Category Archives: Comics
Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 8/5/17
Kind of a quiet week for comics this week. There were a lot of good releases, but not many on my normal review pile. In any other situation, this might prompt me to try out some new comics. But nope! I’m a bit too lazy for that!
Instead, we’ve got new and entertaining issues of Batman, Iron Fist and Hawkeye, as well as Unstoppable Wasp, the adorable and awesome Comic Book of the Week!
The feels!
I’m serious, it’s mostly adorable and awesome.
After a great pair of issues focusing on Janet Van Dyne, I kind of want this title changed to The Unstoppable Wasp and the Regular Wasp! Or writer Jeremy Whitley should get a Janet Van Dyne comic!
Comic Reviews: Batman #28, Hawkeye #9, Iron Fist #6 and Unstoppable Wasp #8.
My 6 Favorite Villains Turned Heroes
I talk a lot on here about one of my favorite tropes in fiction: the Heel-to-Face Turn. Or, to drop the wrestling parlance, when a bad guy becomes a good guy. I just dig it for some reason. I like the idea that these villains, albeit bad people who do bad things, are still reasonable people who are capable of more than just playing their villainous role. When the chips are down, or when doing the right thing is on the line, these baddies turn out to be alright folk.
The granddaddy of them all!
For counter example, I don’t particularly like the Joker. I know he’s probably the most popular super-villain in all of comics, and people adore this guy, but I just don’t really like him. I don’t like his straight crazy villainy. There’s little complexity to the character. He’s just crazy and he does crazy things; clever crazy things, sure, but still just crazy things. Count me out.
Give me a morally complex figure who can recognize the error of their ways or recognize the need to do the right thing in a given situation. Join me after the jump for my favorite Heel-to-Face Turns in all of fiction!
Look Who Randomly Showed Up in Secret Empire!
This is just a bit of silliness, if you’re into that sort of thing, like me. I’ve been reading Secret Empire and am enjoying it well enough. I think it’s stretched a little thin, but that’s not so bad. Anyway, I’m writing today to reveal a nifty little cameo in the latest issue from last week. It’s the sort of cameo that makes me really wonder what happens behind the scenes at Marvel Comics.
How popular did they hope Mosaic would be when they decided to give him a role in Secret Empire?
Mosaic, if you don’t remember, is a new Inhuman character who got his own ongoing solo comic late last year. Marvel (and DC, for that matter) doesn’t really hand out ongoing solo comics to brand new, original characters, but something about Mosaic seemed strong enough to Marvel that they gave him the greenlight.
The comic was cancelled by issue #8.
As the foremost internet authority on Mosaic, I consider myself one of his biggest fans. So I giggled a little bit when I saw him randomly pop up in Secret Empire #7. Writer Nick Spencer introduced a few issues ago the idea that Steve Rogers and HYDRA had this mysterious old man in a hospital bed as a captive. Who was this old man? What secret did he hold that would be key to the Black Widow’s efforts to stop Captain America?
Welp, turns out the old man was a prison for Mosaic, and Natasha sets him free and he immediately helps her take out the guards surrounding Cap.
It’s a great little cameo for Mosaic! But where’d it come from? The Mosaic comic was cancelled by the May issue, around the time Secret Empire was just starting up. Plus, a Big Event like Secret Empire is planned years in advance. So writer Nick Spencer clearly planned this Mosaic cameo a long time ago, long before his series was cancelled.
So was Marvel expecting Mosaic to be a runaway success, and wanted to give him a timely cameo in Secret Empire? That sounds a little tragic…
Still, I’m glad to see they haven’t given up on Mosaic yet! Hang in there, buddy!
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Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 7/29/17
Light week this week, for no good reason. I guess I just didn’t read enough comics I liked enough to review! But we’ve got solid and exciting issues of Iceman, Detective Comics and Infamous Iron Man, so that’s good enough for me.
Comic Book of the Week goes to Batgirl #13, as Hope Larson delivers possibly my favorite issue yet of her Batgirl run! She’s definitely having fun with this comic, and it shows!
Batgirl tries on a sidekick for size
Secret Empire has reached a grinding section. There are bits and pieces here and there that get exciting, like the final page cliffhanger of the new issue, but overall, I think the scope of this story is just a little too big. It feels like I’m reading a big What If…? comic instead of an actual, in-continuity story about these characters.
Comic Reviews: Batgirl #13, Detective Comics #961, Iceman #3 and Infamous Iron Man #10.
Rip-Off City: Overwatch’s Doomfist and Marvel’s The Gauntlet
I don’t know if anybody has made this comparison before, but I spotted it immediately when Blizzard announced their new Overwatch character, Doomfist. A tough, bald black guy with a giant, mechanical right arm? Isn’t that exactly like Marvel Comics character The Gauntlet?
I don’t know what point I’m trying to make here, just pointing out what is clearly an obvious rip-off. I don’t think Blizzard intentionally ripped off the Gauntlet, but the coincidence is really, really odd. The mechanical fist is even on the same arm!
Granted, Gauntlet only existed for a short period of time in the wake of the original Civil War comic. He was created by Dan Slott and was actually part of a really nifty gimmick, where Gauntlet had the right-armed gauntlet, and another Slott character, Southpaw, had the left-armed gauntlet — but they never appeared together! Gauntlet was involved in The Initiative comics, and Southpaw showed up in Slott’s She-Hulk.
I did a Forgotten Characters article on the pair of them. That’s probably how I can remember Gauntlet so well.
Anyway, just wanted to point this out. If anybody knows Dan Slott, somebody tell him and see if he can raise the fuss that I can’t! Or maybe Slott is a big Overwatch fan and is now a Doomfist main because of this.
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Henchman-4-Hire 