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Post by thwhtguardian on Jan 25, 2022 8:46:30 GMT -5
OFF THE RACKSReal Readers, Honest Reviews  What Did You Read This Week? |
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Post by majestic on Jan 26, 2022 14:03:49 GMT -5
Superman and Robin Special. Peter J. Tomasi and Viktor Bogdanovic.
I am a big fan of the Super Sons. So far Tomasi has written their 3 mini series. The first 2 were a lot of fun however the 3rd series was pretty forgettable. Glad to see Tomasi got an oversized one shot to (possibly) end on a high note.
This is the first time Tomasi has written the two of them together with Jon as Superman. Other than Jon being taller it felt like a classic Super Sons team up. Jon and Damian go to the Fortress to fix an incident that involves Nazis and a pregnant alien animal.
Yep old school type of comic book adventures. It was a blast to read with Bogdanovic's beautifully rendered detailed cartoony art style.
My favorite this week.
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Post by majestic on Jan 26, 2022 14:08:49 GMT -5
The Death of Doctor Strange #5. Jed MacKay and Lee Garbett.
This mini series concludes with some interesting twists. I don't want to spoil the story... all I will say is MacKay did a great job entertaining us with a magical murder mystery and wrapping it up in an amazing fashion.
The last page ending has already been spoiled by Marvel as Clea becomes the new Strange...
Looking forward to seeing where MacKay takes her on her journey next month.
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Post by majestic on Jan 26, 2022 14:14:47 GMT -5
Thor #21. Donny Cates and Nic Klein.
God of Hammers Part 3: This issue shows how Mjolnir became the God of Hammers, using part of Jane's time as Thor to explain it. The fight scenes between Thor and Mjolnir are brutal as illustrated by Klein.
I don't see how Cates can wrap this up in 2 more issues.
I said it before... Cates run on Thor has been stellar destined to be some of the best Thor stories ever told.
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Post by majestic on Jan 26, 2022 14:23:40 GMT -5
Detective Comics #1050.
I got the first 4 issue arc to see where the main story was going and Tamaki gives us a partial answer on the last page. I also bought it just because Ivan Reis' art is so good! There was the usual back up by Rosenberg & Blanco which is OK...
But the highlight this issue was an extra story by Mark Waid & Dan Mora with a prologue of their new Worlds Finest series launching in March!
And I liked what I read! Good teaser of a story with great art reuniting the Superman/Batman/Robin team. It looks like it will have a old style feel to the title. Definitely added it to my pull list.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Jan 26, 2022 19:47:57 GMT -5
Falconspeare Written and Illustrated by Warwick Johnson-Cadwell Summary:Monster hunters extraordinaire Professor Meinhardt, Mr. Knox, and Ms. Van Sloan search for their lost friend Falconspeare.
Plot: Falconspeare is the third book in Professor J.T. Meinhardt and His Assistant Mr. Knox series that Cadwell first began with help from Mike Mignola in 2017 with the most excellent Mr. Higgins Comes Home. While I've loved the previous entries and the way they played off of the same humor in darkness that has always made me love Roman Polanski's The Fearless Vampire Hunters(despite loathing the man himself, I really loved that Cadwell changed things up here with a more serious story that reminded me more of the Hammer horror films. I had always presumed that it was Cadwell's influence that brought more humor to the previous entries, but with him here by himself(Mignola only provides the cover) delivering a story that is just so somber. There's still some of the signature humor, especially in the sight gags around the slaying of the vampires, but over all it's a book that is more of a true horror story than the two previous entries which really makes it stand out. And while not exactly a new plot device I really liked how Cadwell used the trope of the hero becoming the monster so he could take on the bigger(though in this case all too human) monster and then waiting for his friends to stop him from hurting innocents.
Art: With his squiggly, cartoonish style you wouldn't think Cadwell would be a great fit for a horror book...but you'd be dead wrong! The soft line work he uses is so incredible at making his heroes just so human and fallible which really gives you a sense of believable danger when they come face to face with the supernatural. Despite the art lacking a sense of photo-realism it none the less does a much better job at delivering a sense of actual danger than just about any other art I've ever seen which really makes the book feel so special.
Grade:10/10
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Post by Marv-El on Jan 27, 2022 14:20:22 GMT -5
Detective Comics #1050.I got the first 4 issue arc to see where the main story was going and Tamaki gives us a partial answer on the last page. I also bought it just because Ivan Reis' art is so good! There was the usual back up by Rosenberg & Blanco which is OK... But the highlight this issue was an extra story by Mark Waid & Dan Mora with a prologue of their new Worlds Finest series launching in March! And I liked what I read! Good teaser of a story with great art reuniting the Superman/Batman/Robin team. It looks like it will have a old style feel to the title. Definitely added it to my pull list. I recently got my pull list delivery from my LCS which included the last 4 issues of Detective (since it's been weekly of late). So I've been catching up on Shadows of the Bat and so far, I've liked it. Reis' art has been amazing (especially certain shots of Batwoman) and the story has been decent, I like the juxtaposition of showing initially the crisis that is occurring and then revealing how that crisis came about. So have #1050 set aside, just have to wait for it's delivery soon. Good to hear some positivism about World's Finest, I usually don't go wrong in checking out what Waid is doing. |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Jan 27, 2022 19:44:10 GMT -5
Detective Comics #1050.I got the first 4 issue arc to see where the main story was going and Tamaki gives us a partial answer on the last page. I also bought it just because Ivan Reis' art is so good! There was the usual back up by Rosenberg & Blanco which is OK... But the highlight this issue was an extra story by Mark Waid & Dan Mora with a prologue of their new Worlds Finest series launching in March! And I liked what I read! Good teaser of a story with great art reuniting the Superman/Batman/Robin team. It looks like it will have a old style feel to the title. Definitely added it to my pull list. The story by Waid was the only part I liked here, despite liking Tamaki's characterization this event is just poorly paced. |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Jan 27, 2022 20:09:30 GMT -5
Superman and Robin Special. Peter J. Tomasi and Viktor Bogdanovic. I am a big fan of the Super Sons. So far Tomasi has written their 3 mini series. The first 2 were a lot of fun however the 3rd series was pretty forgettable. Glad to see Tomasi got an oversized one shot to (possibly) end on a high note. This is the first time Tomasi has written the two of them together with Jon as Superman. Other than Jon being taller it felt like a classic Super Sons team up. Jon and Damian go to the Fortress to fix an incident that involves Nazis and a pregnant alien animal. Yep old school type of comic book adventures. It was a blast to read with Bogdanovic's beautifully rendered detailed cartoony art style. My favorite this week. See, I didn't care for this that much at all, it was just too exposition and dialogue heavy and neither seemed all that important. He should have let it just ride and embrace the fun of it but instead he just kept getting in his own way. |
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Post by Dizzy D on Feb 7, 2022 10:18:39 GMT -5
Marauders annual #1
Written by Steve Orlando
Art by Creees Lee, and Rain Beredo
What Happened Before: Mutants have organized and live together now on the living island of Krakoa. The Hellfire Trading Company takes care to ship Krakoa's supermedicine to the rest of the world to spread the mutant's political and financial powers, while also smuggling mutants outside of hostile countries. One of these ships is the Marauder, captained by Kate Pryde, Red Queen of the Hellfire Club. Except all of that seems to be in the past: leadership of the Hellfire Trading Company has changed, Kate's ship, the Marauder, has been destroyed and half her crew have left.
Plot: Daken is investigating the deaths of several mutants, but is captured. Kate and Bishop are recruiting a new crew for their ship. This issue introduces the new team, consisting of Kate, Bishop, Psylocke, Tempo, Somnus and Aurora. They rescue Daken from the demonic Brimstone Love and his Theatre of Pain. Returning to Krakoa, Kate leaves her position as Red Monarch to Christian Frost and takes her new crew (including Daken now) to investigate a map in a mysterious cube Emma received.
The Good: I usually like Steve Orlando's writing, but I think this wasn't very good at all. Marauders had been floundering for a bit since Duggan also got the X-Men title and it seemed like his attention was focused there, but this issue seems really disconnected from everything that happened in the past years in the X-Men titles.
I like that some lesser known mutants get a spotlight: Tempo (who already appeared before in Marauders) and Somnus (recently created by Orlando, so no surprise that he's here).
I also like an unexpected character showing up: Brimstone Love and the Theatre of Pain were villains in X-Men 2099. Except their appearances here seem to have nothing to do with the 2099 incarnation of the Theatre of Pain and their motivation here seems to be mutants and humans that feel abandoned by Xavier now he has focused on Krakoa. (It's heavily implied that Brimstone is just manipulating this crowd for his own ends).
The Bad: It's a big part personal preference; I really liked when Marauders was political manoeuvring between Emma and Kate vs. Shaw and that part seems completely gone now: Emma, Sebastian and Kate all have stepped back from leading the Hellfire Trading Company.
Characterwise a lot of odd things happening:
Daken is running around in his old costume at the beginning for some reason. For some reason Daken's team X-Factor are not investigating his disappearance, but the Marauders will investigate even though they have no team at the moment.
Psylocke feels like an outcast in Krakoa, even though she has just been appointed to rank of Captain and seemed to be getting along well with Elisabeth Braddock over in Excalibur when I last read that.
Brimstone Love gather a group of humans and mutants that feel abandoned by Xavier, who think the best way to show their dedication to human/mutant co-existence is by capturing and torturing a mutant... Sure.
At the end, I assume the cube Emma hands Kate is what was in the box Mystique gave her in Inferno in exchange for her support, but whatever was in that box seems to have been something very personal to Emma that she had been looking for for a long time and this cube seems like something that would interest the entire Council and not something personal to specifically Emma.
4/10: I'll give Orlando a few issues, but so far it has little of what I liked in Marauders as a title and this issue felt very rushed.
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