Summary: In 490 BC, ten years before the mighty 300 Spartans fought off the second Persian invasion in Thermopylae, the armies of Athens faced the might Persian Empire on the plains of Marathon. 
Plot: In 1998 Frank Miller gave us a sprawling wide screen look at the Battle of Thermopylae in 300 and now, 20 years later, he's chosen to revisit the annals of ancient Greece with a much larger epic. This is one of those books that has long been rumored and I never thought it would see the light of day; but like Axel Rose proved with Chinese Democracy, sometimes these projects that seem to be forever doomed to development hell do in fact make it out alive. It's early yet, this being only the first issue but in some ways it seems like Frank Miller has taken some of the criticisms of 300 to heart as he refrains from depicting the Persians as inhuman monsters here, and tells a less stylized, more true to historical take on the Battle of Marathon which is the exact opposite of how I thought this book was going to be after the very loose interpretation we saw in the 2014 film 300: Rise of an Empire which was said to be an adaptation of his unreleased Xerxes graphic novel. In the film Darius lead the Persian forces in the Battle of Marathon and was brutally killed their by the Greeks which lead Xerxes to bath himself in a mysterious pool of god blood which transformed him into the visage we saw in 300, while in the comic we see only ordinary Persians going up against the Athenian army in a pretty close approximation of the battle.
   However, like the old saying, the more things change the more they stay the same. While the Persians may no longer be monstrous and the heroes recognize them as men just like themselves in the narration the style of that narration remains the same from 300 to Xerxes with it's emphasis on a heroic few confronting a larger, superior force. It's all very reminiscent of the original 300 in tone, presentation and the way it romanticizes this particular conflict but unlike the original it lacks a strong central focus; you never get a strong feeling for who the narrator is and so you feel more detached from the battle then we did in 300. It's not only the lack of a central character that has me feeling a little detached from this book but also the title itself, The Fall of the House of Darius and the Rise of Alexander, promises a much larger scale than we got in 300 and yet this issue focused only on the Greek interpretation of the Battle of Marathon which comes across as more than a little myopic in comparison to the promise of the title. True, there are 4 more issues and Miller has always been more of a big picture guy than a single issue guy when it comes to the pacing of his stories but I was expecting a more sweeping focus here than what we received which makes me wonder how Miller is going to portray the more than hundred years between Marathon the the birth of Alexander the Great.

Art: The original 300 was a feast for the senses with it's sprawling vistas presented in an unconventional widescreen format. In the twenty years since it first came out that approach is slightly less novel nowadays, but under the pen of Miller it's certainly no less effective as Miller makes full use of his page real estate in his exquisitely detailed renderings of Persian soldiers the mighty Greek phalanxes  Miller's line-work isn't quite was it used to be, with his figures looking a bit looser than they were in the halcyon days of his youth but the general quality is a marked improvement over his art in the mini-comics from The Dark Knight III we saw last year. Don't get me wrong, it was great to see Frank back at work there, but he seems much more sure of himself here which certainly makes me glad in light of the rumors around his health.
Grade:8/10

Summary: The Iron Fist is Las Vegas’ new main event; live and in person...but for how much longer?
Plot: I know, I said I was done with Damnation, so why did I buy this tie in? The answer: Marvel Unlimited. I recently re-subscribed to Unlimited and I decided to read Fraction and Brubaker's run on Immortal Iron Fist and I absolutely loved it, so much so that when it was over I decided to read the next run which was by Ed Brisson and I found that it was just as good as the run prior too it having a great 70's Bruce Lee, Kung Fu feel to it but as is the case with Unlimited the issues ran out six months ago so I went to my shop to pick up the back issues. When I saw that the two most recent issues were Damnation tie ins I almost didn't pick them up, but after reading them I'm glad I did as they largely stand on their own, are great fun and tie perfectly into the history of Danny Rand and it's that legacy that makes me love this character. The plot itself is simplistic, hell has spilled over into the living world in the form of a casino and what goes hand in hand with casinos? Glitzy fighting matches. In this one we see Danny's predecessor Orson fighting to regain his soul. Though straight forward it's a great way to connect the story to the past and I'm interested to see where it all goes.
Art: Similar to my complaints about the main title I really dislike Couceiro's designs for the demons; they're just too generic and they all look the same. I don't know if that's due to Couceiro's skills or if he's merely trying to match the style of the main book but either way it still annoyed me.
Grade:7/10