This week, on the Major Spoilers Podcast: We’re back and we’re taking a look at Tokyo Babylon, smaller publishers get the spotlight as we review, Rocketeer: Hollywood Horror #2, Rachel Rising #15, The Bionic Man Annual #1, and Myth #1. Your hosts also discuss death, and Teen Titans, GO!
[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/majorspoilers/major-spoilers-511.mp3[/podcast]- Direct Download
- Subscribe via iTunes
- RSS Feed
- Subscribe to the Major Spoilers Podcast Network Master Feed!
- Show your thanks to Major Spoilers for this episode by making a $5.00 per month recurring donation. It will help ensure Major Spoilers continues far into the future!
Show Notes after the Jump!
NEWS
Teen Titans Go! draws fan ire
LINK
REVIEWS
STEPHEN
Rocketeer: Hollywood Horror #2
Writer: Roger Langridge
Artist: J. Bone
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Cover Price: $3.99
Cliff Secord on the run! Betty in the clutches of the ghastly Otto Rune! And what is Peevy’s connection to the missing scientist? All this and more… as the Rocketeer must prevent nothing less than the wrath of the Lord Himself! More pulp action in the great Dave Stevens tradition!
[rating:4/5]
MATTHEW
Rachel Rising #15
Writer: Moore, Terry
Artist: Moore, Terry
Publisher: Abstract Studios
Cover Price: $3.99
Lilith, the first woman to ever walk the earth, has a vendetta against the modern town of Manson. With the help of two 300-year old witches, she plans to annihilate the town and its people. The only thing standing in her way is Rachel, a woman who cannot die. What happens next is horrifying in the latest issue of Terry Moore’s critically acclaimed series.
RODRIGO
THE BIONIC MAN ANNUAL #1
Written by Scott Beatty
Art by Dietrich Smith
Publisher: Dynamite Entertainment
Cover Price: $4.99
Three words: Venus Death Probe. When a clandestine Chinese spacecraft crash lands north of Alaska, its a race against time between China and the United States–each anxious to salvage valuable high-tech secrets–to hunt down an errant rover built to survive the greenhouse hell of the Venusian atmosphere! OSI Agent Steve Austin tests the limits of his bionics as he hunts down an independent-minded machine determined to complete its mission no matter where it has landed!
ZACH
Myth #1
Writer: MIKE LONIEWSKI
Artist: DAN LAUER
Publisher: Alterna Comics
Cover Price: $1.99
All proceeds from the sale of the first digital issue, will be going to ChildHelp.org
After years of battling a wicked headmistress, young Sam has escaped his orphanage for a life far from adults. What he finds instead is a fallen kingdom of fantasy hidden in a nearby forest. Within the bizarre landscape Sam befriends the perfect sidekick in a solitary giant. Armed with his massive new friend, Sam heads out to rescue his fellow orphans and bring justice to their headmistress once and for all. But as his quest begins, something far more sinister awakens in the forest.
[rating:4.5/5]Major Spoilers Poll of the Week
We’ve been thinking a lot about death lately – the ending of something that could be the beginning of something else; a time to remember the good times, and the hope that the person has moved on to something better. But comics don’t treat death as a permanent thing. For years readers have seen death become the revolving door in comics; a gimmick, a ploy to part the reader with the money, a sensational event that can be sensationalized across the pages of the few surviving mega newspapers across the country. In short death seems to have lost all meaning for the comic book reader.
Discussion:
Tokyo Babylon It’s 1991, the last days of Japan’s bubble economy, and money and elegance run through the streets. So do the currents of darkness beneath them, nourishing evil spirits that only the arts of the onmyoji—Japan’s legendary occultists—can combat. The two most powerful onmyojiare in the unlikely guises of a handsome young veterinarian, Seishiro, and the teenage heir to the ancient Sumeragi clan, Subaru.
Contact us at podcast@majorspoilers.com
Call the Major Spoilers Hotline at (785) 727-1939.
A big Thank You goes out to everyone who downloads, subscribes, listens, and supports this show. We really appreciate you taking the time to listen to our ramblings each week. Tell your friends about the podcast, get them to subscribe and, be sure to visit the Major Spoilers site and forums.
4 Comments
Tokyo Babylon is a classic, I recommend you guys to finish the series, it is actually a short series, I don’t know about the format you are reading, but you said 500 pages in this book so it will be over in the next book because the whole series is about 1000 to 1100 pages, probably less. I really recommend finishing it, it’s really worth it.
Loved the episode.
Welcome to the wonderful world of Clamp!
I find Clamp books are almost a genre unto themselves.
One comment I found telling about this series from you is that it takes a while to get into. That is pretty much a trope of 1990’s manga. It can take a few story arcs to fully establish the major characters before the main plot starts up.
Good on you for giving this a spin. I really enjoy it when you take a step out of the main North American comics world and give another storytelling tradition a spin.
Any chance of seeing a show an examination of a Reportage story in the future?
Huh, Tokyo Babylon never made it into my radar, I’ll have to check it out.
Here are a few recommendations:
Hajime no Ippo: simply the greatest sport manga you can ever read, it is a boxing/manga masterpiece. Let’s put it this way a, manga doesn’t get to over 1 thousand chapters out of luck :)
Full Metal Alchemist: when I think “seinen” done right in “Shonen” I always think FMA, a classic.
The Legend of Koizumi, a manga where heads of state battle each other using Mahjong in life and death matches, has Hitler going super Aryan… Nuff said.
If we are talking Clamp 3 series that cannot be avoided: Magic Knights Rayearth, Card Captor Sakura and Chobits. 3 very different titles, all worth a read, there is a series by the way I recommend but only after reading all the other Clamp series (it takes a while, a long, long while).
Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles, you basically follow classic Clamp characters from different books joining together and traveling thought the different Clamp worlds trying to have their wish granted.
In a similar genre as Tokyo Babylon is Vulgar Ghost Daydreamer, it’s a little creepy and very psychological but still a good read.
On the art front: Tenjou Tenge and Air Gear are hard to beat, they are also extremely complex and the stakes are higher then in your average shounen, lets just say not everyone makes it… Not Basilisk (don’t read, Shakespeare would find this too sad) bad but people do die and worse.
And last but not least in the subject of art: Girls of the Wild, a sport/battle manga done in Manhwa style (Korean manga) which is just gorgeous to read.
P.S. if the reading style is too hard pick Manhwa, it reads in the same format as comic books.
P.P.S. Rodrigo, you said you liked Madoka, read Magic Knights Rayearth.
Madoka borrowed *a ton* from that series and just made it darker.