Comics

Red Lanterns #5 – Review

It is always stunning to me how Peter Milligan, an author with such a deft hand in other books, is consistently able to make Red Lanterns such a silly book. Regardless of what is happening in the story, you always know that there is going to be one unifying theme present in every book: Everyone getting really pissed off. Of course, when everyone is getting pissed off it kind of takes away the impact that normally comes from someone flipping out. This has the presumably unintentional effect of making everything that happens completely over the top and needlessly melodramatic. I love it.

As I have attempted to make abundantly clear on numerous occasions, Red Lanterns is a series that I just cannot take seriously. I will say that there can be a bit more story progress now that there are a few Lanterns who are not mindless with rage and can actually talk, but a team of weird looking aliens unified by being really upset about stuff just does not seem like a valid story premise to me. Especially when they are led by a giant pink man with shark teeth and an adorable pet kitty cat. These characters really strike me more as recurring villains than as characters nuanced enough to deserve their own book.

Action Comics #7 Review

Action Comics is one of my favorite series from the New 52. I was surprised to like this series because I did not expect it do be so good. I have never read the Action Comics series before the New 52 so I was happy to start reading the series when the New 52 started.

I was not really excited for this issue because I was not really impressed with the cover. The art for the cover was good, but I was not really impressed with the concept of the cover. I did not think that the story was going to be that interesting because it was going to be about Metropolis stuck in a bottle.

Shazam in the New 52

If you like Captain Marvel than you may be very happy to hear that Captain Marvel will be returning to the New 52, but with a new name. Captain Marvel will be returning as Shazam. Geoff Johns wanted to change Captain Marvel’s name because Shazam is something that is most associated with the character. This will allow for more people to recognize the character.

Princeless #1 – Review

Once upon a time, in a castle full of plot-holes there lived the princess Adrienne… who thought fairytales were hogwash and could take care of herself. Who needs a prince? Adrienne is happily princeless.

Definitely a story targeted towards younger audiences (and tomboys like myself), Princeless #1 is a great first issue with few faults other than the art styles occasional quirks and the second side-story featured in this issue.

Avengers The Children’s Crusade #9 – Review

I am sad to see that this is the last issue of Avengers The Children Crusade. The past 9 issues have been great and this is one of my favorite stories from the past year and half. It brought a lot of the Marvel Universe together with interesting story.

The cover for this issue was great it really summed up the whole mini series. We get to see Avengers, Scarlet Witch, Dr. Doom, Young Avengers, and X-men. All of these characters and teams brought a vital role to this series. I also love Jim Cheung’s art. He did a great job with the interior art and their no exception of the great work he did for the cover.

Huntress #6 – Review

This series started out amazingly for me.  In fact, over at Comic Vine I gave the first issue a rating of 5/5 stars.  The next two both got 4/5 and 4.5/5 respectively.  But it was around issue number four that the mini-series just started to drag for me.   It had the feeling of a mini-series that was forced to be a little too long in order to match up with some deadline.  And, now that we know that this mini-series leads directly into World’s Finest in May, perhaps we now know why this story went about two issues too long.  

I first got into this mini-series because I somehow came across the information that Huntress is Batman and Catwoman’s kid from Earth 2.  I’ve never been a huge DC fan, so I didn’t know anything about the different DC Crises and that before The New 52, that the Huntress that was a Wayne had been eliminated.  While the series didn’t answer which Huntress this was in the early issues, the story ended up being really fun to read.  It concerned a sex smuggling ring running out of Italy and it featured a female comic book character kicking some serious butt.  It also had some lite Batman-style detective work.

First Look: The Darkness #100 and Other Creative Changes

Back on February 29th, 2012, the 100th anniversary issue of The Darkness was released. The oversize hundredth issue came out shortly after the release of the Darkness II video game, which like it’s previous game, has gotten a slew of awe-inspired reviews wailing it’s praises. The hundredth issue concludes Phil Hester’s run on Darkness, leading to similar creative changes like those after Witchblade #150.

The ongoing writer, Phil Hester (Wonder Woman, Green Hornet), ends his run on The Darkness with a trio of artists: Romano Molenarr (The Darkness II: Confession), Leandro Oliveira (Superman) and Jose Luis (Pilot Season: Seraph). The covers for Darkness #100 are done by Todd McFarlane (Spawn) and Michawl Golden (Spawn), Jeremy Haun (Artifacts, Detective Comics) and Michael Broussard (Artifacts). Hester’s exit makes way for new ongoing writer David Hine (The Darkness: Four Horsemen, Bulletproof Coffin) and Darkness #100 cover artist Jeremy Haun to take over in the next issue of The Darkness (find more details about that particular issue here).