Comic Picks by the Glick

Manga and Comic Reviews

Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 1: Cosmic Avengers

One only has to look at the subtitle for this volume to see what Marvel’s intentions for this series are.  Granted, that’s not a bad thing as the “Guardians of the Galaxy” are ideally suited to be an Avengers team IN SPACE.  Iron Man is even onboard for added legitimacy.  It’s also clear that the […]

Old City Blues

Writer/artist Giannis Milonogiannis says in his afterword to this collection that his aim with this title was to write what he felt like drawing and channel all of the stuff he loved as a kid.  Based on what I read, it’s clear that he holds a deep-seated affection for Katsuhiro Otomo’s “Akira” and the collective […]

X-Men by Brian Wood vol. 2: Muertas

My first thought after reading this:  “Well, that sure was six issues of ‘X-Men’ by Brian Wood.”  The female-centric X-title kicks off its second volume with the return of Lady Deathstrike.  Now existing as a digital personality, she offers the idle rich a chance to indulge in supervillainy for the right price.  This is what […]

Black Science vol. 1

Up to this point, I’ve found Rick Remender’s work to be a bit of an outlier in terms of how the company-owned/creator-owned comics paradigm is supposed to work.  You’d think that most creators’ best work is seen in the titles that they own themselves, but his “Fear Agent” eventually degenerated into an increasingly depressing slog […]

Knights of Sidonia vol. 9

“Knights of Sidonia” continues to remain, for me at least, an intriguingly weird meeting of mangaka Tsutomu Nihei’s unique style with a fairly generic mechs vs. aliens story.  The most memorable bits usually come when he makes an overt attempt to integrate a particular trope into the story.  This is how we get things like […]

Miracleman vol. 1: A Dream of Flying

One of the first and best superhero deconstructionist stories.  The work that helped launch the careers of Alan Moore, Alan Davis and Neil Gaiman.  Out of print for over two decades.  The subject of a legal quagmire between the aforementioned creators, Todd McFarlane, UK comics publisher Dez Skinn, and probably a few other parties that […]

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man vol. 5

So the last volume of this title featured a fairly disappointing use of Venom that didn’t measure up in any means to the character’s previous Ultimate incarnation, let alone his original Marvel Universe version.  It did end with the dramatic death of Miles Morales’ mother and his vow to give up being Spider-Man.  On one […]

Burn the Orphanage vol. 1: Born to Lose

This series went completely under my radar until it was pointed out to me that it’s just one big riff on the tropes and cliches of the fighting games and brawlers that dominated videogame consoles and arcades throughout the 90’s.  Knowing that beforehand makes it much easier to appreciate what writer/artist Sina Grace and his […]

Manifest Destiny vol. 1: Flora and Fauna

Everyone knows about Lewis and Clark’s famous expedition through the territory gained by the Louisiana Purchase and how they were meant to catalogue the wildlife, sights and inhabitants along the way.  Yet what if that was only the public explanation for their journey?  What if they were really under orders from President Jefferson to find […]

Secret

Jonathan Hickman’s work in comics so far has been exclusively in the science fiction or superhero genres.  There’s certainly a lot of overlap between the two, but it would appear clear that these genres are right in his sweet spot as a writer and we’ll likely see more along the likes of “The Manhattan Projects,” […]