Category Archives: DC
Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 8/10/13
Brace yourselves, Phil Urich fans, because the proverbial poop has hit the fan. I can’t be the only Phil fan on the Internet, right? Surely some of you must have read the glorious mid-90s Green Goblin series? Right? Please? Either way, I read it, and this is my blog, so strap in for the start of what will no doubt be a bumpy, two-issue ride. Will Dan Slott kill off one of my favorite characters of all time? Or will Phil Urich somehow do something incredibly amazing that reaffirms my love of all things comic books?
We’ll have to wait and see. This week’s Superior Spider-Man is only Part 1.
And I think that Part 1 deserves Comic Book of the Week, even though it’s up against some stiff competition. The second issue of Superior Foes of Spider-Man is just as good, if not better, than the first, and also features a surprise appearance of one of my other all-time favorite comic book characters. Likewise, we get solid stories from All-New X-Men and Green Lantern. I also decided to try out J. Michael Straciznski’s new series Sidekick, from Image. It’s an alright start, and I’m going to try to keep it in rotation to see where it goes. Even if it represents one of the things I hate most about comic books.
But nothing else this week holds a candle to Boomerang’s imaginary fight with his annoying lawyer.
Lawyers, amiright?
Comic Reviews: All-New X-Men #15, Avengers #17, Green Lantern #23, Sidekick #1, Superior Foes of Spider-Man #2, and Superior Spider-Man #15.
Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 8/3/13
If you’re reading this Saturday morning, then I’m well on my way to the Boston Comic-Con! Woot! Should be a fun time. I’m going in costume as an X-Men character, and I’ll be posting pictures and sharing stories sometime next week, once I’m back home. But for now, I wanted to keep up the comic book reviews so that my blog isn’t totally dead. I’m a hard worker, like that. Though because I left on my trip on Thursday, this week’s reviews are going to be pretty short, since I didn’t have a lot of time to work on them. Thankfully, being a fifth-week Wednesday, there weren’t too many comics released this week anyway.
The comics that were released include some of my favorites, like FF, which takes a turn for the meta this week, and Uncanny X-Men, which continues my love of all things Cyclops. This week also sees the end of the first major storyline in the new X-Men, as well as the end of Grant Morrison’s entire run on Batman with his final issue of Batman Incorporated. How does it work as an ending? Well…it’s fine. I’ve been saying this for awhile now about Batman Incorporated, and it really holds true for the final issue, but this series has lacked any sort of excitement or momentum for a long time now. The air has been let out of the tires and the energy has just been sapped.
Oh well. Morrison’s run was a lot of fun overall. As for Comic Book of the Week, I’m gonna toss it to Uncanny X-Men, simply because nothing was all that spectacular this week.
Comic Reviews: Batman Incorporated #13, FF #10, Uncanny X-Men #9 and X-Men #3.
Honest Trailers Tackles the Big One
I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve seen from the Screen Junkies team, and now they up the ante by giving the Honest Trailers treatment to the worst superhero movie ever made. I’m talking, of course, about Batman and Robin.
I can’t believe young, teenage Sean loved this movie, and Batman Forever. I’m fairly certain I was just blind and dumb as a kid. High school straightened me right out. Now I dislike and giggle at these films with the appropriate amount of disdain.
Robin and Multiplayer in Batman: Arkham Origins!
I’m still not sure I understand how this is going to work, but IGN revealed today that Batman: Arkham Origins is not only going to have a multiplayer segment, but that multiplayer is going to have Robin! I’m over the moon here! Watch this video and try and understand what’s happening.
So OK, read that article on IGN and try to figure it out with me. It seems that there will two teams of 3 player-controlled henchmen, one team for Joker and one team for Bane. The two teams fight each other for control of territory and spawn points in a map. Sounds typical. The cool part, it seems, is that there will also be two other players in the map playing Batman and Robin. And it will be up to Batman and Robin to sneak around and subdue henchmen on both teams, kind of like flies in the ointment.
That sounds really cool.
Unfortunately, it seems that Robin won’t be a part of the actual main game, which is sad. But still, there is some Robin! And based on that video, it doesn’t look like the same Robin from Batman: Arkham City. So it looks like we’ll have a Dick Grayson version of Robin teaming up with Batman in multiplayer mode. I hope you all won’t hold it against me too much if I keep picking Robin when we play multiplayer matches together.
My Top 6 Greatest Comic Books of All Time
I love comic books because, deep down, I wish I was a hero with incredible powers. I wish I could fly around the world. I wish I was more powerful than a speeding locomotive. I wish I could turn invisible and mess with people on the street. I love reading comic books because they are a uniquely perfect way to tell a story, combining prose and pictures into one fun-to-read package. And comics have a creative freedom unmatched by almost any other medium. Movies and TV shows are hampered by budgets, technology, running time and so much more. With comics, the heroes can travel all around the world or into space without awkward green screens of fake-looking CGI. The visual imagination of comics is hampered only by the strain on an artist’s wrist. Comics can do anything, go anywhere and be anyone.
Though they’re mostly about men dressing up in animal costumes
I’ve had a draft of this List of Six waiting in my queue for more than a year now. I’ve been picking at it, rearranging it, deciding what should go where, but I’m dying to share this list with you. I’m always talking about comics, so what are the best comic book stories/series I have ever read? Keep in mind: this is my personal list. This isn’t just the best comic books of all time. This list isn’t going to have Watchmen or The Dark Knight Returns on it. I’ve read those comics, and I like those comics, but they aren’t among the best comics I have ever read. No sir. And that probably has a lot to do with my comic book upbringing.
When I was a kid, I read everything from my dad’s comic collection that he left lying around, which were mostly a small smattering of Marvel superhero comics from the 60s. I didn’t get into comics on my own until the mid-90s, when my brother and I started with Spider-Man in the middle of the Clone Saga…which explains why he and I both love the Clone Saga…and my undying love of Phil Urich. We eventually moved on to the X-Men, but it wasn’t until Batman: Hush and Infinite Crisis that I finally started reading DC Comics on a regular basis. Because of this timeline, I wasn’t around in the 80s for Watchmen to blow my mind. I wasn’t around in the 60s for Spider-Man and Superman to define my world. In fact, almost everything on this list comes from the past 20 years or so, when I really got into comics.
Here are my personal Top 6 Greatest Comic Books of All Time. I would recommend any of these to anyone, comic fans or not.
Henchman-4-Hire 