Manga and Comic Reviews
If “Dark Nights: Metal” had one breakout character, it would be The Batman Who Laughs. Not according to me, however. The idea of a Batman whose mind was infected, literally, by a toxin inside the Joker’s body which only emerged upon his death wasn’t the right kind of dumb for my tastes. Seeing Batman and […]
If there’s one thing the previous three parts of this series haven’t lacked for, it’s been direction. Even if the individual arcs within them went off in some pretty odd directions, each Jojo had his own particular goal to strive for. Until now, that is. The second storyline in this volume, “Chilli Pepper,” features the […]
Donny Cates and Geoff Shaw, together again on “Guardians of the Galaxy!” It should’ve been a can’t-miss proposition after their work on “Thanos Wins.” Yet Shaw only wound up drawing the issues in this volume and Cates wrapped things up after twelve issues. I’m inclined to wonder “What went wrong?” under these circumstances, but another […]
In case anyone is keeping track of the “Actually” bit, vol. 16 was “War of the Realms.”) My biggest complaint with “War of the Realms” was that it was focused too much on spectacle. There were lots of epic showdowns and conflicts on display, but it was lacking in smaller character moments to help flesh […]
This volume’s title is where the impossible happens, and it’s where the League has to go in order to stop Luthor from turning the multiverse towards Doom. What do they find there? Why a perfect utopia where their future selves are more than happy to show them around and talk about how they pulled it […]
This is a volume of “Delicious in Dungeon” where the emphasis is on the plot and characters rather than the dishes created from defeated monsters. Sounds like kind of a mistake, doesn’t it? If you’re like me and the series has had you engrossed since the first volume then chances are you’ve got some investment […]
Above-the-Board Recommendation: Steeple All of the books from Dark Horse that I was considering for this month involved potential. Not so much that I was expecting greatness from them, but that they had the potential for that or just to surprise me. So why does “Steeple” get this spot? Because of all the things I’ve […]
Above-the-Board Recommendation: Batman: Last Knight on Earth HC It’s the future, and do you know where your Batman is? Bruce Wayne doesn’t. He’s just woken up in Arkham Asylum without a sign that he’s ever been Batman. The world outside Arkham appears to be all the worse off for it as the Earth of the […]
Above-the-Board Recommendation: Outer Darkness/Chew #1 (of 3) “Chew” is no stranger to odd crossovers, having already done one with supernatural rural noir “Revival.” The catch this time is that the series is crossing over space, time, and genre to mash up in some way with creator John Layman’s current series “Outer Darkness.” As to how […]
Above-the-Board Recommendation: X-Men: Grand Design Omnibus The first three hundred issues of “X-Men” are unique among Marvel comics of that length in the sense that the majority of them were written by one person: Chris Claremont. Even then there’s a lot of sprawl in his run and that’s even before you try to reconcile it […]