Category Archives: Reviews
Review: Teen Titans #4
In a previous decade, the content of Teen Titans #4 would have made me ecstatic. It’s an issue about Tim Drake using his brains and his skills to defeat an infinitely more powerful foe. It should be a testament to just how damn cool Robin can be. But this is Teen Titans in the New 52, so don’t anybody get their hopes up.
What Teen Titans #4 is instead is a showcase for writer Will Pfeifer’s S.T.A.R. Labs plot and his apparent love of Manchester Black. So simmer down, Tim Drake fans; despite his starring role in the issue, he has zero personal impact on the story.
Comic Rating: 5/10 – Alright.
Is it really so hard to write a comic that’s actually about the Teen Titans? I’m not sure if the previous writer, Scott Lobdell, ever managed to do it in 30+ issues. Lobdell only ever wrote about his plots or the bad guys; rarely did his stories ever actually grow from the Titans themselves. Even when he wrote about the characters’ origins, it was never about them. Wonder Girl’s origin story was all about her ex-boyfriend the super-villain, and Kid Flash’s origin story was all about this big space civil war and his role in that.
Pfeifer is a little better, but he’s relegated all of the stories about the Titans themselves to merely sub-plots. The main plot, the one about the villainous Algorithm and her attacks on S.T.A.R., is all about Algorithm and her villainous boss, Manchester Black. Teen Titans #4, especially, is all about Black and his drama. Tim Drake just happens to be caught up in that drama. But for all Tim actually does to drive or impact Black’s story, he could be swapped for any other Titan or any other superhero, for that matter.
And Teen Titans #4 also features one of the most baffling endings I have ever read in this comic. The only reasonable explanation for this ending is that Pfeifer is just toying with us and it’s totally fake. Otherwise, Teen Titans is just never going to get any better.
Join me after the jump for the full synopsis and more review!
Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 11/15/14
You know what I love on vacation? A big stack of great comics! And this week delivered with flying colors! The Internet loves the new issue of Batman, though I’m not as big of a fan. But who needs Batman when we’ve got She-Hulk, Thor and Captain Marvel? All three deliver solidly fun comics starring women, and that’s as much fun as it sounds. But what am I getting at, you ask? Where am I going with this?
Well, what happens when you mix Batman, flying colors and female protagonists?
Comic Book of the Week goes to Batgirl #36. It’s only the second issue of this new relaunch, and already I’m beyond loving this series. It’s just so, so good!
Also, feel free to check out my review of All-New Captain America #1 over at Word of the Nerd. I think Falcon is going to make a pretty good Cap.
Comic Reviews: Batgirl #36, Batman #36, Batman Eternal #32, Captain Marvel #9, She-Hulk #10, Superior Iron Man #1 and Thor #2.
Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 11/8/14
Welcome to my vacation, hencharinos! I get two weeks off a year, and right now I’m at the start of my second, luxuriating at home with zero responsibilities and 100 relaxation points. It’s great! I’m going to kick up my feet, read some good comics, play some video games and hopefully see Big Hero Six before too long. I hear it’s great!
Comics were a little light this week for some reason, and very DC heavy. We’ve got new issues of Gotham Academy and Axis, the latter of which is getting a little better. And Grayson is great and wins Comic Book of the Week!
Dick Grayson: Comics’ Mancake
You can also check out my review of Amazing Spider-Man #9 over at Word of the Nerd. It’s an excellent start to Spider-Verse proper, and I’m really looking forward to that story now.
Comic Reviews: Axis #4, Batman Eternal #31, Gotham Academy #2, and Grayson #4.
Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 11/1/14
Happy Day-After-Halloween, henchies! Or better yet, Happy All Saints Day! I wonder if anybody in the world actually celebrates All Saints Day. I know I had to Google it to remember what November 1 was actually called. No worries if you don’t celebrate, but hopefully you have plenty of candy to tide you over.
This week was very light on new comics because it’s a Fifth Wednesday week. Comic publishers usually only plan for 4 Wednesdays a month, so when a fifth week comes along, they usually throw out some minor comics. DC put out a couple of annuals that I didn’t bother to read. But I did pick up All-New X-Men and Batman Eternal.
The week’s crowning jewel, however, is the final issue of Brian Azzarello’s Wonder Woman! He’s been telling one ongoing, epic saga since the start of the New 52, and it all comes to an end with this issue, the Comic Book of the Week!
Meanwhile, Marvel put out the first issue of their new Deathlok series. I wrote a pretty thorough review at Word of the Nerd that you can check out.
Comic Reviews: All-New X-Men #33, Batman Eternal #30 and Wonder Woman #35.
Review: Saga #24
When all is said and done, and we’re looking back at Saga in the big picture, this volume is going to be seen as one of transition. People in the future who read Saga in one sitting are going to breeze through this chapter to get to the really good stuff. And that makes this volume – and this issue in particular – kind of an odd duckling. Better literary critics than I will probably be able to explain it better, but for me, this was all just a nice visit with some good friends.
Saga #24
Saga #24 ends the current volume by looking ahead to the future, underlining this whole volume as a tiny bit unnecessary.
Comic Rating: 7/10 – Good.
Not that I would ever consider a single issue of Saga ‘unnecessary’ – unless, of course, it got really bad somehow. But after reading this issue, and it’s wild departure from every other issue in this volume, I find myself slightly confused by the whole experience. Writer Brian K. Vaughn shocked us at the end of issue #18 with a jump forward in time, giving us Hazel as a toddler and her family changed. That could have been the start of a great new status quo, and for a little while, it was. But with this issue, everything has changed once again.
Vaughn spent the majority of this volume establishing that new status quo only to rip us away from it at the end. This volume didn’t really take us from Point A to Point B because, like I said, Vaughn pretty much created Point A out of thin air.
But I suppose there’s no real reason to complain. We got some good drama, we met some new characters, and toddler Hazel was something spectacular. Maybe I’m just looking at this from the wrong perspective. Alana and her family are obviously the stars of the book, but the plot in this volume was all about the Robot Kingdom. A lot happened on that front. So it’s possible I don’t have any idea what I’m talking about.
I think Saga really should be read all at once, whenever it’s completed, even if it would mean waiting years.
At least Vaughn brought back Lying Cat in this issue, and effortlessly reminded us why she is Saga‘s breakout character. There is some great Lying Cat in Saga #24!
Henchman-4-Hire 