Category Archives: Reviews
Review: Ultimate Comics: All-New Spider-Man #22
Oh Miles. Poor, poor Miles. In this issue, our young hero finally learns the price of being Spider-Man. And it’s not just a dead uncle. Miles learns the hard way that Spider-Man can’t save everyone. That no matter the power or the responsibility, you’re going to let people down, and that not everything is under your control. And that there will always be giant rampaging monsters to contend with. They never go away. Writer Brian Michael Bendis gives us the most emotionally devastating issue of the new Ultimate Spider-Man yet, and it’s as powerful as you’d expect from such a great comic.
Ultimate Spider-Man #22
I’m saddened by both the actual loss and pain Miles goes through, and the loss of potential that I don’t think this series managed to sufficiently explore. Still, amazing issue nonetheless.
Comic Rating: 5/5: Great.
I’m not going to spoil the big moment just yet. I’ll save that for the synopsis. Suffice to say, it’s a doozy, and I’m excited to see what it does for Miles’ growth as a hero. Granted, that sounds a little morbid, but you’ll see what I mean when we get to it. I’m also disappointed in what this moment takes away from the series. Some people might say this moment was inevitable, but at 22 issues into the series, I didn’t think anything was inevitable. And even when the previews started hinting that something bad was going to happen, I definitely didn’t imagine this.
I read somewhere that this might be the end of the unofficial Act 1 for Miles’ superhero career, and I can believe it. Bendis has been telling a fantastic story over the course of these 22 issues. Miles has been an incredible hero, from humble beginnings, through a lot of highs in his superhero career, and with the occasional lows. I definitely look forward to seeing what comes next.
Join me after the jump for a full synopsis and more review!
Review: Teen Titans #19
We are off the rails here, people. We are through the Danger Zone. Forget everything you thought you knew about Teen Titans and prepare yourselves for ultimate dissatisfaction. Everything I have ever complained about with Teen Titans has come home to roost. We are through the looking glass so hard that my hyperbole machine is going to crash. Wow. This is a terrible comic book, but it almost feels par for the course for Teen Titans. Not since the horrors of Harvest and N.O.W.H.E.R.E. has this series been so bad.
Teen Titans #19
Everything I have hated about this comic is here in this issue. Terrible characterization, clunky, obvious exposition, characters and villains who come out of nowhere, an almost painful lack of subtlety; this one is off the chain.
Comic Rating: 1/5: Terrible!
This comic is bad from page one. It’s one of the most chaotic and leaden comics I have ever read. This is supposed to be the big, New 52 introduction of Trigon, but I couldn’t have imagined it being more mishandled. Trigon was one of the big bads in the pre-reboot continuity. He was one of the Teen Titans’ biggest enemies. But now he’s just pathetically wasted. There’s nothing new or interesting about this rebooted version of Trigon. Any mystique he used to have has been stripped away. The new Raven had a bit of mystery as well, but that is cruelly torn from her with this new issue.
There’s maybe one or two good things about this comic, and I’ll mentioned them in the synopsis, but they seem like flukes. Or they have more to do with different comics, which doesn’t help the Teen Titans much at all.
This is the worst possible version of the Teen Titans I could have imagined going into the New 52. The characters are poorly defined, their relationships are underdeveloped, they spend 90% of their time in costume playing superhero, the villains are terrible, and the comic has little to nothing to do with the DC Universe as a whole. I’m probably most disappointed in that.
But we might as well get to it. Join me after the jump for a full synopsis of this crapshoot.
Review: Dead Space: Salvage and Dead Space: Liberation
At long last, I have cleared enough space in my busy and penniless schedule to catch up on the Dead Space comics. I have two volumes, Dead Space: Salvage and Dead Space: Liberation, from the good people at Titan Books, so I decided to group them together into one review. They are both companion comics to the Dead Space video game series, taking place around the games. Salvage is a separate tale about a crew of illegal salvagers who come upon the dreaded Ishimura, while Liberation is a prologue comic to this year’s Dead Space 3. Both have their good parts and and their bad, and both are definitely entertaining.
Any big Dead Space fans would probably find a lot to like in these two comics. Fans of intense horror, especially in a futuristic, outer space environment, would also enjoy both books.
Dead Space: Salvage: 4/5: Good.
Dead Space: Liberation: 3/5: Alright.
Salvage and Liberation are two comics that any fans of the Dead Space universe would probably love to have on their shelves. I wish some of my favorite video game franchises produced comics of this quality. Much like the Dead Space graphic novel I reviewed earlier this year, these are great companion pieces for the games, expanding the universe the games inhabit while providing new adventures with new and sometimes familiar characters.
You can find both Dead Space: Salvage and Dead Space: Liberation at Amazon.com.
Join me after the jump for further review!
Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 4/20/13
I think I have a problem. There’s something definitely wrong with me. I’ve loved superhero comics all my life, but these days I tend to glaze over at long, drawn out fight scenes, and instead love the quirky, humanizing stories. My favorite comics these days are titles like Hawkeye, Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman, where the focus is almost entirely on the characters first, superheroics second. The witty banter, the human emotion, the simple, everyday experiences, this is what I love. You can keep your spandex-clad superhero punching out the latest Nazi clone. I’ll take a scene where Wonder Woman and her friends sit around trying to think up a name for the new baby.
That easily wins Wonder Woman the title of Comic Book of the Week for me. The scene is just so adorable, and uses all of her extending supporting cast to really establish who these people are, why they’re together and what that will mean going forward. There will be action, there will always be action, but what I’ve come to love most about comics is when that action is offset by moments of real character. I hope I’m not alone. And I hope they’re always as good as this.
Good, clean fun
And I hope Orion is OK. Seriously, he’s my favorite character in Wonder Woman so far.
Comic Reviews: Age of Ultron #6, Batwoman #19, Captain Marvel #12, Green Lantern: New Guardians #19, Justice League #19, Nightwing #19, Red Hood and the Outlaws #19, Superior Spider-Man #8 and Wonder Woman #19.
‘Injustice’ justifies DC fan-love
Netherealm’s long-anticipated Injustice: Gods Among Us has landed, and DC fans can rejoice. After nearly a decade of mediocrity (not counting the truly excellent Arkham games), WB Games has given DC fans what they’ve all been waiting for with a licensed game that isn’t mediocre.
Before the review begins, here’s what you need to know: Read the rest of this entry
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