Yearly Archives: 2013
Review: Teen Titans #25
You can always count on Teen Titans to have more than a few things wrong with each issue. Sometimes it’s an overabundance of editor’s notes pointing you towards some other series. Or maybe it’s a lot of long, boring, expositional dialogue. Or maybe it includes a few random cutaways to villains who will never appear again (the book loves to do that!). It’s always something with this comic. Teen Titans has been written by the same guy with what I assume is the same agenda since the start of the New 52, and writer Scott Lobdell hasn’t gotten any better. This new issue flings our heroes far into the future, into outer space, to meet a bunch of random space dudes and sort of maybe start to learn the secret origin of Kid Flash.
Teen Titans #25
Turns out he’s kind of a murderous monster with more blood on his hands than your average Manson. Our teenage heroes, ladies and gentlemen!
Comic Rating: 3/10 – Bad.
Sometimes I think I’m being too hard on Teen Titans, but then I read the rest of the comics I buy each week and the difference is staggering. Modern comics today usually focus on the character, and leave a lot of the exposition to the art. We readers don’t need to be spoonfed every little piece of plot. But Lobdell on Teen Titans looooves exposition. He loves having his characters explain everything as awkwardly and as stuntedly as possible. Teen Titans #25 is a fine example. And it’s made even worse by Lobdell doing most of the expositing via thought bubbles. Freakin’ thought bubbles! Those haven’t been in style since the 90s! But Teen Titans #25 is full of them, from multiple different characters. It’s deadening.
To say nothing of the actual plot and characters involved. Bart Allen’s origin has no connection to anything we’ve ever seen before in DC Comics or the Teen Titans – or at least that’s how it appears so far. So Lobdell is pretty much making it up as he goes along, whether it’s the names of random space mercenaries or space police agencies or futuristic technology. He’s on a roll just throwing out new ideas and concepts with absolutely no grounding, unless you count the Teen Titans themselves, who have never been particularly grounded.
Teen Titans #25 is another fine example of why this series is as dull and as flat as a piece of wood. Join me after the jump for a full synopsis and more review.
Review: Marada the She-Wolf
Fans of swords, sorcery and tales of adventure will find a lot to love in the classic comics of Marada the She-Wolf, created by legendary comic book writer Chris Claremont. A serial from the early 1980s, Marada is Claremont and artist John Bolton’s attempt to create a badass, fantasy warrior woman in the vein of Xena or Red Sonja. She’s beautiful, honorable and good with a sword, and a collected edition of of her adventures released this month by Titan Comics goes a long way in establishing her as an exciting action hero – with one major caveat.
Comic Rating: 7/10 – Good.
The collected edition of Marada comics features the complete run of the character across three issues, with a lot of behind-the-scenes materials. The story takes place somewhere in the middle of Marada’s heroic career, since she’s already a well-known character at the start. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, Marada’s adventures did not continue beyond these three issues, so we only really get the first half of her adventure. The rest is lost to posterity. And I found the comic entertaining enough that I wish I could see what happened next.
Marada is a nomadic warrior princess who travels the world having adventures – which, frankly, is my dream job (minus the princess part). She’s the graddaughter of Caesar, and the story is set during the days of the Roman Empire. Marada’s tale takes her to the African Savannah, the Middle East, the high seas and even into demonic dimensions. She’s your typical heroine, and her adventures are resoundingly fun and filled with a great cast of entertaining supporting characters.
The best way to describe the art by Bolton is ‘classic’. This is exactly the kind of painted fantasy art I imagine when I think of tales from this era. All of the characters look like they stepped off the cover of a slightly-less air-brushed romance novels, but in a good way.
Not enough romance novels include demon killing
The pages look much cleaner in the actual book. These are just some scans I found online.
Unfortunately, Marada the She-Wolf was written and designed by men in the comic book industry in the early 1980s. Considering the problems some male writers have with female characters in this day and age, it’s no surprise that Marada is not exactly a strong, independent woman.
The collected edition is available on Amazon.com.
Join me after the jump for more review.
The 6 Coolest Native American Superheroes
We here at Henchman-4-Hire are firm believers that every holiday should stick to its designated time period. All those doors in The Nightmare Before Christmas exist for a reason! Christmas needs to wait its turn, because there’s a very important and valid holiday in November: Thanksgiving!
Even if we all can pretty much agree that the historical First Thanksgiving was probably nothing like what we were led to believe growing up. Pilgrims and Indians coming together in peace and harmony to feast on a big, plump turkey on November 28? It’s probably more fictional than Bigfoot. But let’s not worry about that now, let’s take a look at the 6 coolest Native American superheroes – and thankfully, not all of them are wearing super-powered feathered headdresses.
Everything Wrong with Man of Steel
It’s too bad the Cinema Sins people only stick to factual (and sometimes opinionated) errors, because I thought there was a lot more wrong with Man of Steel. Still, enjoy!
They forgot the biggest one! When Superman is holding Zod’s head at the end to keep him from killing that family with heat vision, why didn’t Zod just move his eyes to the side? When using heat vision, can you only look straight ahead? Is that a thing?
See, I could write for Cinema Sins.
Review: Cataclysm: Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man #1
Cataclysm is upon us. The Ultimate Universe has been chugging along for more than a decade now, and with Cataclysm, it looks like we might be at the end. We comic book fans don’t yet know what’s going to happen at the end, but all signs are pointing to some kind of cancellation of the Ultimate line. Or maybe a streamlining? Who can really say? All I know is that Galactus, Devourer of Worlds, has crossed the interdimensional barrier and plans on eating the planet Earth in the Ultimate Universe. All of the Ultimate heroes are scrambling to deal with the problem, including our much-beloved Miles Morales – which is a huge shame, since this means Miles’ book might be cancelled. It seems writer Brian Michael Bendis got the memo a little too late.
Cataclysm Spider-Man #1
With the first issue of this Cataclysm tie-in, Bendis proves that he fully intended to just keep writing Ultimate Spider-Man, regardless of whatever cosmic demigods decided to show up. That means this issue is even more bittersweet.
Comic Rating: 8/10 – Very Good.
The last few issues of Ultimate Spider-Man were all about Miles teaming up with Spider-Woman, Bombshell, Cloak and Dagger for a wacky adventure against the Roxxon Corporation. This issue, despite being renamed and renumbered to tie-in to Cataclysm, picks up exactly where the last issues left off, following all four of those characters in the aftermath of their team-up. In all honesty, and some spoilers, Galactus doesn’t even show up until the very last page. This is less a tie-in than it is Ultimate Spider-Man #29. On the one hand, there’s nothing wrong with that, because I could read Bendis writing the daily lives of these characters until the cows come home. But if this is truly the end, if these characters are soon to be gone forever, then it’s kind of a waste of an issue. Bendis could have found a lot more to do in terms of Miles, his family and his friends reacting to the end of the world.
If you’re at all invested in Miles and his Amazing Friends, you should enjoy this issue. I know I did. The art by David Marquez is as amazing as ever. The pencils are a little sketchier than I’m used to, but the art remains top notch. Bendis’ writing is, likewise, a ton of fun to read. There’s a fantastic scene between Spider-Woman and the Ultimates, and solid scenes for the rest of them. It’s clear that Bendis has stories in mind for everyone. I just really hope he gets a chance to tell them to completion.
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