Category Archives: DC
Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 11/9/13
Welcome back to another round of reviews, Henchboys and Henchgirls! We’ve got a pretty standard week of books, though personal favorite Captain Marvel makes a big return after months of being buried in crossovers and tie-ins. Of course, now the comic goes on hiatus for four months, because, as always, we can’t have nice things.
But at least Forever Evil, Green Lantern and Mighty Avengers are all pretty entertaining, and we’ve got the debut of Amazing X-Men #1! No doubt Nightcrawler fans are bursting at the seams to see him come back from the dead. Personally, I’m just wondering why this story needed a whole new superfluous X-Men book.
Comic Book of the Week goes to the pretty great Captain Marvel #17. Don’t stay gone for too long, Carol!
Everybody loves a good butt joke
Comic Reviews: Amazing X-Men #1, Captain Marvel #17, Forever Evil #3, Green Lantern #25 and Mighty Avengers #3.
Review: Batman: Arkham Origins
He is the terror that flaps in the night! He is the hang nail that annoys the finger of crime! He! Is! Batman! And wouldn’t you know it, he’s back for a threequel prequel in the Batman: Arkham series, which I think is safe to call the greatest superhero video game series of all time. Batman: Arkham Origins once again puts us deep into the mind and fists of the Dark Knight with an awesome story, a bigger playground and even a new multiplayer mode. But things are a little different this third time around. Original series developer Rocksteady is gone, replaced by Warner Bros. Montreal. The change isn’t noticeable, though, because Warner Bros. Montreal does not fix what isn’t broken – for good or ill.
Batman: Arkham Origins doesn’t reinvent the wheel, it just gives us more of that awesome Arkham action we love.
Game Rating: 9/10 – Great!
Batman: Arkham Origins has been our for two weeks now, and I know my review is late to the game, but I wanted to get my thoughts down anyway. This gives me the opportunity to reflect on what other reviewers are saying, and a lot of them are complaining that Arkham Origins doesn’t do anything new to move the series forward in any significant way. I completely agree with that statement, but I don’t think that makes for a bad game. Far from it. Warner Bros. Montreal took everything that worked in the previous two games – Arkham Asylum and Arkham City – and just keeps the ball rolling.
Batman: Arkham Origins follows the same fun rules of sequels to superhero movies. The first games established the world and the mechanics, and Arkham Origins gets to play around in them. And considering how much fun it is to play around in the Arkham games, what more could we really ask for? How does one improve upon perfection? Just throw a new coat of paint on it, add in a few neat Easter Eggs, and it’s off to the punchfest!
Join me after the jump for my full review. There will be plenty of SPOILERS for the game’s storyline, which, personally, I consider to be the best of the series so far.
The 6 Coolest Middle Eastern Superheroes
With the announcement yesterday that Marvel is going to introduce a new Pakistani Ms. Marvel, I started thinking about all of the other Middle Eastern superheroes I’ve seen introduced since 9/11. In an effort to combat the obvious prejudices in this country, both Marvel and DC have taken it upon themselves to diversify their superhero line-ups with characters of Middle Eastern descent. And as great as that is, most of these characters rarely stick around.
The market is never very kind to new characters in general.
Especially if they have weird hands
Still, we can’t forget about them if I keep blabbing about them. So in my own effort to celebrate diversity, I’ve decided to take a look at all Middle Eastern superheroes to pick out the coolest ones. Some you may recognize, some you may have forgotten about and some you may have never known existed. But trust me, they are all cool.
Wait, What? Hourman!?
Following the success of Arrow, and the potential upcoming success of a Flash TV show, DC and The CW are apparently now planning a show starring Hourman. For reals. Hourman!
This guy!
For those who don’t know, Hourman is a rather obscure hero who fights as a member of the Justice Society of America. There have been several different Hourmen over the years – because good brand names never die – with most of them ingesting a magic pill called Miraclo that grants them super strength and super speed for an hour. I apologize to all Hourman fans out there because that sounds absolutely ridiculous.
Which is probably why The CW is going with an entirely different version of the character, at least according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Based on a short-lived volume of Hourman comics, the TV show is going to focus on a hero who can see one hour into the future. He will use that power to avert horrible upcoming disasters in order to win back his wife and child. So it basically sounds like a reduced version of Early Edition. Anybody remember that show? I never watched it, so why is it ingrained in my memory?
I’m starting to think somebody at The CW, desperate to follow-up the success of Arrow, just went down a list of DC superheroes and kept throwing out pitches until somebody shrugged and said, “Alright, let’s do that one.”
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Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 11/2/13
I come to you today, my friends, with a heavy heart. This week saw the release of The Sandman Overture #1, a return to that famous character by world-renowned writer Neil Gaiman, with artist J.H. Williams III on pencils. There’s a very good chance, considering the subject matter and the creative team, that The Sandman Overture could be the greatest comic book of the year. Like everyone else in the world, I love Gaiman’s original run on Sandman. But I’m sorry to say that I just couldn’t bring myself to review the new first issue. I bought it. I read it. I enjoyed it, but I am a mere mortal. I have no place bestowing a grade on work such as this. And besides, after reading issue #1, it’s clear to me that this is a ‘read all at once’ kind of story. So maybe at the end I’ll write something
For now, let’s stick with the superhero stuff, shall we?
We’ve got the final chapters of both Lights Out and Battle of the Atom to enjoy, though I found both to be a little underwhelming. Two chapters of Infinity shipped this week, but nothing new there. The only real stand-out – and therefore Comic Book of the Week – was Superior Spider-Man #20, in which writer Dan Slott seems to gleefully start tearing down both the lives of Peter Parker and Otto Octavius. Slott’s overall plotting on Superior Spider-Man has been a master class in comic-bookery. everything he’s set up so far is about to come crashing down, and it’s going to be a real pleasure to read.
As for Moment of the Week, our last visit with the Time Traveling Icemen pulls it off with aplomb.
Comic Reviews: Infinity #5, Avengers #22, Green Lantern Annual #2, Superior Spider-Man #20 and X-Men: Battle of the Atom #2.
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