Category Archives: DC

Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 9/14/13

Villains Month continues this week at DC Comics, and I’m enjoying it well enough so far. It’s a marketing stunt, and I’m OK with DC going all out for their marketing stunts. It appears to me like they’re using a few up and coming writers to actually pen the dialogue, so that’s pretty cool. I’m disappointed that Geoff Johns didn’t write out Black Manta #1, but he plotted it, and writer Tony Bedard did well enough.

Speaking of Villains Month, this week was the debut of the new Lobo. Does he live up to the controversy? Read ahead and see.

Comic Book of the Week goes to Mighty Avengers #1. There were some good Villains Month issues, but Mighty Avengers exceeded expectations in ways I did not predict. It might actually turn out to be a pretty good comic. With some pretty fun characters, like this guy…

Comic Reviews: Avengers #19, Black Manta #1, Lobo #1, Mighty Avengers #1, Riddler #1, and X-Men #5.

Read the rest of this entry →

Review: Teen Titans #23.1 is All About Rape, a Lot of Rape

What would be a great way to follow up the disappointing Trigon invasion story in Teen Titans? How about a completely unnecessary, largely indecipherable origin story for the lead villain! Not only that, but it’s all about rape! Demon rape! Eons and dimensions worth of never-ending, soul-crushing, genocide-level demon rape. That is Trigon’s origin. He rapes people. That’s apparently his thing. And most of the time, the women he rapes either die during the act or kill themselves from the grotesque horror of it all. That’s our Teen Titans villain, ladies and gentleman. That’s the guy that DC Comics sends up against teenage superheroes.

Trigon #1

They better watch out that he doesn’t rape them in order to birth his next demon children. Because that is apparently what Trigon does. He rapes women on a Biblical scale.

Comic Rating: 2/10 – Very Bad.

So it’s Villains Month at DC comics, and a bunch of titles are being replaced for a quick, done-in-one origin story for a lot of New 52 villains. I wasn’t sure if I would bother reviewing Trigon #1, but after reading it, I felt I had to say something. Because this issue is something else. It’s…well like I said, it’s filled with demon rape. That’s pretty much it. Trigon shows up, vaguely explains where he comes from, and then launches a never-ending, interdimensional campaign to rape as many females as possible. The guy loves to rape. He lives to rape. Rape. Rape. Rape.

Raaaaaaaaaaape.

I hope I never again have to write rape so much in my blog. It’s not a fun word. It’s not a fun thing to talk about. And I’m relatively sure that it doesn’t have to be in this comic. Is rape really the major selling point of Trigon’s character? I know his major comics contribution is having Raven as a daughter, but does she have to have been born of rape? Heck, according to this issue, Raven’s mom consented to the demon rape. So why do so many other innocent women across the universe have to get raped?

The point is, this issue is full of demon rape. A lot of demon rape. Keep reading if you want, or stop now, I won’t mind. But writer Marv Wolfman really loves himself some demon rape. I’ve been around the Internet, and I’ve seen some freaky fetishes in my day. But this issue really, really takes the cake. Join me after the jump – if you dare!

Read the rest of this entry →

Batman is the Knight of Awesome

A super artist named Mauricio Abril decided to up his awesome level by drawing/painting this epic Batman adventure.

Set to the tune of “Knights of Cydonia” by Muse, Batman just kicks a lot of butt in pure Batman style. I know that if I were an artist in any way whatsoever (besides wordsmith), I would totally do Batman art all the time. That makes life worth living.

Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 9/7/13

Welcome to Villains Month! It’s the two-year anniversary of DC’s New 52 reboot, and like every September so far, they have launched a wacky publicity stunt! Unfortunately for DC, I only bought two of the dozen or so villain books. And I wasn’t all that impressed with either one. Fortunately, I liked the first issue of Forever Evil a bit more, so at least DC has that.

Not to be outdone, Marvel Comics isn’t taking Villains Month lying down. They are neck deep in the big Infinity event (yawn), and this week also saw the launch of Battle of the Atom (yay), the new Brian Michael Bendis-penned X-Men crossover. So this week was clearly a huge week in comics – and not just because it’s my 30th birthday too.

Comic Book of the Week goes to both Battle of the Atom #1 and All-New X-Men #16. Marvel and Bendis kicked off Battle of the Atom in style, and I think it’s easily going to be the best Big Event Crossover of the season!

Comic Reviews: Battle of the Atom #1, All-New X-Men #16, Bizarro #1, Deadshot #1, Forever Evil #1, Infinity #2, and Superior Foes of Spider-Man #3.

Read the rest of this entry →

Punishing Dick Grayson, and Why It Could Be a Good Thing

Dick Grayson can’t seem to catch a break. And I don’t just mean the murder of his parents when he was still a boy. I mean Dick Grayson as a comic book superhero can’t seem to catch a break in DC Comics’ New 52 universe. In less than two years, Dick found out that his childhood home, Haley’s Circus, was actually a front for the villainous Court of Owls secret society, and that Dick himself was in line to become one of their undead assassins (until the whole Batman and Robin thing happened instead). Then he found out his childhood sweetheart was a psychopath who betrayed him and tried to kill him, only for her to then be murdered by the Joker as a means of punishing Dick.

Then when he inherited Haley’s Circus and sunk all of his life savings into fixing it up, that too was destroyed by the Joker. Then Dick found out that Batman was keeping secrets from him, leading to an angry split between the two heroes. Then he found out the man who murdered his parents was still alive and hiding in Chicago!

And now Nightwing has been chosen as the sacrificial lamb for the new Forever Evil event.

So that’s why they put him in red

Don’t worry, he’s not dead…at least not yet.

But something almost as huge happened to Nightwing in this week’s Forever Evil #1. As a big Robin and Nightwing fan, I’m worried about any major change to one of my favorite characters. But I’m here to tell you that this change might not be all that bad. In fact, this could work out very well in Nightwing’s favor.

As long as DC manages to use it to tell some good stories. That part is questionable.

But this isn’t the end of the world. Join me after the jump for full SPOILERS and why I think this could be good for the character.

Read the rest of this entry →