during the New 52 DC started Justice League 3000, which was kind of like Futurama--with superheroes! Cloned versions of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, etc are created to save the universe from "the five" that's like the evil Empire or whatever. The clones are imperfect, though, without all the memories of the originals and in Superman's case he can't fly or use heat vision. Anyway, 3001 obviously picks up a couple of months later. The head of the League has been possessed by an evil Lois Lane who sends them on dangerous missions hoping they'll die. Meanwhile a gender-swapped Guy Gardner Green Lantern joins the team, in case you thought I was the only one to do that sort of thing. It's pretty fun but confusing. For one I didn't read the first year of issues and for another there are a lot of loose threads. I want to read the second (and I think final) volume to see how much gets resolved. This volume has a killer ending (pun intended) where Superman literally loses his head. I'd worry about spoilers if I thought anyone who reads this would ever bother to read it. (3/5)
Amazing Spider-Man, Worldwide, Vol 2: Peter Parker's globe-trotting adventures continue. In this volume he battles Mr. Negative in China and then Scorpio in Paris/England. It's a good continuation of Slott's Spider-Man that has been going for over a decade. (3/5)
Friday, October 7, 2016
More Comic Book Reviews You Won't Read and Don't Care About...
The title says it all! So let's get to it because we all have better things to do be doing than this.
Return of the Living Deadpool: It's a world where the population has been overrun by zombies and Deadpools! In Night of the Living Deadpool, he found that when bit by a zombie the zombie would become him. Now months later there are hundreds of Deadpools around. Will the real one please stand up? So basically Deadpool and a girl fight zombies and a lot of Deadpools. It's far more Deadpool than just about anyone has ever wanted. Deadpool! (2.5/5)
Arkham War: During DC's forgettable "Forever Evil" crossover event in 2013 there was a subsection about all the villains of Arkham getting free to overrun Gotham City and split it among themselves while Batman and the other heroes were gone. Meanwhile Bane gathers an army from Latin America and invades the city to take it over. I mostly wanted to read it because at one point Bane builds his own Batman armor sort of what Azrael used to defeat him in the 90s, but there wasn't as much of that as I would have liked and the inevitable Batman vs. Bane battle was anything but royale. (2.5/5)
Original Sin: This was a forgettable Marvel crossover event from 2013 or so. Someone has killed "The Watcher" this creepy bald alien who lives on the moon and...watches stuff happen but never gets involved. Someone then uses the stuff the Watcher has saved up over the years to traumatize the heroes. Notably Thor loses his hammer and later it's picked up by Jane Foster who has since been Thor. That's probably the only memorable thing to come out of this. Otherwise it's OK. (2.5/5)
Captain America: Operation Rebirth: Back in the 90s Captain America "died" (again) when the serum in his blood petered out or some damned thing. Anyway, he's brought back to life by his archenemy the Red Skull because Adolf Hitler is taking over a cosmic cube and could destroy all reality. So they have to work together to stop him but of course there's a double-cross. The art is extremely 90s and the Avengers team featured at the beginning is pretty pathetic: no Cap, no Iron Man, no Thor, no Hulk, no Vision, etc. Anyway, another forgettable series because really since then Captain America has "died" and come back probably 3 more times. (2/5)
We Stand on Guard: Set about a hundred years from now, global warming has prompted America to fake a terrorist attack as an excuse to invade our neighbor to the north. Years later, a small group of Canucks valiantly fights back. It's a little heavy-handed but I could definitely see something like this happening, probably sooner than this predicts. This could really have used more than 6 issues because it all happens so quickly. (3/5)
Amazing Spider-Man: Worldwide: I'm not even sure which series renumbering this is anymore. Marvel seems to renumber their comics every year, now there are so many Amazing Spider-Man #1s and Thor #1s and Captain America #1s and Iron Man #1s that who can keep track? Anyway, the Secret Wars event handed New York City to Miles Morales Spider-Man so Peter Parker gets to roam the world as a billionaire playboy with lots of cool gadgets. It really is like Batman only with a sense of humor. A group called the Zodiac is after stuff Peter's company has and so he and SHIELD have to stop them with new toys like the Spider-Mobile. Like the rest of Dan Slott's lengthy Spidey run it's lighthearted fun but not too campy. About the only thing lacking was Spidey's love life. I'm not sure who he's even supposed to be shacking up with anymore. (3/5)
Spawn: Origins, Vol 1: I watched the crappy Spawn movie and the less-crappy Spawn TV series but had never read any Spawn comics until they went on sale a couple weeks ago. The first two issues are like the first season of the series: lethargic and confusing. The last four get things moving a little more. It's a little less confusing than the TV show and not as dumb as the movie. Kind of annoying though that it ends in the middle of a story arc where a cyborg hitman is sent by the Mafia to kill Spawn. Anyway, these were OK even if I don't have the nostalgia working for me like other people. (3/5)
Spawn: Origins, Vol 2: I decided to buy the second volume. It starts off concluding the story from the previous volume as Spawn takes on the cyborg hitman in a not entirely satisfying battle. From there it's kind of a hodgepodge. The series by then had I guess enough notoriety to attract some top-flight talent. Alan Moore of Watchmen, V for Vendetta, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, etc writes issue #8 where a child murderer Spawn killed travels through Hell and ultimately becomes a Hellspawn. Neil Gaiman of Sandman, Coraline, American Gods, etc. writes issue #9 about an angel named Angela (ha) who tracks down and kills a Hellspawn in the Middle Ages and is then defeated by the modern Spawn. Frank Miller of The Dark Knight Returns, 300, and Sin City writes a moronic story about two cheesy gangs fighting over Spawn's favorite alley. The funny part was they don't list the credits in the book but I could guess which was written by which author. I rule! Anyway, there are new concepts about the Hellspawns and their powers and such introduced but overall it has that lethargic feel from the early issues. It'd be nice if instead of moping around the alley waiting for stuff to come to him, Spawn actually went out and kicked some ass. But part of the problem is McFarlane set up this idea that a Hellspawn has only so much power and when it's gone, he dies, so that kind of limits what the character can do. So you end up with more moping and playing defense than going on the offensive. (2.5/5)
Wonder Woman: Earth One, Volume 1: This never really gets into much superhero stuff, except that she stops a bus from falling off a bridge and lifts a jeep over her head. Most of it is set on Paradise Island as young Diana, like Luke Skywalker, wants to go out and see the world. She finds Steve Trevor and fights in a tournament to take possession of an invisible jet to take him home, but her mom isn't happy about it. That's pretty much all there is to it. The first origin given to Diana is the "shaped from clay" George Perez one but then there's a more modern one that's akin to invitro fertilization. The next volume promises to have more traditional Wonder Woman stuff as she enters "Man's World." While some of the worldbuilding and attempt to create a backstory is nice, a little less conversation, a little more action please, as Elvis once sang. (2.5/5)
Return of the Living Deadpool: It's a world where the population has been overrun by zombies and Deadpools! In Night of the Living Deadpool, he found that when bit by a zombie the zombie would become him. Now months later there are hundreds of Deadpools around. Will the real one please stand up? So basically Deadpool and a girl fight zombies and a lot of Deadpools. It's far more Deadpool than just about anyone has ever wanted. Deadpool! (2.5/5)
Arkham War: During DC's forgettable "Forever Evil" crossover event in 2013 there was a subsection about all the villains of Arkham getting free to overrun Gotham City and split it among themselves while Batman and the other heroes were gone. Meanwhile Bane gathers an army from Latin America and invades the city to take it over. I mostly wanted to read it because at one point Bane builds his own Batman armor sort of what Azrael used to defeat him in the 90s, but there wasn't as much of that as I would have liked and the inevitable Batman vs. Bane battle was anything but royale. (2.5/5)
Original Sin: This was a forgettable Marvel crossover event from 2013 or so. Someone has killed "The Watcher" this creepy bald alien who lives on the moon and...watches stuff happen but never gets involved. Someone then uses the stuff the Watcher has saved up over the years to traumatize the heroes. Notably Thor loses his hammer and later it's picked up by Jane Foster who has since been Thor. That's probably the only memorable thing to come out of this. Otherwise it's OK. (2.5/5)
Captain America: Operation Rebirth: Back in the 90s Captain America "died" (again) when the serum in his blood petered out or some damned thing. Anyway, he's brought back to life by his archenemy the Red Skull because Adolf Hitler is taking over a cosmic cube and could destroy all reality. So they have to work together to stop him but of course there's a double-cross. The art is extremely 90s and the Avengers team featured at the beginning is pretty pathetic: no Cap, no Iron Man, no Thor, no Hulk, no Vision, etc. Anyway, another forgettable series because really since then Captain America has "died" and come back probably 3 more times. (2/5)
We Stand on Guard: Set about a hundred years from now, global warming has prompted America to fake a terrorist attack as an excuse to invade our neighbor to the north. Years later, a small group of Canucks valiantly fights back. It's a little heavy-handed but I could definitely see something like this happening, probably sooner than this predicts. This could really have used more than 6 issues because it all happens so quickly. (3/5)
Amazing Spider-Man: Worldwide: I'm not even sure which series renumbering this is anymore. Marvel seems to renumber their comics every year, now there are so many Amazing Spider-Man #1s and Thor #1s and Captain America #1s and Iron Man #1s that who can keep track? Anyway, the Secret Wars event handed New York City to Miles Morales Spider-Man so Peter Parker gets to roam the world as a billionaire playboy with lots of cool gadgets. It really is like Batman only with a sense of humor. A group called the Zodiac is after stuff Peter's company has and so he and SHIELD have to stop them with new toys like the Spider-Mobile. Like the rest of Dan Slott's lengthy Spidey run it's lighthearted fun but not too campy. About the only thing lacking was Spidey's love life. I'm not sure who he's even supposed to be shacking up with anymore. (3/5)
Spawn: Origins, Vol 1: I watched the crappy Spawn movie and the less-crappy Spawn TV series but had never read any Spawn comics until they went on sale a couple weeks ago. The first two issues are like the first season of the series: lethargic and confusing. The last four get things moving a little more. It's a little less confusing than the TV show and not as dumb as the movie. Kind of annoying though that it ends in the middle of a story arc where a cyborg hitman is sent by the Mafia to kill Spawn. Anyway, these were OK even if I don't have the nostalgia working for me like other people. (3/5)
Spawn: Origins, Vol 2: I decided to buy the second volume. It starts off concluding the story from the previous volume as Spawn takes on the cyborg hitman in a not entirely satisfying battle. From there it's kind of a hodgepodge. The series by then had I guess enough notoriety to attract some top-flight talent. Alan Moore of Watchmen, V for Vendetta, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, etc writes issue #8 where a child murderer Spawn killed travels through Hell and ultimately becomes a Hellspawn. Neil Gaiman of Sandman, Coraline, American Gods, etc. writes issue #9 about an angel named Angela (ha) who tracks down and kills a Hellspawn in the Middle Ages and is then defeated by the modern Spawn. Frank Miller of The Dark Knight Returns, 300, and Sin City writes a moronic story about two cheesy gangs fighting over Spawn's favorite alley. The funny part was they don't list the credits in the book but I could guess which was written by which author. I rule! Anyway, there are new concepts about the Hellspawns and their powers and such introduced but overall it has that lethargic feel from the early issues. It'd be nice if instead of moping around the alley waiting for stuff to come to him, Spawn actually went out and kicked some ass. But part of the problem is McFarlane set up this idea that a Hellspawn has only so much power and when it's gone, he dies, so that kind of limits what the character can do. So you end up with more moping and playing defense than going on the offensive. (2.5/5)
Wonder Woman: Earth One, Volume 1: This never really gets into much superhero stuff, except that she stops a bus from falling off a bridge and lifts a jeep over her head. Most of it is set on Paradise Island as young Diana, like Luke Skywalker, wants to go out and see the world. She finds Steve Trevor and fights in a tournament to take possession of an invisible jet to take him home, but her mom isn't happy about it. That's pretty much all there is to it. The first origin given to Diana is the "shaped from clay" George Perez one but then there's a more modern one that's akin to invitro fertilization. The next volume promises to have more traditional Wonder Woman stuff as she enters "Man's World." While some of the worldbuilding and attempt to create a backstory is nice, a little less conversation, a little more action please, as Elvis once sang. (2.5/5)
Friday, July 31, 2015
Movies! 7/31 + Comics Recap!
So last weekend stuff happened...
This week you get Tom Cruise hanging off airplanes and stuff in "Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation." I think I mentioned before that last year I wrote a first draft for a Girl Power universe novel I called Rogue State, which I think is a better title. At some point I need to find my revised outline to rewrite that. Or not. Whatever. Anyway, I was one of those rare people who really liked the first "Mission: Impossible" but I never watched the second and third ones. They've certainlysquandered utilized a lot of directorial talent: Brian de Palma, John Woo, JJ Abrams, and Brad Bird. I guess this time Tom Cruise hired a guy whom he's familiar with since he directed "Jack Reacher" and wrote "Edge of Tomorrow" and "Valkyrie" in which Cruise starred. Does that fill you with confidence or not?
Anyway, since I've been unemployed I haven't read as many comics as I used to but in the last couple of months there were some decent sales so I was able to catch up on some stuff. Like this:
Batgirl Vol. 1 Batgirl of Burnside: This is the much-anticipated "soft reboot" that moves Batgirl from Gotham to "Burnside" which is supposed to be hipper, like Seattle or something though conveniently across the bridge from Gotham so she can still do Batman stuff. Anyway, she moves and all her Batgirl stuff gets burned so she has to make a new costume and recruit some new guy to make stuff for her and her doctoral thesis gets ruined, etc. When it got to the part where she goes to see her doctoral thesis supervisor I finally realized what the writers had done: they made Batgirl into Spider-Man! You know how Spider-Man is always plagued by problems like keeping a job and a girlfriend and all that while also fighting crime? That's what they're doing here. So as much as people might have wanted to hail the writers for reinventing the wheel, they didn't. They just added more social media references to pander to millenials. Kind of disappointing really. (2.5/5)
Superman Doomed: What happens when you put Greg Pak who wrote the famous Planet Hulk series and Charles Soule who wrote on She-Hulk on Superman titles? They turn Superman into the Hulk! That's basically what happens when Superman fights Doomsday (the dude who "killed" him in the 90s) and gets infected with a virus that turns Superman into Doomsday. Like the Hulk, Doomsday is a mostly brainless monster who rampages around causing all sorts of destruction, except he also has Superman's powers to fly, shoot heat rays, etc. This comes in handy when Brainiac shows up to destroy the world. I thought it was mostly fun. For $5 I got a hell of a deal because there were a bunch of comics packed into the one volume, which included a couple of Supergirl ones that were only slightly relevant. This wasn't the biggest event in DC history but you get a lot of familiar characters like the Justice League, Martian Manhunter, Red Lanterns, and even Swamp Thing. I think more could have been done with the "Superdoom" character (like a better name) but mostly it was good and you didn't need to be that up on goings on in the DC universe to get it. (3.5/5)
Forever Evil: This was a bigger recent DC event. The volume I read only covered the 7 main issues of the series but there were a bunch of spin-offs that would sort of help to understand the full picture, but I wasn't about to go spend like $100 for all that stuff. Anyway, the Justice League is trapped inside Firestorm (except Batman because Batman) while their dopplegangers from an evil parallel universe (who don't all have goatees) take over Earth. Lex Luthor and some other villains chafe at these bad guys getting on their turf and thus join forces with Batman to fight back. Overall it was OK. The relationship between Luthor and his Superman clone B-Zero (Bizarro) was cute. BTW, I used the overall concept for my Girl Power novel League of Evil. I'm just saying. (2.5/5)
Green Lantern: Wrath of the First Lantern: Like Superman: Doomed, this was a really good deal for $5 because it's like 14 comics from the various Lantern titles. As the title suggests, the various colored Lanterns have to battle the "First Lantern" who sucks emotions like a vampire and uses the power to attempt to alter reality. This was the end of Geoff Johns' lengthy run on the title and as such it wraps up a lot of what he had introduced along the way. If you're not up on all the minutiae of the Green Lantern series of the last 10 years then you won't necessarily understand all of what's going on. There probably could have been more done with the First Lantern concept, but this wasn't a bad sendoff. (3/5)
DC: The New Frontier: This is supposed to be an homage to the "Silver Age" of comics in the 50s, except unlike those comics it throws in a lot of stuff about the Red scare and emerging civil rights movement. A lot of it focuses on Hal Jordan, who survived Korea and has been struggling ever since. Much of the rest focuses on John Jones, aka Martian Manhunter, a Martian who disguises himself as a police detective. More familiar characters like Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman make appearances. And then all the heroes get together to destroy a big weird space monster. Um, yeah. That. The monster didn't really make for an interesting villain, so that was kind of lacking. Otherwise it was OK. (2.5/5)
Batman Year 100: I was a little confused by the title. Was it set in the year 100? No, actually it's 2039, which would be 100 years from when Batman debuted. "The Batman" runs around fighting evil government guys...why? And who is he? There were really no satisfactory answers, which made this ultimately frustrating. Plus the art wasn't very good. It's the kind where everything is all out of proportion and kind of crude. (2/5)
Death of Wolverine: They probably should have put quotes around the death part, though surprisingly they haven't really brought Wolverine back. Anyway, this 4-issue limited series didn't really have the epic feel you would want for something like this. Somehow Logan loses his ability to heal and so lots of bad guys try to kill him. He eventually hunts down his creator for revenge or something. It was the kind of ending where probably if they had wanted him to live he could have found a way to do so. (1/5)
Amazing Spider-Man Vol 1: You might not have realized that for nearly 3 years Peter Parker had the brain of Dr. Octopus inside of him. Eventually that came to an end and this is where it picks up. Doc Ock has sort of made a mess of things so Peter Parker has to try to pick up the pieces. Meanwhile a new threat looms on the horizon! Remember what I said in the Batgirl review about Spider-Man? There's a lot of that on display here. Having read quite a bit of Dan Slott's Spider-Man run this is really a good continuation of the series with the same lighthearted fun and mayhem you would expect. The only real problem is since this is Volume 1 the stakes aren't that high yet. (3/5)
This week you get Tom Cruise hanging off airplanes and stuff in "Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation." I think I mentioned before that last year I wrote a first draft for a Girl Power universe novel I called Rogue State, which I think is a better title. At some point I need to find my revised outline to rewrite that. Or not. Whatever. Anyway, I was one of those rare people who really liked the first "Mission: Impossible" but I never watched the second and third ones. They've certainly
Anyway, since I've been unemployed I haven't read as many comics as I used to but in the last couple of months there were some decent sales so I was able to catch up on some stuff. Like this:
Batgirl Vol. 1 Batgirl of Burnside: This is the much-anticipated "soft reboot" that moves Batgirl from Gotham to "Burnside" which is supposed to be hipper, like Seattle or something though conveniently across the bridge from Gotham so she can still do Batman stuff. Anyway, she moves and all her Batgirl stuff gets burned so she has to make a new costume and recruit some new guy to make stuff for her and her doctoral thesis gets ruined, etc. When it got to the part where she goes to see her doctoral thesis supervisor I finally realized what the writers had done: they made Batgirl into Spider-Man! You know how Spider-Man is always plagued by problems like keeping a job and a girlfriend and all that while also fighting crime? That's what they're doing here. So as much as people might have wanted to hail the writers for reinventing the wheel, they didn't. They just added more social media references to pander to millenials. Kind of disappointing really. (2.5/5)
Superman Doomed: What happens when you put Greg Pak who wrote the famous Planet Hulk series and Charles Soule who wrote on She-Hulk on Superman titles? They turn Superman into the Hulk! That's basically what happens when Superman fights Doomsday (the dude who "killed" him in the 90s) and gets infected with a virus that turns Superman into Doomsday. Like the Hulk, Doomsday is a mostly brainless monster who rampages around causing all sorts of destruction, except he also has Superman's powers to fly, shoot heat rays, etc. This comes in handy when Brainiac shows up to destroy the world. I thought it was mostly fun. For $5 I got a hell of a deal because there were a bunch of comics packed into the one volume, which included a couple of Supergirl ones that were only slightly relevant. This wasn't the biggest event in DC history but you get a lot of familiar characters like the Justice League, Martian Manhunter, Red Lanterns, and even Swamp Thing. I think more could have been done with the "Superdoom" character (like a better name) but mostly it was good and you didn't need to be that up on goings on in the DC universe to get it. (3.5/5)
Forever Evil: This was a bigger recent DC event. The volume I read only covered the 7 main issues of the series but there were a bunch of spin-offs that would sort of help to understand the full picture, but I wasn't about to go spend like $100 for all that stuff. Anyway, the Justice League is trapped inside Firestorm (except Batman because Batman) while their dopplegangers from an evil parallel universe (who don't all have goatees) take over Earth. Lex Luthor and some other villains chafe at these bad guys getting on their turf and thus join forces with Batman to fight back. Overall it was OK. The relationship between Luthor and his Superman clone B-Zero (Bizarro) was cute. BTW, I used the overall concept for my Girl Power novel League of Evil. I'm just saying. (2.5/5)
Green Lantern: Wrath of the First Lantern: Like Superman: Doomed, this was a really good deal for $5 because it's like 14 comics from the various Lantern titles. As the title suggests, the various colored Lanterns have to battle the "First Lantern" who sucks emotions like a vampire and uses the power to attempt to alter reality. This was the end of Geoff Johns' lengthy run on the title and as such it wraps up a lot of what he had introduced along the way. If you're not up on all the minutiae of the Green Lantern series of the last 10 years then you won't necessarily understand all of what's going on. There probably could have been more done with the First Lantern concept, but this wasn't a bad sendoff. (3/5)
DC: The New Frontier: This is supposed to be an homage to the "Silver Age" of comics in the 50s, except unlike those comics it throws in a lot of stuff about the Red scare and emerging civil rights movement. A lot of it focuses on Hal Jordan, who survived Korea and has been struggling ever since. Much of the rest focuses on John Jones, aka Martian Manhunter, a Martian who disguises himself as a police detective. More familiar characters like Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman make appearances. And then all the heroes get together to destroy a big weird space monster. Um, yeah. That. The monster didn't really make for an interesting villain, so that was kind of lacking. Otherwise it was OK. (2.5/5)
Batman Year 100: I was a little confused by the title. Was it set in the year 100? No, actually it's 2039, which would be 100 years from when Batman debuted. "The Batman" runs around fighting evil government guys...why? And who is he? There were really no satisfactory answers, which made this ultimately frustrating. Plus the art wasn't very good. It's the kind where everything is all out of proportion and kind of crude. (2/5)
Death of Wolverine: They probably should have put quotes around the death part, though surprisingly they haven't really brought Wolverine back. Anyway, this 4-issue limited series didn't really have the epic feel you would want for something like this. Somehow Logan loses his ability to heal and so lots of bad guys try to kill him. He eventually hunts down his creator for revenge or something. It was the kind of ending where probably if they had wanted him to live he could have found a way to do so. (1/5)
Amazing Spider-Man Vol 1: You might not have realized that for nearly 3 years Peter Parker had the brain of Dr. Octopus inside of him. Eventually that came to an end and this is where it picks up. Doc Ock has sort of made a mess of things so Peter Parker has to try to pick up the pieces. Meanwhile a new threat looms on the horizon! Remember what I said in the Batgirl review about Spider-Man? There's a lot of that on display here. Having read quite a bit of Dan Slott's Spider-Man run this is really a good continuation of the series with the same lighthearted fun and mayhem you would expect. The only real problem is since this is Volume 1 the stakes aren't that high yet. (3/5)
Wednesday, November 26, 2014
Comics Recap 11/26/14
Hardly anyone read last week's Comics Recap entry, but that won't stop me from doing it again this week!
There were still a few I had left in a bundle of indie comics I bought a while back. I finally finished them, which is good, because they were taking up a lot of space on my Kindle Fire.
Twilight Monk, Vol 1: The characters were drawn like manga and I suppose the material isn't that different either. So I guess if you like manga or anime or stuff like that you'd probably like this. I don't, so I didn't really. (2/5)
Ultrasylvania: This is supposed to be an alternate history where Cleopatra came back to life in the 18th Century and started taking over the world. Much of Europe ends up being split between Dracula and Frankenstein. The former is king of Ultrasylvania. This book was a little confusing as it jumps not only between different time periods, but different artists as well. The overall story is about Bram Stoker infiltrating Dracula's castle to write his biography, which wasn't all that interesting, more of a framing device. (2.5/5)
The Wastelands: Rahu: So there's like some kind of demon and he's running around an old temple or something. Whatever. The artwork was kind of crude, especially the dialog bubbles, which were overly big and messy. (1.5/5)
Normandy: A Graphic History of D-Day: This wasn't really part of the bundle, but it was a free one I got on the anniversary of D-Day. As you'd expect it's an illustrated story of D-Day. It doesn't really use a comic book format with word bubbles and stuff. Instead it's more prose with panels to illustrate it. It does a good job of not being too pro-Allies (or pro-Nazis) so that it details what both sides were doing. It doesn't just cover actual D-Day but from then until the Allies liberate Paris. As you can see, it was pretty close to a disaster. You can probably find a dozen examples where in a parallel universe one thing could go differently and the Nazis might still own Europe. There were a couple of typos it seemed like and a lot of the characters looked the same, but if you're too lazy to read a book or watch a movie, it's a good way to catch up on the history of D-Day. (3.5/5)
There were a lot more in the bundle that were single issue comics. I read through those a long time ago. My favorite was probably the one about Sherlock Holmes and Watson only it was set in Harlem, so they were both black. I'm not sure they've done that in TV/movies yet. Or maybe they have.
Perhaps it's ironic I really didn't care much about the superhero comics. I guess because the ones included were pretty much derivative. There are so many superhero comics that unless you do something different with the formula it's really hard to stand out. Which is why you should read the Girl Power series. I'm just saying.
Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving. I'll probably be eating hot dogs in my room. And Black Friday I'll probably also be eating hot dogs in my room.
There were still a few I had left in a bundle of indie comics I bought a while back. I finally finished them, which is good, because they were taking up a lot of space on my Kindle Fire.
Twilight Monk, Vol 1: The characters were drawn like manga and I suppose the material isn't that different either. So I guess if you like manga or anime or stuff like that you'd probably like this. I don't, so I didn't really. (2/5)
Ultrasylvania: This is supposed to be an alternate history where Cleopatra came back to life in the 18th Century and started taking over the world. Much of Europe ends up being split between Dracula and Frankenstein. The former is king of Ultrasylvania. This book was a little confusing as it jumps not only between different time periods, but different artists as well. The overall story is about Bram Stoker infiltrating Dracula's castle to write his biography, which wasn't all that interesting, more of a framing device. (2.5/5)
The Wastelands: Rahu: So there's like some kind of demon and he's running around an old temple or something. Whatever. The artwork was kind of crude, especially the dialog bubbles, which were overly big and messy. (1.5/5)
Normandy: A Graphic History of D-Day: This wasn't really part of the bundle, but it was a free one I got on the anniversary of D-Day. As you'd expect it's an illustrated story of D-Day. It doesn't really use a comic book format with word bubbles and stuff. Instead it's more prose with panels to illustrate it. It does a good job of not being too pro-Allies (or pro-Nazis) so that it details what both sides were doing. It doesn't just cover actual D-Day but from then until the Allies liberate Paris. As you can see, it was pretty close to a disaster. You can probably find a dozen examples where in a parallel universe one thing could go differently and the Nazis might still own Europe. There were a couple of typos it seemed like and a lot of the characters looked the same, but if you're too lazy to read a book or watch a movie, it's a good way to catch up on the history of D-Day. (3.5/5)
There were a lot more in the bundle that were single issue comics. I read through those a long time ago. My favorite was probably the one about Sherlock Holmes and Watson only it was set in Harlem, so they were both black. I'm not sure they've done that in TV/movies yet. Or maybe they have.
Perhaps it's ironic I really didn't care much about the superhero comics. I guess because the ones included were pretty much derivative. There are so many superhero comics that unless you do something different with the formula it's really hard to stand out. Which is why you should read the Girl Power series. I'm just saying.
Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving. I'll probably be eating hot dogs in my room. And Black Friday I'll probably also be eating hot dogs in my room.
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Comics Recap 11/19/14
I haven't done one of these since before I started my road trip. So there are quite a few things here. Let's start with the ones by the big publishers:
Annihilation, Book 1: This was part of some big crossover Marvel thing a few years ago. If you saw Guardians of the Galaxy then you know about the Nova Corps, sort of the Marvel version of the Green Lanterns. Basically a swarm of aliens wipes out the Nova Corps, except the one human guy, which is sort of what happened in Green Lantern comics in the mid-90s. There's also a 4-issue Drax the Destroyer series included, which really had little to do with anything except to explain why Drax was hanging around with a little human girl. There's a lot more to this series, but I didn't really care. (2/5)
Deathstroke, Volume 1: This was the initial New 52 series published in 2011 (and canceled and then relaunched recently). It focuses on the assassin Deathstroke and someone trying to kill him. It was OK, but it really sucked they only included 6 issues and the story arc was 7 issues. I think the Deathstroke in Arrow was better. I'm just saying. (2.5/5)
Daredevil, Volume 1: This was the start of the Mark Waid run on the title, which might still be ongoing. I don't really know. Anyway, I think this was fairly recent. It's sort of a "soft reboot" as Daredevil returns to New York after a scandal drove him away. It's fun even if the villains were kind of lame. Briane Pagel might consider something Daredevil does, which is to charge people to train them to represent themselves in court. Additional revenue stream! (3.5/5)
The Flash Rebirth: This isn't Barry Allen's return to the DC universe as the title would suggest. He's already back but like Captain America is "out of time" since he "died" years ago. If you know more about the Flash then this is probably better. As it is, I only had a bare idea of what the Speed Force is and so forth, mostly from reading Tony Laplume's blog. (2.5/5)
Batgirl Volumes 2-5: They had the whole New 52 series on sale at one point so I bought all the issues I hadn't read. Overall I liked them. Mostly since Barbara Gordon is smart and has red hair I think of the Scarlet Knight series. In these 28-ish issues she has to battle the Joker, a vigilante with the stupid name of Knightfall, and her own brother! The last issue wrapped things up nicely; they recently did a soft reboot when they brought in a new writer. What really annoyed me is like the Deathstroke one they did a shitty job at splitting these up between volumes, so that Volume 3 would end with one issue left in a story arc. It wasn't that bad since I'd bought all the issues but it made it annoying on Goodreads. Really DC, get it together! (3.5/5)
Deadpool Classic, Volume 1: This features the origin of Deadpool in some random X-Men comic and then a couple of different attempts to launch a series for him. Because of this there's not a lot of cohesion to this volume, especially since the various series are years apart. It's interesting though to see the humble origins of the "Merc with a mouth." (2.5/5)
Uncanny X-Force, Apocalypse Solution: Wolverine and some other less-famous mutants have to hunt down a little kid who is the reborn Apocalypse. Mayhem ensues. (2/5)
Wolverine, Old Man Logan: This is an alternate universe tale set in the future. Wolverine has taken a vow of non-violence and is working a farm with a wife and kids. Meanwhile, villains like Dr. Doom, Red Skull, and the Kingpin have split up America and killed most of the heroes. Then a blind, old Hawkeye shows up and offers Wolverine a shitload of money to deliver a package across the country. Mayhem ensues. It was pretty interesting and since it comes from Mark Millar (the Kick-Ass series) there's a lot of violence and blood. (3/5)
Gotham By Gaslight: This came out before the term "steampunk" was coined. But essentially it's a steampunk Batman. It wasn't really that interesting. (2/5)
52: This was a big deal back in 2006. Basically for a year Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman are out of action, so other heroes have to pick up the slack. There are 52 issues that focus on one week of that year. It focuses on characters you probably don't know much about like Booster Gold, the Question, Black Adam (to be played by the Rock in the Shazam movie), and Batwoman. Almost as interesting as the comics are the notes from the writers after each issue. There were 4 main writers who combined to create these, which was a massive undertaking, especially with the weekly time frame. Most of this has been overwritten since then, so it doesn't matter so much now. (4/5)
And now here a bunch of indie comics I got as part of a bundle for $10. Tony Laplume got the same bundle so we've both reviewed some of these.
Life Begins at Incorporation: This is a bunch of "liberal" essays and cartoons. The author is a real liberal's liberal, taking Obama to task for not closing down Gitmo and wanton use of drone strikes. He also exposes the hypocrisy of liberal media kingpin Arianna Huffington, whose Huffington Post largely uses free labor (authors being paid in "exposure" lol) and then cashed in for $320 million to AOL. But there's also plenty of venom for the Tea Party, NRA, and big corporations, for which the book is named. The author also visited Afghanistan and provides some inside dope on the situation there, like for instance that many Afghans have no clue what 9/11 was, thus don't really understand what the fuck we're doing there. How much you like this would depend on your politics. (4/5)
Jackie Rose: This is kind of Sky Captain & The World of Tomorrow meets The Goonies. The eponymous character is a 16-year-old girl in an alternate 30s with a sidekick who is really into planes and dreams of asking her out. This first volume focuses on a group of air pirates. It was fun and unlike the Sky Captain movie didn't take the technology to ridiculous extremes, ie there are airships but not giant robots or helicarriers. (3/5)
Footprints: This is kind of like Watchmen only with mythical beasts. The foot in the title is Bigfoot, whose brother the Yeti is killed. So he rounds up a super team featuring the Loch Ness Monster, Megalodon (giant shark), Jersey Devil (demon), and Chubacabra (giant pig dog thing). It's told as a noir tale and if you can handle the absurdity of the premise, it's OK. (2.5/5)
Dust: Withered Earth: I bailed on this one pretty quick. The characters looked like they were drawn by Napoleon Dynamite and the story seemed like your typical post-apocalytpic Western thing. Yawn. (0/5)
Chronic Argonauts: This is a good one for fans of Dr. Who. Only it starts in the 19th Century in a little village. To escape the persecution of his religious neighbors, a man invents a time machine to go into the future. He takes a reverend with him, but they find that their leaving has opened Earth up to being dominated by a whacko Christian sect. But things get worse when they go even farther into the future. It has some of the silliness of Dr. Who, which I judge based on one episode I watched, which is why I think fans of that would like it more than I did. (2.5/5)
Dumbing of Age: This takes place on the campus of Indiana University (why not Butler so it could have Blue II or Blue III?!) and focuses on a group of freshmen. One is a really naive ultra-Christian girl, another is a former cheerleader, and so on. And one girl is the resident vigilante on campus, dressing up like a superhero to take down bullies and the like. It's fun and seemingly light-hearted even when it covers serious ground. Between the cartoonish art and the subject matter it's like a modern twist on Archie comics. (4/5)
Bikini Cowboy: An absurdist Western about (you guessed it) a cowgirl who dresses in a bikini and carries around a surfboard. She befriends a little boy while searching for the perfect wave--in the desert. I know Tony Laplume liked it a lot more than I did. (2.5/5)
Astronaut Dad: This is a tale of the early space program when 3 astronauts were used to spy on the Russians from space. The focus (as you might guess from the title) is on their families. I really liked it as it covers serious ground without being too serious. The black-and-white cartoonish art helps to give it a nostalgic air too. (4/5)
Deadhorse, Book 1: I really don't know what was going on in this. A middle-aged guy and a younger guy and girl were looking for something and some politician was involved and whatever. Unlike most of these it didn't really wrap up in one volume, which kind of sucks. I had no interest in buying the second one. (2/5)
Chloe Noonan, Monster Hunter: This is about a young British girl who (big surprise) hunts monsters but finds the job to be a real pain in the ass. Much of it seems to be about her and her best friend trying to get dates while the monster hunting thing gets in the way. If you watched Buffy you might like this more. (2/5)
Binary: This reminded me of Neil Vogler's upcoming book Tripler. Only in Tripler it's one person who can become three, but in this it's two people who are psychically connected. And for whatever reason these "Binaries" go around killing people and stuff. The plot is like Demolition Man where a couple of cops are unfrozen in the future to hunt down a rogue Binary. Overall it felt derivative. (2/5)
Archeologists of Shadows: I know Tony Laplume really liked this. I didn't really know what the hell was going on. For some reason people in this future make themselves into robots but there are two kids who aren't robot-y enough and thus are hunted by bad guys. The artwork was really nice but the story had sort of that video game feel of the Matrix Reloaded. (2/5)
Moth City, Season 1, Part 2: I'm not sure whose genius idea it was to include Part 2 and not Part 1. Made it kind of confusing. And I hate these ones that are set up to be kind of like motion comics. You have to keep tapping the screen to not only bring up each panel, but each dialog box or text box. It gets to be annoying. So the whole experience was lame. (1/5)
Muktuk Wolfsbreath, Hard Boiled Shaman: As the title suggests, this is written like a noir story, only focusing on a shaman-for-hire in Siberia. Like many of these stories, it starts when a beautiful woman walks into Muktuk's office, er hut, and employs him to save her dying son. Which leads to him having to descend to the lowest depths and loftiest peaks of the spirit world to unravel a mystery. It's a lot of fun with the absurdist topic and yet it's a well-written mystery too. Though the shaman names are a little too goofy really. (4/5)
Nathan Sorry: On 9/10/01 the eponymous character doesn't get on a plane from Phoenix to New York and that saves him from dying in the World Trade Center. But the world thinks he's dead and he has a briefcase with access to $20 million. So he goes into hiding in North Carolina. A lot of questions are left unresolved in this and I don't really care enough to read more. (2.5/5)
Snow: One word to describe this: depressing. A woman named Dana (who is 32 but is drawn to look about 10) in Toronto's West Queen St area is losing her job at a bookstore, witnesses a murder, and witnesses domestic abuse (twice). She can't stop the abuse or solve the murder. The end. Um...yay? Yeesh, what a bummer. I guess the idea was kind of a female Canadian version of American Splendor (which I only know of from watching the movie) and on that level I think it pretty much succeeds in bringing a relatively ordinary person to life, though I'm pretty sure the American Splendor guy didn't witness murders. (3/5)
Squid & Owl: This was weird. It's a bunch of silly poems and stuff about a squid and owl. I'm sure Tony Laplume will think it's clever. I thought it was lame. But it does reference cuttlefish, which I saw in Salt Lake's aquarium. (1/5)
Testament: This is a retelling of Abraham and Lot (or something) but it takes place in the near future when a fascist government is implanting people with chips. Mayhem ensues. It was kind of weird. I never really got into it. Maybe because I'm an atheist. (2.5/5)
Thirty-Six: I remember in Michael Chabon's Kavalier and Clay that at one point the comic book artist Joe Kavalier was going to make a comic book based on Jewish mythology commonly known as Kabbalah. This comic actually does that. Basically it's kind of like the X-Men or that "Heroes" show. It's said there are 36 special people who will rise to use their powers to save the world. Though like with X-Men there are two camps with differing views on that. The Xavier group wants to pretty much just keep things going while the Magneto group wants to use the Leviathan to destroy the world and start over. Overall it was pretty good, though the art is kind of crude-looking; Joe Kavalier would have done it better-had he been real. It might be better if you're Jewish. Obviously I'm not. (3/5)
I've only got 3 left in this bundle, plus a couple more things I've bought and haven't gotten to yet. I probably will at some point. But for now you're caught up!
Annihilation, Book 1: This was part of some big crossover Marvel thing a few years ago. If you saw Guardians of the Galaxy then you know about the Nova Corps, sort of the Marvel version of the Green Lanterns. Basically a swarm of aliens wipes out the Nova Corps, except the one human guy, which is sort of what happened in Green Lantern comics in the mid-90s. There's also a 4-issue Drax the Destroyer series included, which really had little to do with anything except to explain why Drax was hanging around with a little human girl. There's a lot more to this series, but I didn't really care. (2/5)
Deathstroke, Volume 1: This was the initial New 52 series published in 2011 (and canceled and then relaunched recently). It focuses on the assassin Deathstroke and someone trying to kill him. It was OK, but it really sucked they only included 6 issues and the story arc was 7 issues. I think the Deathstroke in Arrow was better. I'm just saying. (2.5/5)
Daredevil, Volume 1: This was the start of the Mark Waid run on the title, which might still be ongoing. I don't really know. Anyway, I think this was fairly recent. It's sort of a "soft reboot" as Daredevil returns to New York after a scandal drove him away. It's fun even if the villains were kind of lame. Briane Pagel might consider something Daredevil does, which is to charge people to train them to represent themselves in court. Additional revenue stream! (3.5/5)
The Flash Rebirth: This isn't Barry Allen's return to the DC universe as the title would suggest. He's already back but like Captain America is "out of time" since he "died" years ago. If you know more about the Flash then this is probably better. As it is, I only had a bare idea of what the Speed Force is and so forth, mostly from reading Tony Laplume's blog. (2.5/5)
Batgirl Volumes 2-5: They had the whole New 52 series on sale at one point so I bought all the issues I hadn't read. Overall I liked them. Mostly since Barbara Gordon is smart and has red hair I think of the Scarlet Knight series. In these 28-ish issues she has to battle the Joker, a vigilante with the stupid name of Knightfall, and her own brother! The last issue wrapped things up nicely; they recently did a soft reboot when they brought in a new writer. What really annoyed me is like the Deathstroke one they did a shitty job at splitting these up between volumes, so that Volume 3 would end with one issue left in a story arc. It wasn't that bad since I'd bought all the issues but it made it annoying on Goodreads. Really DC, get it together! (3.5/5)
Deadpool Classic, Volume 1: This features the origin of Deadpool in some random X-Men comic and then a couple of different attempts to launch a series for him. Because of this there's not a lot of cohesion to this volume, especially since the various series are years apart. It's interesting though to see the humble origins of the "Merc with a mouth." (2.5/5)
Uncanny X-Force, Apocalypse Solution: Wolverine and some other less-famous mutants have to hunt down a little kid who is the reborn Apocalypse. Mayhem ensues. (2/5)
Wolverine, Old Man Logan: This is an alternate universe tale set in the future. Wolverine has taken a vow of non-violence and is working a farm with a wife and kids. Meanwhile, villains like Dr. Doom, Red Skull, and the Kingpin have split up America and killed most of the heroes. Then a blind, old Hawkeye shows up and offers Wolverine a shitload of money to deliver a package across the country. Mayhem ensues. It was pretty interesting and since it comes from Mark Millar (the Kick-Ass series) there's a lot of violence and blood. (3/5)
Gotham By Gaslight: This came out before the term "steampunk" was coined. But essentially it's a steampunk Batman. It wasn't really that interesting. (2/5)
52: This was a big deal back in 2006. Basically for a year Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman are out of action, so other heroes have to pick up the slack. There are 52 issues that focus on one week of that year. It focuses on characters you probably don't know much about like Booster Gold, the Question, Black Adam (to be played by the Rock in the Shazam movie), and Batwoman. Almost as interesting as the comics are the notes from the writers after each issue. There were 4 main writers who combined to create these, which was a massive undertaking, especially with the weekly time frame. Most of this has been overwritten since then, so it doesn't matter so much now. (4/5)
And now here a bunch of indie comics I got as part of a bundle for $10. Tony Laplume got the same bundle so we've both reviewed some of these.
Life Begins at Incorporation: This is a bunch of "liberal" essays and cartoons. The author is a real liberal's liberal, taking Obama to task for not closing down Gitmo and wanton use of drone strikes. He also exposes the hypocrisy of liberal media kingpin Arianna Huffington, whose Huffington Post largely uses free labor (authors being paid in "exposure" lol) and then cashed in for $320 million to AOL. But there's also plenty of venom for the Tea Party, NRA, and big corporations, for which the book is named. The author also visited Afghanistan and provides some inside dope on the situation there, like for instance that many Afghans have no clue what 9/11 was, thus don't really understand what the fuck we're doing there. How much you like this would depend on your politics. (4/5)
Jackie Rose: This is kind of Sky Captain & The World of Tomorrow meets The Goonies. The eponymous character is a 16-year-old girl in an alternate 30s with a sidekick who is really into planes and dreams of asking her out. This first volume focuses on a group of air pirates. It was fun and unlike the Sky Captain movie didn't take the technology to ridiculous extremes, ie there are airships but not giant robots or helicarriers. (3/5)
Footprints: This is kind of like Watchmen only with mythical beasts. The foot in the title is Bigfoot, whose brother the Yeti is killed. So he rounds up a super team featuring the Loch Ness Monster, Megalodon (giant shark), Jersey Devil (demon), and Chubacabra (giant pig dog thing). It's told as a noir tale and if you can handle the absurdity of the premise, it's OK. (2.5/5)
Dust: Withered Earth: I bailed on this one pretty quick. The characters looked like they were drawn by Napoleon Dynamite and the story seemed like your typical post-apocalytpic Western thing. Yawn. (0/5)
Chronic Argonauts: This is a good one for fans of Dr. Who. Only it starts in the 19th Century in a little village. To escape the persecution of his religious neighbors, a man invents a time machine to go into the future. He takes a reverend with him, but they find that their leaving has opened Earth up to being dominated by a whacko Christian sect. But things get worse when they go even farther into the future. It has some of the silliness of Dr. Who, which I judge based on one episode I watched, which is why I think fans of that would like it more than I did. (2.5/5)
Dumbing of Age: This takes place on the campus of Indiana University (why not Butler so it could have Blue II or Blue III?!) and focuses on a group of freshmen. One is a really naive ultra-Christian girl, another is a former cheerleader, and so on. And one girl is the resident vigilante on campus, dressing up like a superhero to take down bullies and the like. It's fun and seemingly light-hearted even when it covers serious ground. Between the cartoonish art and the subject matter it's like a modern twist on Archie comics. (4/5)
Bikini Cowboy: An absurdist Western about (you guessed it) a cowgirl who dresses in a bikini and carries around a surfboard. She befriends a little boy while searching for the perfect wave--in the desert. I know Tony Laplume liked it a lot more than I did. (2.5/5)
Astronaut Dad: This is a tale of the early space program when 3 astronauts were used to spy on the Russians from space. The focus (as you might guess from the title) is on their families. I really liked it as it covers serious ground without being too serious. The black-and-white cartoonish art helps to give it a nostalgic air too. (4/5)
Deadhorse, Book 1: I really don't know what was going on in this. A middle-aged guy and a younger guy and girl were looking for something and some politician was involved and whatever. Unlike most of these it didn't really wrap up in one volume, which kind of sucks. I had no interest in buying the second one. (2/5)
Chloe Noonan, Monster Hunter: This is about a young British girl who (big surprise) hunts monsters but finds the job to be a real pain in the ass. Much of it seems to be about her and her best friend trying to get dates while the monster hunting thing gets in the way. If you watched Buffy you might like this more. (2/5)
Binary: This reminded me of Neil Vogler's upcoming book Tripler. Only in Tripler it's one person who can become three, but in this it's two people who are psychically connected. And for whatever reason these "Binaries" go around killing people and stuff. The plot is like Demolition Man where a couple of cops are unfrozen in the future to hunt down a rogue Binary. Overall it felt derivative. (2/5)
Archeologists of Shadows: I know Tony Laplume really liked this. I didn't really know what the hell was going on. For some reason people in this future make themselves into robots but there are two kids who aren't robot-y enough and thus are hunted by bad guys. The artwork was really nice but the story had sort of that video game feel of the Matrix Reloaded. (2/5)
Moth City, Season 1, Part 2: I'm not sure whose genius idea it was to include Part 2 and not Part 1. Made it kind of confusing. And I hate these ones that are set up to be kind of like motion comics. You have to keep tapping the screen to not only bring up each panel, but each dialog box or text box. It gets to be annoying. So the whole experience was lame. (1/5)
Muktuk Wolfsbreath, Hard Boiled Shaman: As the title suggests, this is written like a noir story, only focusing on a shaman-for-hire in Siberia. Like many of these stories, it starts when a beautiful woman walks into Muktuk's office, er hut, and employs him to save her dying son. Which leads to him having to descend to the lowest depths and loftiest peaks of the spirit world to unravel a mystery. It's a lot of fun with the absurdist topic and yet it's a well-written mystery too. Though the shaman names are a little too goofy really. (4/5)
Nathan Sorry: On 9/10/01 the eponymous character doesn't get on a plane from Phoenix to New York and that saves him from dying in the World Trade Center. But the world thinks he's dead and he has a briefcase with access to $20 million. So he goes into hiding in North Carolina. A lot of questions are left unresolved in this and I don't really care enough to read more. (2.5/5)
Snow: One word to describe this: depressing. A woman named Dana (who is 32 but is drawn to look about 10) in Toronto's West Queen St area is losing her job at a bookstore, witnesses a murder, and witnesses domestic abuse (twice). She can't stop the abuse or solve the murder. The end. Um...yay? Yeesh, what a bummer. I guess the idea was kind of a female Canadian version of American Splendor (which I only know of from watching the movie) and on that level I think it pretty much succeeds in bringing a relatively ordinary person to life, though I'm pretty sure the American Splendor guy didn't witness murders. (3/5)
Squid & Owl: This was weird. It's a bunch of silly poems and stuff about a squid and owl. I'm sure Tony Laplume will think it's clever. I thought it was lame. But it does reference cuttlefish, which I saw in Salt Lake's aquarium. (1/5)
Testament: This is a retelling of Abraham and Lot (or something) but it takes place in the near future when a fascist government is implanting people with chips. Mayhem ensues. It was kind of weird. I never really got into it. Maybe because I'm an atheist. (2.5/5)
Thirty-Six: I remember in Michael Chabon's Kavalier and Clay that at one point the comic book artist Joe Kavalier was going to make a comic book based on Jewish mythology commonly known as Kabbalah. This comic actually does that. Basically it's kind of like the X-Men or that "Heroes" show. It's said there are 36 special people who will rise to use their powers to save the world. Though like with X-Men there are two camps with differing views on that. The Xavier group wants to pretty much just keep things going while the Magneto group wants to use the Leviathan to destroy the world and start over. Overall it was pretty good, though the art is kind of crude-looking; Joe Kavalier would have done it better-had he been real. It might be better if you're Jewish. Obviously I'm not. (3/5)
I've only got 3 left in this bundle, plus a couple more things I've bought and haven't gotten to yet. I probably will at some point. But for now you're caught up!
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