Comic Reviews

Ultimate Avengers 2 – #1

Welcome to Ultimate Comics Avengers 2 #1, the sole owner of the most uninspiring five pages in comic book history. The man responsible for those five pages… None other than comic book fans favorite Mark Millar (Wanted, Kick Ass). Not only are the first five page devoid of all entertainment value, they’re just flat out embarrassing.

The issue begins with the Punisher “getting busy”  with his guns that go “Choomf” (Millar’s words not mine). Castle has been spending the last two months working his way through an Eastern European crime family all in the hunt for their local boss, Joseph Petrenko, a.k.a. Russia’s Red Hammer. Petrenko runs one of the largest human trafficking outfits in the country. Castle’s opportunity finally arrives to take Petrenko out. He learns the hard way that S.H.E.I.L.D has caught up with him using the ol’ bait and switch. No Red Hammer, just a red face courtesy of Captain America. Once in custody, Nick Fury and Black Widow make Castle an offer he can’t refuse: A stint on death row or working with them in S.H.E.I.L.D’s new black ops program. He should have gone with death row! They do the jobs that Captain America and his friends would balk at…hence the reason they’re looking for a Captain America of their own.

The Magdalena #1 – Review

The Magdalena is yet another weapon wielding generational based heroine in the Top Cow Universe. When Christ died on the cross Mary Magdalene was baring his child. Hence forth the bloodline of Christ has remained unbroken and each generation selects one girl as, you guessed it, the Magdalena. She serves the hidden order of the church as their weapon of justice and vengeance. They yield the Spear of Destiny as their weapon in their battles against demons and hell.

The emphasis of the issue is that there can only be one Magdalena per a generation, the problem is that the current Magdalena (Patience) has decided to no longer serve the church. Kristof is sent by the church to either bring her back to the flock or take her out of the picture for good. It’s apparent in his dialog that he has feeling for Patience and wants to keep her as the Magdalena. Kristof feels that she’s the only one to deal with the current threat… The anti-Christ! The church gives him a chance with Patience or they will start training the un-named blonde waiting to replace her.

DV8: Gods and Monsters 1 of 8

The story begins with Copycat locked in a room. A voice comes on overhead asking her to remember everything that happened to her. She cooperates with the voice on the condition of being allowed to “see it”, which “it” turns out to be shattered planet earth. Copycat recaps falling to earth in the middle of a battle between groups of “Bronze Age” men. Frostbite, another member of super powered DV8, runs through the battle to grab her up. Copycat is then debriefed by Frostbite who explains what’s happened to the team.

The rest of DV8 arrived to the planet much earlier than Copycat. The team arrives in the middle of nowhere and they begin fighting amongst themselves almost instantly. The team pushes forward and makes camp for the night. Soon each member begin to disappear. They sometimes disappear in the middle of the night, others after talking with the natives. This continues until only Frostbite is left.

Green Lantern #53

The Blackest Night has ended, evil has been vanquished and now the Brightest Day begins. With every question that Geoff Johns (Blackest Night, Flash) has answered with the Blackest Night series there won’t be any other mysteries left for Green Lantern or the DC universe. Fear not, there’s actually a bigger mystery in the works now.

We begin with Hector Hammond, a man who looks a little like Sinestro, if Sinestro was a bobble head. He’s speaking with someone telepathically on the Planet Ryut in the lost section of the universe. Our mystery person looks a lot like a Guardian but their face and body are hidden from the reader. They do however have their ankles bound with a green chain. The mystery person reveals they protected the universe for the Guardians before the Green Lantern Corps and even before the Manhunters, We are left with an image of pillars representing the seven Corps and Parallax chained to the Fear pillar.

First Wave – The Spirit #1

The Spirit is the second spin-off series under the First Wave banner from DC comics. Will Eisner’s The Spirit is a comic classic with a long and robust history. Fortunately, this newest issue doesn’t try to shovel in all of those years and alienate new readers. Thankfully, they tell a simple story and give the Spirit a simple past, thus making for an accessible story and good continuation from the First Wave mini-series.

Denny Colt is the Spirit. He was once dead but he got better. He’s the lone guardian of Central City against the Octopus and his crime families. Our story begins with the Spirit destroying a drug shipment that the Octopus is bringing into the city. This forces the Octopus to call a summit between the families and ends with the announcement of a professional assassin being brought in to deal with the Spirit once and for all.

The Flash #1 – Review

Dear fans of Wally West… I’m sorry. I’m sorry that Wally has a wife and two kids and was never as interesting as Barry Allen. I’m sorry that with one issue, Geoff Johns (Blackest Night and anything else good at DC) has made Flash a better character than the “Big Three” or that Wally could ever be. And for that,… well, I shouldn’t say I’m sorry if I don’t mean, should I? 

The first page of this book sets the tone for the entire issue, “New York may be the city that never sleeps, but Central City is the city always on the run.” It’s almost silly to say that this book reads fast, but it does.  Once the story starts, it never stops. It pushes the reader forward all the way to the last page. Barry Allen is returning to his job as a forensic scientist for the Central City Police Department, and his life as the Flash. He begins his day by taking out the new Trickster, who has decided to make traffic in the city worse than it usually is. He shows up late to work and is introduced to rest of the “Lab Rats”, and is sent to his first homicide case: Mirror Master.

Cold Space #1 – Review

The best way to summarize Cold Space is to say that it’s about Samuel L. Jackson playing a Riddick-Pitch-Black-type character that crash-lands in a western space town. Really, there is nothing else to the story besides a lot of Samuel L. Jackson-esc dialog and a whole lot of ego-stroking. Usually, Boom! Studios are able to produce comics that feel like movies, but that’s not the case here.

X-Men: Second Coming #1

In the blink of an eye the Scarlett Witch whispered “No more mutants”, grammatically, a horrible sentence that has since haunted the mutants of the Marvel Universe. This was after Grant Morrison had increased the mutant population to an annoying amount. Think Avengers Initiative only with the X-Men: too many forgettable characters with dumb and/or lame powers. Scarlett Witch changed that. She knocked the X-Men down to a staggering 198 in total population.  The stories could have been real interesting and act as a restart to the X-Men, taking it back to the days when new mutants were a rarity. Instead, Marvel focused on them being an endangered species.

In Messiah Complex, Cable takes the first mutant born since, again M-Day (No More Mutants), and runs away with her to the future. Now with my summary, you can actually read this issue. I have done what Marvel failed to do and recap the events leading up to this cross-over event. I remember when Messiah Complex came out Marvel said they wanted to do an X-Men cross-over because they, “hadn’t “done one in a while.” Apparently, they wanted to make up for lost time and have slammed one cross-over event after the other.

Second Coming is the return of the mutant messiah, Hope (Jean Grey reborn, just my guess), who has been raised in the future by Cable. They’re past being chased by Bishop, who desperately wanted to kill her so he’d never exist. I guess he didn’t know what a time paradox was.  Short version he could never do that. So they’ve returned. The X-Men are on Utopia, an artificial island off the coast of San Francisco. Cyclops is having a group meeting discussing the most recent mutant death and how it’s the equivalent of one million humans dying. Then, he informs the gathered team that they have work to do. At this point, it is not explained what the X-Men need to really work on, or what they even do all day. Just that there’s work to be done. Right on cue, Cerebra, the mutant detecting computer, picks up Cables return. Cyclops then strategically places teams in what’s sure to become story set pieces and moves out to get the story rolling.

Codebreakers #1 – Review

Codebreakers delivers a solid government spy thriller that appeals to your nerdy intellect and your smarter-than-you-complex, all in one story.

Boom! Studio’s seems to have the uncanny ability to make a comic book feel like something more.  This comic could have easily been a pilot episode of a new TV series or even the newest thriller hitting theaters.  That’s how good this comic is and how well it reads.  Carey Malloy, the writer, crafts an intelligent, fast paced story that leaves you waiting for issue two. The characters in the story are just that, characters, each with their own unique voice and mannerisms that define them throughout each act.  The story follows Stanley Grouse, the youngest cryptanalyst in F.B.I. history.  Stan represents the future of code breaking, and strives to be the best.  He’s apart of the alpha team, headed up by Donald Foster.  Foster is the experienced leader, the best around and perhaps a little hardened from his experiences.  Lindsay Abbott is smart and beautiful, she sees the code in people’s patterns and habits.   Closing out the team is Malcolm Whiteweather, the oldest member of the team.  Malcolm represents the early days of code breaking and rounds out the personalities on the team.

American Vampire #1

It’s Hollywood 1925, the talking picture has yet to be invented.  Already this story is not the typical setting for a vampire story, but this is where American Vampires begins. Pearl Jones is a struggling actress that works three jobs to make ends meet. One of those jobs is as an extra for a movie. She and her roommate play slave girls. Throughout the issue, not only do you get the feeling that you are following Pearl through her daily routine, but that you are following her on the luckiest day of her life.On the day of her big break, she’s hit on by a musician at the club she works at.  The next day she can’t help but gush to her roommate about it