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I realized ever since I've been doing these Comic Blogs I haven't read this much in years, I've betrayed the 8 year old in me!

I need him for gaming.

Anyway, I'm a little behind on this week because there was a bit of a blow out f stuff and doing the Anime blog didn't help. So here are the last picks of February

 

Marvel

I'm buying fewer and fewr Marvel books, Guardian's and Nova aren't nearly as good as it used to be, X-men is inconsistent, Spider-man is embarrasing. and Tone across the board is somewhat stale. Now there are highlights Like Ms. Marvel, Rocket Raccoon and Hickman's Avengers run is amoung the best at marvel. Hickman's Avengers however is better read in bulk.

Thankfully Miguel (S-man) is out of the Spider-verse crossover but now he's thrusted into an alternate 2099 world where Meastro (Evil future Hulk) and finds himself out matched. We get to see Maestro's level of Depravity as well with I didn't noticed till I looked at the pages leading to it twice. The one thing I like about PADs work is pacing, You get enough time to absorb info but things move rather evenly. Though because it's all timey-whimey stuff this issue appeals moe to comic vets however easy enough to get into.

 Best Lines - S-Man: God, eveybody in this world just yammers on and on.

DC

A bit of nightmare feul in this one, Diana exposes Batman... "inadequacy", The very Star Wars reveal of Hypolita character, and a bit more politics.

There is actually quite a bit in this issue. I like the structure as it goes from Superhero to private to Queen. Though I'm not a fan of the dark road Azzerello started assuming things would get lighter was a little much but we the start of the crumbling of Diana's nation as Democracy descends into feudal battles with her "Sister" Donna Troy, the sons of Themascera (children of the women traded at birth) find them selves worse than second class citizens and the start of a big ol' fight.

Seriously, apart from the art I don't get the complaints I've heard, It's covering Diana's life far better than Azz, every character has a personality. and things move at a much faster pace not dedicating things to the past. Admittedly a few dialogue flubs here and there but It took a second read to notice.

Best Lines - Wonder Woman: Awesome. Because who doesn't love Bugs? 

 

We're seeing the repercussions of last Issue, and it's great . Classic Tec. It rounds up the mystery or at least combines all the pieces to a very logical conclusion. Anarky where's a mask, now originally he was inspired by V for Vendetta and when the movie came out he was more based on the Anonymous use of the mask. Here the Origins of the mask is very clever, when you look back, the clues where there all along.

The art work is fantastic and very creative, the Team are on game

I haven't been this happy to read Detective Comics since Snyder wrote it.

Best Lines - Detective Bullock: Geez... Uh... So this is why we never see you comin'. 

 

I kinda witsh this was 2 issues because there's so much to be said about this. I mean this issue has soo many parallels it speaks to the current fight of the middle east, slavery and a few other stuff.

Morrison finds a Way of Making Superman "Superman" even as a Nazi... White guilt

Now Uncle same with the help of Sivanna from working with the others equipped him with resources and a Team of people The Nazi Reign almost eradicated. So poetic justice too.

When Uncle same enacts his end game you are left thinking "alright, up to the point where Hitler is on the John (it's a surprise) history went exactly the same same. Nazi's where evil and losing. Now after the bodies of dead they've taken over the world successfully. But now thanks to an outside force there chickens have come to roost by their victims but are they right?" I'm also a fan of English being a dead language.

Morrison is having a lot of fun with Multiversity. So am I.

Best Lines - Adolf Hitler: What reason did Von Hammer give for interrupting me at my Toilet? 

 

Well it finally happened, we get to see the Spectre in a mystic battle for Gothams soul!

We get to confront the nature of the sentient virus, but I think the open pages are good as it illustrates just how miserable Gotham is, someone gets stabbed right out side a bar our hero is drinking at. We learn a little history on the foundations of Gotham too.

Best Lines - Dr. Tarr: Corrigan, we all know the founders of Gotham destroyed an entire civilization to settle here!

 

Image

Another good issue, some more mind tricks. The nature of the characters powers and the effects of our Heroine's absence from her life.

It covers the question of "If you read minds of bad people, what would you do?" In this case, Violence. And the obvious comparison of what makes them different from the monsters who hide among people.

This comic is really good, i'm looking forward to the next issue.

Best Lines - Syd: The very real monsters always hiding just out of view, endlessly consumes with taking advantage of whoever they can, just to make their own puny lives the tiniest bit better.

Which only begs the question... What does that make us?

 

The first page of this comic made me smile and laugh, it was a call back to the Liefeldian, early 90s Image comics, bad proportions, bad feet and gradient back ground and all! Eric Jones is a diverse artist and he needs higher profile work.

We get more timey-wimey, Spacey-whacey stuff here but instead of using technology, we get magic. One of the heroes managed to pull himself out of reality to not meat his ultimate fate a fate which seems to repeat itself. Trying to break the cycle I proving difficult

Though the story is good the art is what stands out here panel construction the the colours punch you in the face with creativity, the last few pages uses white out in similar ways Frank Miller and other artist uses to show emptiness and time.

I'm so glad the hiatus is over 

Best Lines - The Magician: Connected through a single thought. An Idea. An Idea that originated between moments. Outside time and space. Outside this broken reality. Forever beyond the great evil that wants to devour us all

 

This has a very interesting page where all the credits are written like a mid 80s computer.

Anyway this feels like a Grind house Locke & Key (a recommendation, read the Locke and Key series), essentially a man has stolen the key to dreams and in order to use it gave up his name and which is the title of the comic. We only get a taste of what this is all about as we only get as fish aliens from what seems to be a planetoid do the body snatcher thing and try to track down the our protagonist.

I like Chris Burnam's art but it's an odd mix of Frank Quietly and Art Adams, so it's get that wrinkly chubby, his panel work is always nice though, quite varied.

This is a one of those stories you don't get on the first read which is a habit of Morrison's, he can make his plots a little impenetrable, but it's intriguing, that's for sure.

Best Lines - Nameless: Nothing is Real. 

 

This comic was always a trippy comic but Jamie McKelvie when full on drugs with for of the pages. Not in the "I don't know what the hell is going on" kind of drugs, think LSD and crack with the use of colours and panels. This issue, It's a bit of a detour of the main plot but it's interesting how normal it is that these contemporary gods just do whatever.

 Best Line - Baphomet: Sure. I speak to the dead. The dead don't speak back. They're dead stupid

 

They're essentially the same thing but with quite a few cool differences while the Savage version is in the Comic Mag format however it also has the added old fashion adds you get in that, front and back.

Now why? Well the title Criminal is actually reading the comic the comic we're reading opens on. Not "Meta", just really fun.

But we get to see something I don't think has ever been done yet... Death by comicbook. Friggin awesome! 

The story is actually a little continuation of the original Criminal series. and as usually it's a violent well told and straight forward tale, cynical as ever but still entertaining. This series has always been a dark shade of Grey than just full on black but I like how it doesn't paint these characters as full on villains or give them redeemable qualities but presents them as they are.

The over-sized magazine version is the best way to read this, though the regular story has larger white space the mag story is better read this way.

Best Lines - Giff: The guys love these mags, but they return 'em covered in jizz half the time. Assholes just got no respect.

 

Dynamite

Well this was long. the wait between issues for this comic was... could have been years!Joe Benitez is one of the 90s break out Image artist and has refined his style more than most but like many of the 90s artist their out put is slooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow.

So i'm not going to talk much about this other than it's Pretty and the story is set i a world where people are part Machine, this is due to the fact the space between telling the story has made me draw a blank.

Best Lines - Mr Gitano: Are they on this flying ship of his? 

 

Legendary

Morrison's story is a little disjointed but leads to some interesting scenes (even if there is a panel that comes out of nowhere), Again Frazier Irving is really going all out, I usually don't like darkly toned comics (Batman not withstanding) but he manages to take an almost photo-realitic approach to textures and make it all so vibrant leading into some freaky images. 

A bit of the plot is revealed as well leading up to this point, Morrison has never been short on imagination, that's for sure.

Best Lines - Ray:The Booze is the life, the booze is the life.

Luna: Keep saying it. It's Bullshit. You know what you are? You're like the Ninja Master of self-destruction.

 

 

Wow, this took a while, this raps up last months comics but that means I have a whole months worth of comics to fill a blog with next next And March had some good ones too, some interesting stuff. I'm back to my regular work hours so things should be more punctual. Should be...

Just a heads up, there's going to be a Capcom/Sega crossover in Archie comics to sequel the Worlds Collide storyline with Sonic and Megaman.

 

This is V saying "Can I play with Madness?"