Browsing: Review

Or – “ALIENS!  AH SEED ‘EM!  THEY COME DOWN AN’ THEY GIMME SOME CHICLETS!!!” Three decades after the inexplicable murder of their parents, two decades after the death of the Silver Agent, a decade after everything went horribly wrong, the Williams brothers continue their downward spiral.  You can ask Frank Castle, folks, being obsessed with revenge really ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.  Now that it’s morning in America, can Charles and Royal Williams find the man who made them orphans?  And what happens after?

It Begins… There has been plenty of lead up to the much hyped Blackest Night series, as the Green Lantern titles have unveiled nearly all of the Corps involved in the event. Green Lantern #43 gets the Prologue banner treatment, and is a great lead in to the mega-event.

Aw yeah, Tiny Titans!

Or – “How Venom Got His Groove Back…” Y’know what’s interesting?  Venom’s “new costume,” which has only appeared in the Amazing Spider-Man title, makes it’s reappearance in this issue, but only on the cover.  It didn’t get used in Thunderbolts, I don’t believe it’s in use in Dark Reign, and it’s not actually seen in the interiors.  Isn’t it odd that they’d roll out a new uniform for a high-profile villain like Venom and then NOT USE IT? 

Or – “AARGH!  I AM CRYING FOR JUSTICE, PERHAPS!” Y’ever read a comic and think to yourself, “I’ve already READ this one!”  Not in the sense that the book takes on familiar themes, or that it rips off something else, but that you have physically held and processed the comic in question at some point in your life?  Imagine how odd that sensation must be when the book is brand-new.

Or – “It’s Kind Of Ironic That They’re Called ‘Payback,’ Isn’t It?” Because I have a strong suspicion that Butcher is about to remind them why their own name is a b!+<#…

Or – “This One Is A Game-Changer…” What do you do when your greatest weapon is also your biggest weakness?   Go for the ‘Hail, Mary…’

My joy over the arrival of the latest issue of IDW Publishing’s Locke & Key had me giddy all weekend.  And the holiday activities only heightened my desire to crack the cover and take a peek at what lies within.  That’s quite an appropriate thought, as this issue featured a lot of cracked heads.

At the start of this issue, Ben Grimm and his fiancée Debbi are having some pre-nuptial problems that are a little more unusual than the average engaged couple has to deal with. On the Thing’s return to the Baxter Building, he and the rest of the Fantastic Four are forcibly catapulted into a major battle with Doom’s Master, which not only shows how dangerous their adversary is but also reveals the shocking origin of this major new villain.

Or – “I Always Had A Huge Crush On Miranda…” In recent years, Marvel Comics has become known (to me, at least) for grabbing handfuls of characters and slapping them together to see what sticks, sort of like a superhero Chinese Buffet.  The obvious raison d’être for this miniseries is to reproduce the dynamics of ‘Sex And The City’ using superhuman women, the kind of built-in story hook (“It’s a superhero support group, and GET THIS!  The Power Pack chick is half nekkid in it!”  “Oh, wait, how about a superhero who works for a newspaper and has all sorts of…

Nineteen sixty-four was the year that we were first introduced to the ‘Man With No Name’ and over the course of three movies the wise cracking, fast killing; laconic stranger redefined the basic archetype of the traditional cowboy. The anti-hero was all the rage at the time in mainstream crime noir cinema and Sergio Leone bravely decided to try and transfer that imagery over into the Western genre. He succeed in his task so well that it encouraged his leading actor to try his hand, in nineteen seventy-two, at directing his own version of the character in the movie ‘High…

Let’s return to the days of the cold war… Batman Confidential has had a lot of ups and downs for me.  On the one hand the series gives DC a chance to tell origin stories about Batman and his villains, tech, and history, but on the other hand, DC canceled Legends of the Dark Knight (I know, I’m a broken record).  With the holiday weekend upon us, what better way to show our patriotism than having Batman take on the Russians, or more specifically, the KGBeast.

Or – “We Hold These Comics To Be Self-Evident…” Today is American Independence Day, commonly referred to as July 4th, as it takes place on the 4th of July, hence the name, and that’s why the song is called Alice’s Restaurant… To all the faithful Spoilerites of the United States, Happy 4th of July. For those of you who are from elsewhere, sorry about all the hegemony and stuff. Either way, it’s time for another bout of our Rapid Fire Reviews, bite-sized chunks of comics that I either couldn’t write three paragraphs about, or ran out of time to cover.…

Or – “The Return Of The Greatest X-Man Of Them All!”  It has been many years since the original five X-Men teamed up to battle various fat, bald, ugly pro-wrestler types.  In the ensuing years, seemingly hundreds of mutants have joined various incarnations of the X-Franchise, but everybody seems to forget the FIRST mutant recruit to join the then-handful of X-Kids…  The man called The Mimic.  In a world gone mad, where no one’s loyalties can be easily discerned, this legendary lost hero has returned, to once again spearhead the team he once led. (Oh, there’s some other guys in…