Manga and Comic Reviews
Vol. 1 of Coates’ run reminded me of the most annoying parts of Ed Brubaker’s run. Vol. 2 gave us a good super-hero-in-a-super-prison story. Vol. 3 does a bang-up job of threatening to derail my interest in this series. Part of that’s due to a confusing plot which initially starts off with the return of […]
The last time we were in “Oblivion,” I mentioned that the Faceless Men were a genuinely interesting challenge facing Nathan Cole and the rest of the cast. Vol. 4 manages to dispel a lot of that interest early on. That’s when we find out that they’ve managed to learn English and are able to communicate […]
Doctor Doom is unquestionably one of Marvel’s A-List villains. Even though his main nemeses are the Fantastic Four, it’s always a big deal whenever he shows up to tangle with another hero or team like Spider-Man or the Avengers. While the character’s stature and popularity have been enough to warrant a few solo miniseries over […]
Are you ready for a BLOOD FEUD?! It looks like that’s where the story’s headed not too far into vol. 4 as Mob’s brother Ritsu fully awakens to his own powers (with some questionable help from Dimple). Unfortunately for him, this has come along at a time when his emotional stability has taken a hit, […]
Vol. 4 sees this series falling back on its bad old habits of collecting only a couple of issues of the regular series and padding out the paperback with extra one-shots. But hey, that title at least promises an epic fight, right? Kinda/sorta. While Slott has always been willing to incorporate the latest changes in […]
The first half of this volume carries on much as the previous one did. With writer Jason Aaron, and artist Mahmud Asrar (and Gerardo Zaffino back for another issue here) giving us some decent but unspectacular “Conan” stories. We see the barbarian recruiting a group of working girls to get some revenge, returning home to […]
Here’s a follow-up where its ceiling and floor are closer together in terms of quality. Where vol. 1’s strength was in its portrayal of protagonist Luna Brewster’s mental issues, vol. 2 loses a little bit in that regard. It’s been a year since the conspiracy-fueled bloodshed at her house, and Luna is now back at […]
If there’s one thing that mangaka Hiroya Oku does well, it’s that he’s got a real knack for conveying action on the page. Even when it felt like “Gantz” was going off the rails, the action scenes were still compelling. His follow-up series “Inuyashiki” did have some decent moments of android-on-human and android-on-android fighting, but […]
It still sucks to be Nathan Bright. After escaping the pay-per-view VR murder marathon from the previous volume, he now finds himself heading back to Earth with (former?) government operative Amanda Cross and her mercenary pals. Why are they doing this after Earth was hit with a virus that has killed 18 billion of its […]
“Snowpiercer” didn’t actually need to be a trilogy of graphic novels. The first one told a good self-contained story, the second expanded on it to diminishing returns and a hauntingly nihilistic ending, while the third actually managed to deliver a satisfying wrap-up to it all. So when I heard that there was going to be […]