Yearly Archives: 2013
Review: Teen Titans #19
We are off the rails here, people. We are through the Danger Zone. Forget everything you thought you knew about Teen Titans and prepare yourselves for ultimate dissatisfaction. Everything I have ever complained about with Teen Titans has come home to roost. We are through the looking glass so hard that my hyperbole machine is going to crash. Wow. This is a terrible comic book, but it almost feels par for the course for Teen Titans. Not since the horrors of Harvest and N.O.W.H.E.R.E. has this series been so bad.
Teen Titans #19
Everything I have hated about this comic is here in this issue. Terrible characterization, clunky, obvious exposition, characters and villains who come out of nowhere, an almost painful lack of subtlety; this one is off the chain.
Comic Rating: 1/5: Terrible!
This comic is bad from page one. It’s one of the most chaotic and leaden comics I have ever read. This is supposed to be the big, New 52 introduction of Trigon, but I couldn’t have imagined it being more mishandled. Trigon was one of the big bads in the pre-reboot continuity. He was one of the Teen Titans’ biggest enemies. But now he’s just pathetically wasted. There’s nothing new or interesting about this rebooted version of Trigon. Any mystique he used to have has been stripped away. The new Raven had a bit of mystery as well, but that is cruelly torn from her with this new issue.
There’s maybe one or two good things about this comic, and I’ll mentioned them in the synopsis, but they seem like flukes. Or they have more to do with different comics, which doesn’t help the Teen Titans much at all.
This is the worst possible version of the Teen Titans I could have imagined going into the New 52. The characters are poorly defined, their relationships are underdeveloped, they spend 90% of their time in costume playing superhero, the villains are terrible, and the comic has little to nothing to do with the DC Universe as a whole. I’m probably most disappointed in that.
But we might as well get to it. Join me after the jump for a full synopsis of this crapshoot.
My 6 Favorite DC and Marvel Comics (These Days)
For all of the writing I do about comic books and superheroes, I got to thinking the other day that I don’t really talk about my favorite comics all that much. Sure I try to review as many comics as I can each week, but that’s more of a professional thing than a personal one. And the entire point of starting this blog was to talk about what comics I like and interact with other comic book fans on the web. So this week’s blog list is all about the comic books I love to read.
There are no Superman comics on this list
Of course, that’s an entirely subjective idea. The comics I’m loving this week are completely different from the comics I loved a year ago. The comic book industry is in a constant state of flux. Comics are being cancelled or started every months, writers and artists are always switching, and there’s no telling when a comic will suddenly hit on a really great storyline. That’s one of the things I love about comics. You never know where the next great story, character or writer is going to come from.
So I’ve decided to make this list about the six favorite comics I’m reading these days, and I’ve decided to do a list for both Marvel and DC, the Big Two on superhero comics. I want to start reading more independent comics, but right now I’m only reading Saga, which I love. But this way, my list can also serve as my own personal prognosis on the success of Marvel NOW! or the New 52 from DC.
I’d love to talk about your favorite comics in the comments! Read the rest of this entry
Review: Dead Space: Salvage and Dead Space: Liberation
At long last, I have cleared enough space in my busy and penniless schedule to catch up on the Dead Space comics. I have two volumes, Dead Space: Salvage and Dead Space: Liberation, from the good people at Titan Books, so I decided to group them together into one review. They are both companion comics to the Dead Space video game series, taking place around the games. Salvage is a separate tale about a crew of illegal salvagers who come upon the dreaded Ishimura, while Liberation is a prologue comic to this year’s Dead Space 3. Both have their good parts and and their bad, and both are definitely entertaining.
Any big Dead Space fans would probably find a lot to like in these two comics. Fans of intense horror, especially in a futuristic, outer space environment, would also enjoy both books.
Dead Space: Salvage: 4/5: Good.
Dead Space: Liberation: 3/5: Alright.
Salvage and Liberation are two comics that any fans of the Dead Space universe would probably love to have on their shelves. I wish some of my favorite video game franchises produced comics of this quality. Much like the Dead Space graphic novel I reviewed earlier this year, these are great companion pieces for the games, expanding the universe the games inhabit while providing new adventures with new and sometimes familiar characters.
You can find both Dead Space: Salvage and Dead Space: Liberation at Amazon.com.
Join me after the jump for further review!
First Thor: The Dark World Trailer!
Just in time for Iron Man 3, here comes the first trailer for Thor: The Dark World! And by my account, it looks pretty awesome!
Smashing, darkness, romance, Loki; that’s a pretty awesome trailer. I’ve always been worried about Thor appealing to a larger audience, but I think everybody’s got this film well in hand. Thor: The Dark World comes out on Nov. 8, for some reason, and I think it looks pretty awesome so far.
Movie Posters: One Real, and One We All Wish Was Real
Hey hey folks, let’s start this week off with a couple of movie posters that popped onto the Internet late last week. First up is the first poster for Thor: The Dark World, which conveniently enough shows Thor!
Hammer? Check. Lightning? Check. Blonde hair? Check!
He’s looking mighty Thory. I suppose it’s just an early promotional poster, nothing that really says ‘Dark World’ to me. But I’m sure it’s just the beginning of the Thor promotional campaign. Hard to believe Thor’s sequel comes out later this year. There are so many other superhero movies to worry about first. I wonder why they didn’t want to release Thor 2 during the Summer?
I’m also hoping we get a Thor teaser trailer to go with Iron Man 3, which comes out next week!
Now here is a poster that represents the ultimate culmination of everything awesome about the Internet. It’s a fan-made poster for Patton Oswalt’s Star Wars Episode VII rant from Parks and Recreation!
I hope someone gave Patton Oswalt a framed copy
The actual Parks & Rec episode was nowhere near as cool as the unedited Patton rant. But the idea that someone out there in fan land, I believe working for Entertainment Weekly, went and photoshopped this awesome poster is just another reason why I love the Internet!
Henchman-4-Hire 