Comic Picks by the Glick

Manga and Comic Reviews

By Chance or Providence

After saying that you should buy this collection over Becky Cloonan’s latest volume of “The Punisher” yesterday, I figured an explanation as to why was in order.  “By Chance or Providence” collects the creator’s three self-published one-shots along with a heaping collection of sketches.  Though they all share the same feudal, nordic setting and feature […]

The Punisher vol. 2: End of the Line

This volume collects the final pieces of sequential art that Steve Dillon did in his legendary career.  I say “final pieces” and not “full issue” because Dillon was only able to complete a few pages in the beginning, middle, and end of the first issue of this collection.  The rest are filled out by the […]

Checking in with Al Ewing’s “Avengers” titles.

As far as I’m concerned the third volume of Ewing’s “New Avengers” is still the best Marvel superhero title I’ve read this year.  For all intents and purposes “U.S.Avengers vol. 1:  American Intelligence Mechanics” is the follow-on to that and it retains much of what made that previous run great.  An eclectic group of heroes […]

Berserk vol. 38

I checked the publication date for vol. 37 and found something surprising.  It hasn’t been the four or five years that I thought had passed since the publication of the previous volume of “Berserk” on these shores.  It’s only been three years and eight months.  Does this knowledge make me feel any better about the […]

Avengers: Unleashed vol. 1 — Kang War One

I’m not saying that Mark Waid should stop writing stories involving time travel, but it’d be nice if he could try to write one that didn’t thrive on creating as many paradoxes as possible.  Between that one volume of “Hulk” he did and now this first volume of “Avengers:  Unleashed” it doesn’t seem to be […]

Ether vol. 1: Death of the Last Golden Blaze

It was bound to happen eventually, but I’ve finally encountered a first volume of a new series from Matt Kindt that I’ve enjoyed without reservation.  “Ether” is the story of Boone Dias, a scientist who has dedicated his life to exploring the titular magical realm in order to understand how it works.  See, Boone doesn’t […]

Tokyo Tarareba Girls vol. 1

Mangaka Akiko Higashimura has successfully mined the follies of female otaku for comedy and drama over in “Princess Jellyfish.”  Now she tries to do the same for Japanese career women of a certain age (read:  over 30) who have finally started to realize that their chance to get married has passed them by.  Rinko is […]

Empowered vol. 10

I have to admit that this volume was a hard one to get through.  That’s because it starts off with the title character in such a good place:  She’s finally become a full-time member of the SuperHomeys and her relationship with Thugboy is downright shagadelic.  Yeah, her self-confidence and body-image issues are still a thing, […]

Jessica Jones vol. 1: Uncaged

Bendis’ first series with Michael Gaydos featuring self-destructive former-superhero-turned-P.I. Jessica Jones, known back then as just plain “Alias,” is easily one of the high points of the writer’s tenure at Marvel.  It provided a mature, grounded look at the underbelly of the Marvel Universe that not only still reads well today, but paved the way […]