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Post by thwhtguardian on Mar 27, 2019 9:19:10 GMT -5
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Post by Hoosier X on Mar 27, 2019 22:31:47 GMT -5
I couldn't decide between the Frank Miller cover and the 1950s cover … well, no, I narrowed it down to these two and took about three seconds before I decided on the 1950s cover. I haven't read it yet but I'll be sure to write a short review when I get to it. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 27, 2019 22:36:03 GMT -5
Sabrina the Teenage Witch #1: Sabrina gets a reboot in this seemingly self contained series (no mention of her currently dating Archie). She and her aunts (and Salem) are new in Greendale. On her first day of school, she meets Harvey who’s quite smitten with her, a possible best friend (and a victim of bullying) and the resident mean girl and her brother (dreamy to Sabrina). There’s more going on with the sibling duo as is revealed on the final page. Great reintroduction to this classic character as she tries to fit in and navigate high school. Touches of the Sabrina show and even Buffy are present. The writing is very relatable and the art is very pleasing.
9/10
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Post by Deleted on Mar 27, 2019 22:44:19 GMT -5
Heroes in Crisis #7: more incoherent nonsense with pretty art
1/10
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Post by thwhtguardian on Mar 28, 2019 7:52:53 GMT -5
Darth Vader: Dark Visions #2Written by Denis Hallum Art by Brian Level Summary: An Imperial commander truly manages to snag defeat from the jaws of victory when he is faced with the prospect of entertaining Lord Vader. Plot: While I enjoyed Hallum's first Vader one shot for giving us a look at how some people may have looked at Vader as a hero this second entry is head and shoulder's above it because it truly goes back to the well of what made Vader such a great villain in A New Hope: he's not a fully fleshed out character, he's just the boogey man clad all in black. Like the monsters on the silver screen of yore Vader truly is best when he's more of an ominous presence that only acts out briefly before the scene cuts away than in a scene than when he's an active character and Hallum really gets that. Instead of this story focusing on Vader, he's just the threat of failure with a few glimpses back to a time when the Commander was a junior officer who walked into a room where Vader had delivered the message of the Emperor's displeasure standing as a reason for the present day Commander's fear at the prospect of failure. It's quick, atmospheric and the ending where a barely glimpsed Vader does exactly what the Commander feared was absolutely perfect. Art: Highlighting the excellent plot is some really fantastic art by Level. Not only does he nail the characters and the look of the technology, which is key to any Star Wars book, but his inventive panel lay out really ratchets up the emotional intensity of the scenes culminating in what might be my favorite single comic book page in recent memory: %20Chapter%202/cw022.jpg) Grade: 10/10 |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Mar 28, 2019 9:22:43 GMT -5
Detective Comics #1000Written by DC's Greatest Living Writers Art by a Who's Who of Favorite Artists Summary: DC's best and brightest come together to celebrate a milestone in Detective Comics with a smattering of one shots. The Meat: Before reading this I dug up and reread DC's other major milestone issue, Action Comics #1000, and although it had it's fun moments it was still as much a mixed bag as I had remembered so I went in expecting the same thing here...and was totally wrong. Maybe it was the slightly larger page count here, or the decision to include fewer writers, or maybe Batman just lends himself better to smaller, self contained stories than Superman does but I can honestly say that each of the entries here are truly fun and some well worth rereading again and again which I cannot say for anything in Action #1000. From seeing Paul Dini and Dustin back together again, to Geoff Johns and Kelly Jones and even a new story by good ol' Denny O'Neil there's really something for everyone here. I think my biggest surprise here was that it actually made me think Kevin Smith can actually write Batman well, I could never get through his previous attempts but his story here about making a positive symbol out of the gun that destroyed his life was actually really solid. I think my favorite however was the tale of Robin's induction by James Tynion IV and Alvaro Martinez-Bueno; sure we've seen how they became partners many times before, but the positivity in Dick Grayson here really shined and I loved the optimism they put in him about the future of heroes. It was just great. I know, I know, I said that all of the entries in this celebration were truly fun...but when I say that the final story wasn't that great I'm not contradicting myself either as it isn't a celebration of Batman like the others were, it's just a plug for the next ongoing story by Peter Tomasi who I haven't enjoyed and nothing here convinced me to read more so I don't think I'll be getting 'Tec #1001. Bu man, the rest really is that good. As for the plethora of covers mentioned by Hoosier X I went back and forth for awhile myself between the 30's cover by the Rude Dude, the 40's cover by Bruce Timm and the 50's cover by Michael Cho before settling on the 50's cover. As much as I love the Rude Dude( I got his variant for Action #1000) and Bruce Timm's take just might be how I always see Batman in my head I just really love bright colors and energy in Cho's cover. Heck if I knew I wasn't going to want reread some of these stories again sometime I think I'd seriously consider framing Cho's cover, it's just that fun. Grade:10/10 |
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Post by Hoosier X on Mar 28, 2019 14:37:21 GMT -5
Wonder Woman #67Wonder Woman has enlisted Giganta's help in trying to figure out what's going on with the Titans. Why are they showing up and causing trouble and scaring people? Well, the first clue is … they are not real Titans! Why would somebody be turning fake Titans loose on the world? We'll have to wait for the next issue! I'm loving this. Instead of UGH another disappointing Darkseid series, the current team is treating Wonder Woman as a long-time character who has a history of her own with a lot of under-used characters with a lot of potential. I would love to see Giganta as a semi-regular cast member. I'm currently enjoying Wonder Woman more than I have at any time since the start of Rebirth.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 28, 2019 22:49:39 GMT -5
Shazam #4: Shazam and the rest of the family are scattered across the various lands as Billy sees the sinister side of The Funlands. Not much happens to advance the plot, however seeing The Wildlands And Tawky Tawney was fun. The story is all over the place and Shazam is only in the book for a few pages. The final page looks promising. The pages Eaglesham draws are truly beautiful. So far, not impressed with this series. I’d prefer to read about Shazam and not all the other marvels.
5/10
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Post by Hoosier X on Mar 29, 2019 14:48:45 GMT -5
Black Widow #3I have been a little dubious about the direction of the new Black Widow series. They're moving away from her espionage roots, at least for the first storyline, and Natasha has gone to Madripoor where she hopes to put a stop an online venture that gives wealthy patrons a chance to watch girls and young women being tortured and abused and killed. But there's so much going on in Madripoor! Natasha is bumping into people like Sabretooth and the Taskmaster and Baron Zemo. Which is great! I don't even much like a lot of these characters that much, but as Madripoor is some sort of "anything goes" independent nation (I think it's an island; I only vaguely know about Madripoor from a few random 1990s comics) where super-villains can come to "relax," it doesn't seem TOO forced, and it's very nice to see these old characters pretty much intact the way I remember them. Because usually somebody decides they need to be completely revamped into a completely different character with the same name. One character with a major role is Madame Masque. She shows up and starts a fight with Natasha, and I was really glad - after all the throwaway characterizations I've seen with Batman villains over the last few years - to see Madame Masque being treated like a real character and not just somebody to be dispatched and/or killed in one panel. I was a little disappointed that she was beaten over a few pages … but after reading the whole issue, I think it's likely that she's conspiring with the other characters to get the Black Widow ensnared in a very nasty little trap where she's the main attraction in the online torture show that's about to be broadcast! Oh dear! That's quite a cliffhanger! I can't say I love it, but only because I get a little uncomfortable when my favorite characters are placed into porn or torture situations. I'm not opposed to that kind of thing per se. It's just usually done so badly and so gratuitously that the creep factor gets raised to "11" without any payoff. I'm specifically thinking of Identity Crisis and the John Byrne Big Barda story. But this has actually been handled pretty well o far and doesn't seem nearly as gratuitous as usual. And plus, we're talking about the Black Widow, who has been through a lot and has skill set to escape and shut this puppy down with no moaning or whining about whether or not any of these people deserve to die. I'm glad I started picking this up when the first issue came out.
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Post by Hoosier X on Mar 29, 2019 18:17:36 GMT -5
Freedom Fighters #4As much as I like the 1970s Freedom Fighters series, I recognize that the series had a lot of flaws. I like the characters and I like the Bronze Age art, as well as the guest stars! That series had a lot of great guest stars! But the basic premise was a drag in the long run! "Fugitive Super-Heroes" was not a good idea, especially when you realize that Earth-X has so much potential! This 12-issue maxi-series gives us so much Earth-X. The Freedom Fighters DIDN'T beat the Nazis (with the help of the JLA and the JSA) in the 1970s. THEY LOST! And now it's modern times and the Freedom Fighters are dead and the Nazis have taken over America and presumably the world. The Freedom Fighters ae dead … but the idea lives on! And a bunch of newcomers have taken over the old identities. And they are hanging on by their fingernails and fighting back and ordinary Americans are starting to have hope. And that little bit of hope is awakening that weird old guy with the striped pants and the chin fuzz and the star-spangled top hat! Uncle Sam is back! I passed this up at first, but I love the Freedom Fighters. So I picked up #1 and #2 at the same time and I'm glad I did!
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Post by thwhtguardian on Mar 29, 2019 20:25:07 GMT -5
Marvel Comics Presents #3Written by Charles Soule, Andrew Aydin and James Monroe Iglehart Art by Paulo Siquiera, Daniel Acuna and Ray Anthony Height Summary: Featuring the continuing battle through time with Wolverine, a "lost tale" of Captain America and a Spider-Man smack-down.
Plot: It was bound to happen sooner or later, not every issue of an anthology can be a winner and in this one a serious case of the hum-drums came to roost. Don't get me wrong, there was nothing terrible in any of these stories...but nothing memorable either. The Wolverine ongoing I've been enjoying so far was just treading water here with Wolverine and the Witch romancing the stone in Paris with no insight into either character, Cap learned that there are some problems in the world you can't beat by dressing up in a costume and punching someone in the face and Spider-Man had a rematch with Crusher Hogan in a dream world for weird reasons from Doctor Voodoo that were never fleshed out. I would have actually much rathered a focus on Doc Voodoo than Spider-Man but you know how it goes. All said and done it was decent enough, and I still enjoy the concept so I'm definitely still locked in on this book.
Art: Like the plots the art here was pretty standard, house style stuff. No interesting lay outs or iconic images...just the regular kind of stuff you'd expect in your average superhero comic.
Grade:6/10 |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Mar 29, 2019 20:40:20 GMT -5
Hellboy and the BPRD: 1956 #5Written by Mike Mignola and Chris Roberson Art by Mike Norton Summary: Hellboy's spring break in Mexico comes to it's conclusion at last and he rejoins the BPRD.
Plot: This wasn't a real action packed issue but it was still definitely satisfying. Sometimes you want a story with a big red guy smashing a monster in the face while shouting boom at it and in others you want a nice quiet scene where you see someone getting over the death of their dog and a good friend and in this issue we got the latter. A drunken Hellboy contemplating whether he did right by his dog Mac as he had never been to a funeral before and there was no one to help him was just beautiful.
Art: Norton's style is definitely on the cartoonier side and normally that'd be fine but it felt a little off here paired with this very somber issue.
Grade:8/10
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Post by Deleted on Mar 30, 2019 22:43:21 GMT -5
The Terrifics #14: the showdown between the team and Java and the Dreadfuls concludes here. Lots of big fight scenes throughout the book as we see the team admit how much they need each other and enjoy working together even though they aren’t bonded by dark matter any longer. A couple of new folks join the team in the end. Unique art and a fun story!
8/10
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Post by hondobrode on Mar 31, 2019 14:58:57 GMT -5
Fantastic Four # 8
Solid.
Dan Slott "gets" the FF. I was impressed with his Spider-Man and have gotten but not yet read his Silver Surfer.
Loving Aaron Kuder's art ! Always have and he's one of the artists whose work holds up on porting over to Marvel. Much prefer his work to Sara Pichelli's; it just didn't fit the book IMO.
This is the only Marvel title I read, but I'm liking it.
Doom sounds like he should; good plot and a very interesting premise with Galactus.
Very much looking forward to the next issue. I haven't liked a Marvel series, what few I buy with my very discriminating eye, since Bru's Cap.
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Post by hondobrode on Mar 31, 2019 15:42:15 GMT -5
FF # 4
Freedom Fighters that is
Another solid read.
I too am a fan and have every DC issue.
I'd love if this was an ongoing.
Venditti has never let me down and this is the best Barrows I've seen.
Love that Uncle Sam is finally coming around.
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