Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 7/3/21
Welcome to the fifth week of June in terms of comic book releases! That means very little was released this week, and I read very little of that. So really, we’re got a pretty news-worthy issue of X-Factor to wrap up the Hellfire Gala and then another brilliant issue of Beta Ray Bill.
Comic Book of the Week goes to Beta Ray Bill #4, carrying this series through as a Comic Book of the Year contender. With artwork this gorgeous, why to the rest of us even exist?
Meanwhile, life continues as expected. The Loki show is still great. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is still great. And by this time next week, I’ll have seen Black Widow! So huzzah!
Comic Reviews: Beta Ray Bill #4 and X-Factor #10.
Read the rest of this entryBatgirl Has Got Some Cool New Threads!
Current Nightwing artist Bruno Redondo has redesigned Batgirl’s costume for new, upcoming storylines! Batgirl gets costume redesigns all the time. I’m a particular fan of the Burnside costume. And this new outfit seems to be a combination of Burnside and Classic.
Redondo is doing great works on the Nightwing comic, with writer Tom Taylor. It’s fluid, smooth and drop dead gorgeous artwork. His Tim Drake Robin has been especially wonderful.
So I look forward to where this costume will show up! Reportedly new costumes are coming for Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain as well, creating a trio of Batgirls. We’ll see where that goes.
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6 Other Super-Power Mimics (Not From Comics)
I love a good power mimic. One of my all-time favorite comic book characters is the Mimic from the X-Men. His original comic appearances from the 1960s X-Men were some of the first comics I read growing up, just some old, beat-up issues from my dad’s collection. I’ve loved the Mimic ever since!
I also love his super-power, the ability to mimic and/or copy the super-powers of others. And wouldn’t you know it? That power shows up in a lot of other places, causing me to instantly like these other characters simply because they match my boy Mimic. Maybe it’s not the best way to pick a favorite character in a super-powered TV show or cartoon, but it works for me! And this week, I feel like celebrating all of these other power-mimics. I thought of including other power mimics in comics, but there are a bunch, same with video games. So I looked far and wide to see where the power was used on television. Super-power shows are much rarer.
Join me after the jump for for a handful of nifty neat power mimics from some pretty interesting shows! Warning, there are SPOILERS for the show Umbrella Academy, in case you’re not caught up.
Read the rest of this entryHave You Watched Ted Lasso?
I know it’s on AppleTV+ and therefore not available to most people, but oh man, Ted Lasso is a damn good show! It’s next level stuff! It debuted last year and I only got around to watching it a couple months ago on a whim. I figured it would be good for a nice, short comedy. But I was blown away by the heart, the emotional depth of the stunning character work. Had I watched this show last year when it debuted, it might have upset my Best Of rankings at the end of the year.
And now season 2 is less than a month away!
I can’t wait for this new season! Ted Lasso is a next level show and it comes highly recommended by me, the dude who writes this blog and likes sharing trailers. So take that how you will.
Ted Lasso season 2 arrives on July 23.
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That Time The Mimic Was in X-Men: Evolution
One of my all-time favorite comic book characters is The Mimic from the early days of the X-Men. I was only allowed to read so many comics from my dad’s collection when I was a kid, and some of those comics were the first handful of appearances the Mimic made when he fought and then joined the X-Men. These were just random issues, but they buried this character in my heart and I’ve been a big fan ever since.
And did you know that the Mimic exists within the world of the X-Men: Evolution cartoon? He didn’t appear in any episodes, though. The Mimic only ever appeared in the short-lived tie-in comic book series.
And that’s pretty much the point of this article. I just wanted to celebrate the Mimic a bit. I’ve been watching the fifth season of My Hero Academia and I’m a big fan of Neito Monoma, the character with the Copy quirk and therefore a version of Mimic’s powers. And what better way to celebrate the Mimic than to mention this fun bit of Mimic trivia!
X-Men: Evolution was a fun show and a major fan favorite. It had a ton of X-Men characters throughout its run. My favorite X-Men character, Multiple Man, had a minor role on the good guy team. That was fun. But Mimic never made it into the show itself.
Just the short comic book series.
He played a classmate of Spyke who kept pushing him to take more risks while skateboarding. They discover Calvin’s powers and Spyke brings him to the Xavier School, where Calvin’s powers go wild.
In the end, Xavier calms him down, discovers that he’s not a mutant and then Calvin gets a chip on his shoulder and walks out. Short and sweet. And then forever lost in time. But as a Mimic fan, it’s just fun to know he — sort of — exists in the X-Men: Evolution universe. It’s not often that the tie-in material gets to adapt new characters separate from the main series.
Oh, hey, did you know that Mimic also appears in the X-Men Animated Series from the 90s? He had a very brief appearance in the Days of Future Past/Age of Apocalypse alternate timeline. But while everybody else gets post-apocalyptic redesigns, Mimic shows up in his original 1960s bright orange duds!
That was definitely fun! And this has been your tiny bits of Mimic Monday Trivia.
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