Yearly Archives: 2011
Slinger Spotted!
I have something of a niche blog. It’s very geek-oriented, with a lot of talk about comic books. There’s a big audience for that on the Internet. But there’s probably a much smaller audience who tune in specifically for my personal take on comics and geekiness. Part of me wants to do a more general type of site, that appeals to a lot of people, but part of me also wants to focus on topics that interest me the most.
Hence this post about a single, tiny appearance of one of the Slingers!
Ricochet has returned to comics as a member of the Avengers Academy, according to a single panel in the latest issue.
He's down in the corner playing tug-of-war
For those of you who don’t know, The Slingers was a very short-lived Marvel comic book in the mid-90s, but it was one of my favorites of all time. It was my favorite comic after the cancellation of the Green Goblin series, and I bought and read every one of Slingers’ dozen or so issues. It was about a team of young heroes using a bunch of discarded Spider-Man identities. Long story. They were Prodigy, Dusk, Hornet and Ricochet, and their comic was just plain fun.
Once The Slingers was cancelled, the characters just faded into comic book limbo, making sporadic appearances here and there. Hornet got killed by Wolverine, Dusk was a victim of the Puppetmaster in the Ms. Marvel comic (now cancelled) and Prodigy actually went on to become a rather important figure in Marvel’s Civil War and the Initiative. He had a starring role in the recent Youth in Revolt tie-in to Fear Itself. So Prodigy is going places. He even appeared in the video game Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2!
Ricochet, the ostensible star of The Slingers, had a brief appearance as a member of the Loners, a series that spun out of Runaways, about former 90s teen heroes who were trying to give up the life. I liked the Loners mini-series, and Runaways cameo, even though that was the start of turning Phil Urich into a super-villain. Alas. Anyway, it seems Ricochet is still in costume because he’s randomly been added to the cast of Avengers Academy
For those of you who might be Slingers fans, this is pretty cool news.
Review: Punisher #5
Much like last issue, Punisher #5 continues the story at a snail’s pace without any real momentous happenings or interactions between the cast. Couple that with an incredible leap of 100 days in time from the last issue, and I’m starting to get bored. Nothing is happening except for a surface-level exploration of the characters. And nothing at all is happening with the Punisher himself. He remains a nearly-mute specter who may or may not be killing criminals.
Punisher #5
When is something going to happen!?
Comic rating: 3/5: Alright.
Though again, like last issue, I’ll say that it’s a well-constructed comic. The writing is solid and the art is sufficiently moody. The wintery snow effects are amazing. So it’s a well put-together comic, but that doesn’t guarantee a good comic. Nothing happens in this issue. Nothing of significance at least. None of the characters have any breakthroughs. No one has any particularly memorable lines of dialogue. Nobody does anything that will be remembered next issue. Maybe it’s my fault. Maybe I’m missing some important subtext or something. But I’m pretty sure that writer Greg Rucka is sacrificing momentum for mood-building.
And that just doesn’t make for a good comic. Not that I’m going to stop reading just yet, but I’m starting to consider dropping the Punisher. We’ll see. Spoilers after the jump.
Skyrim Has a Hold of Me
So I splurged and bought the video game Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. For those that don’t know, it’s this epic sword and sorcery role-playing game that all of the week world is going crazy for right now. Skyrim has hours of gameplay, hundreds of quests and sub-quests and thousands of characters to meet or monsters to vanquish. I may or may not keep everyone up to date with my playing.
My character is an orc named Tannenbaum, named after one of my World of Warcraft characters. He’s a warrior who favors a two-handed axe, perfect for slicing off heads or burying axe blades into heads.
I’ve also slain a dragon.
So pretty fun game so far. Here’s Tannenbaum:
Orcs hate the dentist
Just look at those graphics! I’m glad I bought Skyrim for the PC.
Brave? More Like Lame, amiright, Folks?
Now that I’ve made peace with the death of my favorite comic book character, let’s move on to some other kinds of posts. The full trailer for Pixar’s next movie Brave came out while I was grieving. I was excited, because I liked the teaser trailer, but this full trailer leaves a lot to be desired. Take a look:
I gotta say, I’m disappointed. Not by the visuals, of course, they look stunning, but by the proposed story. Pixar is supposed to make these great, wonderful and creative films. A world of talking cars. Robot love in the future. Toys that come to life. But what’s this story? Strong, independent woman overcome’s society’s restrictions? We’ve seen that story a million times before! Women are always proving themselves in these types of movies. I think it’s a pretty safe guess that Brave, or whatever her name is, will easily rise above her society’s unfair gender laws and win the day. Possibly killing a monster bear in the process.
So I’m just not as impressed as I’d hoped to be with the Brave trailer. There’s a little too much slapstick comedy.
Frankly, I’m pretty sure the men and women at Pixar started with the poofy red hair and worked their way backwards.
That's some pretty computer-rendered hair
Stage Five: Acceptance – Review of X-Factor #227
So at long last, it’s time to accept that my favorite comic book character has been killed and there’s nothing I can do about it. But considering he died in this issue, one might ask how I could possibly be expected to review it objectively. That’s a fair question. And my answer is: because I say I can. Simple as that. It’s still a comic book. I still read it. I even enjoyed it.
X-Factor #227
Even if those bastards killed him!
Comic rating: 4/5: Good!
I’m going to spoil the character that was killed after the jump. In fact, I’m going to spoil the whole issue. That’s kind of my thing. A lot of other review sites don’t spoil the books, so good for them. But I’m something of a niche blog, so I’ve got no problem spoiling the stories. I like to think that some people might read my reviews just to get spoiled. I’m fine with that.
Suffice to say, the death in this issue of a prominent member of X-Factor doesn’t really have much at all to do with the story. It’s more like a big cliffhanger to lead us into the next story arc. Frankly, this whole story arc has seemed kind of lackluster. There are way too many members of X-Factor these days, and this issue has a completely unimportant guest star and serves as the introduction of a new villain. So there are a lot of characters to juggle. Peter David does an OK job with the juggling, but no one piece gets enough attention to be really good.
Still, at least my favorite character died in an issue that’s worth reading. Spoilers after the jump.
Henchman-4-Hire 