BOOM! Comics has been the focus of my praise many times for their treatment of the Warhammer license from Games Workshop. Mostly due to the Warhammer 40,000 license, as that is where my heart lies — a grim future where there is only war, and there are no Good Guys.
The Warhammer Fantasy setting is much the same; and with a few of the same factions; Empire, Chaos, Orc are the three that cross over and BOOM!’s miniseries Forge of War deals with the Empire and Chaos.
First off, let’s just say that you’re silly as hell if you’re looking for a happy ending in a Warhammer book of any flavor. It just Does Not Happen. The most you can hope for is ambiguity, which Forge of War has in spades. This was the last issue of the miniseries, which has done a great job of capturing the feel of the W:F setting — which should not be a surprise as Dan Abnett is a very prolific writer of Warhammer prose.
In short, order this trade when it comes out, if you see it; buy it.
This book needs more Machine Man. Especially since it’s Nextwave-Era Machine Man.
Ms. Marvel is growing on me. Since the events of House of M, where she saw herself as the premiere hero on Earth in that alternate reality, Carol Danvers has been giving her all to become just that.
Agent Sum, Machine Man, Arana and Sleepwalker are good additions to her team, just the right mix of weirdness and humor, with Sum keeping things under control.
This issue features a SURPRISE ENDING THAT WILL ROCK YOUR WORLD AND THE MARVEL UNIVERSE WILL NEVER BE THE SAME!
Ok, it doesn’t. Just wanted to type that up once.
But the ending is a surprise. And it did come as quite the shock. Leads in perfectly to Secret Invasion. Pick it up, see if I’m wrong.
Annihilation: Conquest may not have the ‘oomph’ of the original Annihilation miniseries/event, but it’s still a rollicking good story.
This issue, what can go wrong does. Star-Lord is undergoing torture. Blastaar and the Spaceknight Daystar remind us what the Phalanx can do. Adam Warlock, the High Evolutionary and powerless Quasar show us how damned ineffectual great power can be when wielded by an amnesiac, a dick, or someone who just drained all of theirs. And Ultron shows us why he/she/it is a premiere villain in the Marvel Universe when not written by someone named Bendis.
This issue ends with every-damn-one of Our Heroes in deep shit.
I love it.
Yeah, I’m talking about an X-Book. Don’t do that often, as everyone and their brother is aware of the X-Men, whether through the books or the movies or the cartoons.
But yeah, Messiah CompleX is over and Professor X is dead — probably. Never a given with heroes of any sort, and for the X-Men the pearly gates are more like a revolving door.
Scott Summers and Emma Frost are on vacation in the Savage Land, Nightcrawler and Wolverine and Colossus are in Europe, and Angel is in San Francisco. Cyclops and White Queen are enjoying themselves thoroughly, taking in the sights of the prehistoric lands under Antarctica, when Angel contacts them; something’s not right in San Fran, and Angel is getting sucked under.
What villain is rearing up ready to take down Warren Worthington III? Magneto? Juggernaut? Marauders?
How about the Haight-Ashbury 60’s?
Yeah, makes no sense. So far. This is a good issue to jump on, coming as it does after the CompleX. It’s a setup for later issues, plain and simple. But it’s full of character moments that let you know why you like the X-Men.
Not a big fan of the Justice Society. I’m not one that holds the Golden Age of Comics in reverential awe; but a few characters stick out and grab my attention. Hourman is one of them.
So when I saw this issue of JSA Classified featuring Hourman, I had to pick it up.
Hourman is pretty much a unique concept — he pops a pill and gets the generic superpower battery for 60 minutes. One a day plus Zinc has nothing on his Miraclo. I like the fact he has to be judicious when he takes ‘em, although it’s a bit sketchy on whether it’s a 24-hour timer or if it’s just “the next day” — but really, that kind of nitpicking I leave for the Simpsons Comic Book Guy.
This issue deals with Hourman rescuing his wife; the rest of the JSA is off battling evil or golfing or something, and Liberty Belle and Hourman decided to have a working vacation — but then Belle got kidnapped. So off to the rescue goes Hourman, but he only has an hour.
The powerset applies itself to the medium perfectly — the use of (mostly) nine-panel pages gives the book a sense of urgency, and the fact that I dig Hourman means that I enjoyed it thoroughly.
Of course the other books in the series that I’ve read have been quite shit. So pick and choose.
Get thee hence and pick up the trades of Y: The Last Man.
Don’t argue, just do it.
Brian K. Vaughn is one of the more underrated scribes working the comic beat today (even though he does write for a little TV show called LOST you may have heard of). His Doctor Strange: The Oath is, in my mind, the definitive spin on the good doctor, and he created one of the best properties for Marvel since Cable and Deadpool rolled out in the 90’s: The Runaways.
Those things? They pale to the epicness of Y: The Last Man. It is what it says, Yorick is the last known male alive on planet Earth, and the book ostensibly is about his searching for his girlfriend-slash-fiancee in the aftermath.
There’s pitfalls, romance, intrigue, action — just about everything you could want in a story.
So go read it.
After 52 and World War III, when DC announced that there was going to be a 6-issue miniseries featuring Black Adam, I was skeptical.
This is a guy that killed a country. A country. Killed it stone dead. Almost every man, woman and child within the country died because of this man. Regardless of the reasons, it takes some balls to make Teth-Adam the focus of a miniseries.
The miniseries deals with Black Adam’s quest to return the love of his life, Isis, back to the land of the living. Really, that’s touching; but Kandaq is dead. There are some good character moments within — if you can get past the whole mass-murderer thing, this would be a good comic. Ignore 52 and WWIII and it’s rather enjoyable.
The reveal of Black Adam’s new word is priceless. I did like that. Won’t spoil it for you. (And for those that don’t know, Black Adam is one of the Marvel Family group of enemies. DC’s Captain Marvel everyone knows as Shazam, Mary Marvel, etc. They have a magic word that they say to transform into their powered state. The word to this point has been Shazam – but Captain Marvel changed Black Adam’s after the Kandaq thing).
Get the trade — there’s some good bits, and a betrayal at the end that would make you feel sorry for Adam . . . if he wasn’t, y’know, a genocidal freak.
Image Comics’ Proof is one of my favorite books going, so far. This issue is a pretty action-light book, considering it has Proof and el Chupacabra facing off.
Of course, the face-off happens over a kitchen table, with poisoned tea and raw hot dogs. But still.
Proof is looking for others of his kind — the “Bigfoot” kind, while Chupacabra hints at more out there.
There’s other drama, as el Chupacabra is currently inhabiting the skin of the town sheriff’s mother Nadine, and the meat of the issue stops when the sheriff, Elvis (not that Elvis), comes into the kitchen gun drawn.
Alexander Grecian, Riley Rossmo, Tyler Jenkins and Kelly Tindall are keeping me entertained with the sharp wit, the very-suitable art, the Cryptoid facts that crop up throughout the story Nightly News-style, and the sense that there is a larger story to tell.
You can jump on with this issue, but I’d recommend seeking out and finding the first three as well. This is a good book to be reading.
Superman Prime. Apparently was “Superboy Prime” until something to do with a lawsuit from the creators of the character.
I haven’t quite figured out what makes him so much more badass than the other Supes out there. This is the guy that reality-punched his way through the last Crisis; this is the one that received a Sinestro Ring, and kept most of Earth’s heroes tied up — hell, he was winning!
Anyway, Prime and Monarch are going at it in this week’s issue of Countdown to Final Crisis – there’s some good bits in here: Jason Todd getting a costume, Donna Troy becoming a Queen of sorts; Monarch and Prime throwing down — this could very well be my favorite issue of Countdown yet.
The Sinestro Corps War has started me reading the Green Lantern books. And they are quite enjoyable, the Green Lantern book and the Green Lantern Corps book — the “base” book, Green Lantern, has Hal and John as the two Lanterns we follow; and in this issue, John makes a very important choice.
Seems the Lanterns are having a bit too much freedom now that there is a license to kill with one of those Power Rings; so the Guardians figure that creating the Alpha Corps – a cosmic internal affairs division – will set things right.
Somehow, I don’t think it’s going to work as well as they think it will. But I’ll be along for the ride; this is well worth the money spent.
