Category Archives: Reviews
Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 11/14/15
Comic reviews are back! After a whirlwind vacation in England, I’m back reading comics and sitting on my butt in America! I missed a lot of good titles last week (including the long-delayed Uncanny X-Men #600), but I’m hopefully going to make up for that with some solid comics this week. I’d review Uncanny X-Men #600…but I wasn’t impressed. It wasn’t worth the wait. And the new Extraordinary X-Men left me a little cold. Not a good time to be an X-Men fan, I don’t think.
Anyway, this week has a lot of goodies! We’ve got the All-New, All-Different Avengers, we’ve got the All-New Wolverine, we’ve got Web Warriors, and we’ve got a bunch of goodies from DC Comics. This was definitely a good week to come back to, I’d have to say. I missed comics!
Comic Book of the Week goes to All-New Wolverine #1. I rather liked this story, despite not being a particular fan of X-23. But I like the idea that she’s going to carry on Wolverine’s legacy.
It’s her favorite part
Plus, Angel makes for a really great sidekick.
Comic Reviews: All-New, All-Different Avengers #1, All-New Wolverine #1, Batman #46, Starfire #6 and Web Warriors #1.
Review: Teen Titans #13
In my last review of Teen Titans, I said the immortal phrase, ‘We’re through the looking glass here, people’, partly because it’s one of my favorite phrases, and partly because it’s so, so true. Teen Titans went off the rails in the last issue, with a sudden, seemingly random cutaway involving Harvest, probably my least favorite DC super-villain. Fortunately, no less than Scott Lobdell himself showed up in the comments of the last review to explain that DC higher ups wanted Superboy out of the comic, and he and Harvest were their way of doing just that. Makes sense, and I appreciated the helpful explanation. When the bosses say, ‘let’s do something else with Superboy’, you say, ‘how insane can we get in removing him?’
Teen Titans #13
Though I don’t know to what extent writer Will Pfeifer can blame editorial for the continuing insanity in Teen Titans #13.
Comic Rating: 3/10 – Bad.
I’m going to keep the phrase ‘We’re through the looking glass here, people’ in effect for this new issue, because everything is just kind of wibbly wobbly in this issue. Continuity is a little thin, characters move randomly through the issue, and once again, a big hand-waving explanation seems to come out of nowhere to reverse the entire flow of the story. But considering all the shake-ups recently, I can’t be sure if the reverse was always planned, or if Pfeifer is just scrambling to fix his story. I assume he’d planned to end things properly with Superboy and is now being forced to come up with a whole new ending to his prison story on the fly. Very weird, but that’s editorial interference for you.
Speaking of which, we’ve got three different artists this issue, and all of them are pretty bad. The art is maddeningly wild and doesn’t do the issue any favors. Nothing does this issue any favors. I can only hope that Teen Titans comes out of this mess in one piece, and maybe we’ll get some kind of renewed focus going forward. Because if nothing else, I remain eternally hopeful that things will actually get better someday.
Someday…
Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 10/31/15
Happy Halloween! I hope all you ghosts, ghouls and superheroes have a lot of fun today! Halloween is my favorite holiday because of the insanely awesome pageantry involved. It’s just so much fun! Too bad we didn’t get any spooky comics this week…at least not in my regular pile. I should start reading Wytches maybe.
Word of note, before we begin: there won’t be any reviews next Saturday! Yours truly is going on vacation to London next week, and I won’t get any comics! I’ll still try to get some videos up, and a couple Lists of Six, but we’re skipping comic reviews next week. It’s for the best.
Fortunately, this week was pretty darn good. Batgirl #45 wins Comic Book of the Week for a lovely wedding issue.
Let’s make the magic happen!
Always good to see more diverse weddings and love stories in comics! We’ve come a long way since Northstar got married.
Comic Reviews: Angela: Queen of Hel #1, Batgirl #45, Batman and Robin Eternal #4, Chewbacca #2, Grayson #13, Sam Wilson: Captain America #2 and Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #1.
Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 10/24/15
Apparently Marvel Comics is quite keen on us enjoying their new Iron Man and Spider-Man comics, because the second issues are already here! And they’re both still pretty great! Marvel also delivers the return of Ant-Man this week, and drops a Karnak bomb in our laps! Writer Warren Ellis has got to be sitting on a pretty awesome throne these days. The guy is like one of those mafia ‘fixers’ who can just come in and kick ass no matter what assignment he gets.
Not that DC are slouching! Batman and Robin Eternal remains pretty solid and entertaining so far, and the latest issue of Gotham Academy is a ton of fun.
But Comic Book of the Week has to go to Amazing Spider-Man #2 for one of the funniest Spidey comics I’ve read in awhile!
‘Some guy’? C’mon!
Dan Slott is on a role! Also, the Prowler is pretty amazing in this issue too.
Comic Reviews: Amazing Spider-Man #2, Astonishing Ant-Man #1, Batman and Robin Eternal #3, Gotham Academy #11, Invincible Iron Man #2, Karnak #1 and Titans Hunt #1.
Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 10/17/15
Another week, another new batch of All-New, All-Different Marvel comics! I’d love to read and review every single one, but I’m a busy man, especially this week. Did you hear about that murder at the church in upstate New York? That’s right in my backyard, and as the local newspaper reporter, I’m all over that stuff!
Fortunately, I still found time to read some new comics! And it was another good week! I scoped out the first issues of Chewbacca and New Avengers, and enjoyed a few of my favorites from DC Comics, like Starfire and Harley Quinn. But the clear standout and winner of Comic Book of the Week is Ms. Marvel #19.
Was there really any doubt?
It’s the end of the world, and they know it
I can’t wait for this series to come back from hiatus!
Comic Reviews: Batman #45, Batman and Robin Eternal #2, Chewbacca #1, Harley Quinn #21, Ms. Marvel #19, New Avengers #1 and Starfire #5.
Henchman-4-Hire 