I was buried in snow again this week, so I worked from home one day and had a bunch of time to read more comics than usual. Sometimes I’ve been feeling that I review too few comics, or that I read too few. So I really wanted to expand my horizons this week! Like Vertigo! And Deadpool even!

True to form, however, Comic Book of the Week goes to Absolute Wonder Woman Annual, because it’s awesome.

Meanwhile, not much else going on, just getting through the second half of winter. Watched the latest season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and it was fun. And I’m onto the second DLC for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, so it’s all just moving along nicely in life. Such is everything.

Comic Reviews: Absolute Wonder Woman Annual #1, Cyclops #1, Void Rivals #26, Bleeding Hearts #1, D’Orc #1 and Wade Wilson: Deadpool #1.

Absolute Wonder Woman Annual #1
Writer: Kelly Thompson
Artist: Mattia De Iulis
Letterer: Becca Carey

The Absolute Batman Annual had a guest writer, but Thompson is handling this one…which works perfectly fine as just a regular issue of Absolute Wonder Woman. But I’m not complaining, because it’s awesome, and De Iulis is an amazing artist. It’s a completely different vibe from the regular artist, but still works perfectly for Absolute Wonder Woman.

To fight the Tetracide in her first story, Absolute Wonder Woman shapshifted into Medusa to turn it to stone. That experience showed Diana how torturous it is to be Medusa, so she has taken every opportunity since to pray to Athena to reverse Medusa’s curse. Athena finally has enough and beckons Diana to her and agrees to let Diana try to solve the curse on her own. So Diana journeys to Medusa’s lair with a message of love and hope.

Comic Rating: 9/10 – Great.

I kept my recap brief and vague because there was no reason to give anything away. This is a stellar issue from top to bottom, in writing, art and storytelling, amazing on multiple levels. It works as an annual, absolutely, just a side story that ties back to the first story arc. And it’s full of the amazing character designs for mythological beings. Athena is breathtaking and powerful, and vaguely owl-themed. She’s written so interestingly, both denying and not denying that she had anything to do with Medusa’s curse, while also pointing out that, for Medusa to actually exist in the world, then her most famous myth never actually happened. She’s still got her head. So there’s a great undercurrent of questioning mythology to this issue.

The issue itself is so damn good. We get an opening montage of Wonder Woman saving people around the world, coupled with her repeated prayers to help Medusa. We all know and love Medusa, so seeing Wonder Woman interact with a classic Greek Myth character is super fun! And like I said, De Iulis on artwork was beyond amazing! Medusa looks insanely cool, both huge and hurting, while Diana never waivers in being just as strong a visual character. To say nothing of the action and the quieter moments and the overall just larger-than-life nature of this super entertaining story.

Absolute Batman may be getting all the hype, but Absolute Wonder Woman could easily carry the entire line.

TL;DR: A phenomenal done-in-one story that shows off the scale and power of Absolute Wonder Woman, while delving deep into her mythological roots.

Cyclops #1
Writer: Alex Paknadel
Artist: Roge Antonio
Colorist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramagna

I haven’t had much interest in all the solo X-Men titles we’ve been getting (simply because they haven’t starred my favorite X-Men), but like I said above, I had time this week and decided to check out the Cyclops comic.

Cyclops gets a letter that the orphanage in which he grew up is going to be demolished, so he goes out to watch and reconnect with one of the employees who tried to care for him. On his flight back to Alaska, he’s shot down by the New Reavers built by Donald Pierce and he crashes in the woods — which destroys his ruby quartz visor!

Comic Rating: 7/10 – Good.

It’s a solid start, with some good developments here and there. But ultimately it’s just Cyclops lost mostly on his own against classic villain Donald Pierce and another round of Reavers. This issue is all set-up, putting Cyclops into the woods. There’s a young mutant on the run from the Reavers that will likely team up as his sidekick…but she didn’t have any obvious or even revealed mutant powers at this point, so she’s not much of a character. But the Reavers get some funny names and personalities, so far. And I like the idea of destroying the ruby quartz visor, which will cause problems for Cyclops. So it’s all fine set-up. Cyclops is written nicely. The artwork is solid and enjoyable. But there’s nothing to the first issue to really make it stand up as something unique and really special. Just a solid, entertaining start to a Cyclops solo adventure.

TL;DR: Solid start to a solo Cyclops adventure, though nothing particularly stands out as really new or exciting in this first issue.

Void Rivals #26
Writer: Robert Kirkman
Artist: Andrei Bressan
Colorist: Patricio Delpeche
Letterer; Rus Wooton

Those crazy Void Rivals sure do get up to all sorts of mischief, don’t they?

Darak jumps out of his spaceship to save one of his squadmates from the vacuum of space, then gets stuck himself, so another squadmate shows up save them both and they head back home. The Quintessons have invaded both halves of the Great Ring, and by golly, nobody is putting up with their nonsense in some very entertaining ways. But then Quintessons have some kind of giant piranha robot army, that I feel like is probably canonical.

Comic Rating: 8/10 – Very Good.

There’s a lot going on in Void Rivals these days, and this issue can’t get to all of it, but what we do see is excellent. The opening scene with Darak doing the rescue is awesome…except for that fact that we don’t really know his squadmates. It’s this random bit of Darak lore that feels like it should be bigger, but just hasn’t played that big a role. Maybe now it will? Whatever, it mostly features some excellent Darak and Handroid action, and that’s fun. But the real juice of this issue is the confrontation between Judge Naven of the Quintessons and Zalilek, who stands up for his people. That’s just a hilarious scene.

From there flows some excellent action scenes as the piranha robots attack. Are they from canon? I can’t be bothered to Google them right now. Either way, they create a great disturbance and various characters have to contend with them, making for an action-packed wrap up to the issue. I have no idea where Void Rivals is going or what it’s trying to say or how it’s going to tie into G.I.Joe of all things, but it remains a hugely entertaining and enjoyable comic issue-by-issue.

TL;DR: Like most issues of Void Rivals, a lot of fun stuff happens to a lot of pretty interesting characters. The great character bits really make the series, and this issue especially.

Shorter Reviews

Bleeding Hearts #1 by Deniz Camp, Stipan Morian, Matt Hollingsworth and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou

I wasn’t really keeping track of DC’s new Vertigo launch, but like I keep saying, I had plenty of time this week to read new comics. Bleeding Hearts is a zombie story and is off to a good start. Deniz Camp is a thinking-person’s writer, but I’m not usually a thinking-person’s reader, if you catch my drift. So while this issue was perfectly pleasant, it didn’t really click with me personally. I don’t think it was too smart for me, which has sometimes been the case with Camp’s work. It’s just a pretty straight forward zombie story, told from the perspective of some intelligent zombies, with Camp creating a whole community/society aspect. It’s neat, but like I said, just didn’t click with me. Great artwork also.

D’Orc #1 by Brett Bean, Jean-Francois Beaulieu and Nate Piekos

I saw a lot of promotion for this series and absolutely love the title, so I decided to give it a look. Half dwarf, half orc…and the name is D’Orc? I can’t remember the last time I encountered a pun this good. The issue itself is good, but a little all over the place. We get introduced to a new fantasy world, and we quickly meet D’Orc, who is apparently part of some ancient prophecy. And then D’Orc also has a magic talking shield that has some strange backstory of its own. And there’s all sorts of other fantasy figures causing trouble. And fights. And violence. And a chicken sidekick. There’s a lot going on and most of it works nicely, with solid artwork to keep it all flowing at an energetic pace.

Does it live up to the pun? Maybe not yet, but it’s off to a good start. I’ve never liked Chosen One stories/prophecies, so that turned me off personally. But that pun is damn good and this could be a fun comic.

Wade Wilson: Deadpool #1 by Benjamin Percy, Geoff Shaw, Alex Sinclair and VC’s Joe Sabino

I don’t read Deadpool regularly, but I’m always up for checking out a new #1 issue. This one is just fine. It seems like a restart for Deadpool after, I guess, recent stories? I dunno; I haven’t been following. He does some missions, seems to have a death wish, gets plenty bloodied, and then there’s a teaser for something more at the end. It’s all fine. Not particularly funny or witty. Lots of bloody violence, which should be a selling point. There’s a scene that shows him crashing with Blind Al, but that felt so forced, as if to obviously tie into the movie…except that Blind Al in the comics is white, so that was an extra layer of weirdness to that scene.

The comics I review in my Hench-Sized reviews are just the usual comics I grab from Comixology any given week, along with a few impulse buys I might try on a whim. So if there are any comics or series you’d like me to review each week, let me know in the comments.

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