Grant Morrison has a well-deserved reputation as an ideas man.  So I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that he came up with the idea of doing an origin story for Santa Claus that takes the character back to his Germanic and Viking-related origins.  Klaus was a captain in the Grimsvig guard until he was driven […]

…and at the other end of Nick Spencer’s skillset is this new creator-owned crime series with artist Steve Lieber, his partner-in-crime on “Superior Foes of Spider-Man.”  That was one of my favorite Marvel series of recent years and I was really looking forward to seeing what they could do when not working within the constraints […]

Vol. 1 was all about establishing writer Nick Spencer’s take on Sam Wilson as the new Captain America.  A hero who was more about fighting for the little guy and for social change than simply beating up bad guys.  It delivered on that approach, but offered no real surprises.  If you were hoping for more […]

This volume marks the end of year two of the Apocalypse, with the concluding year three to follow in due course.  Does vol. 6 represent a significant ramping up of stakes and excitement in advance of this?  Kinda.  I imagine that the second meeting of nations called by the now-empowered Ezra was meant to herald […]

I was very much looking forward to seeing what writer Si Spurrier would be doing with this series he inherited from Alan Moore.  After all, Spurrier is one of the few writers who has done something interesting with the “Crossed” concept beyond exploit it for purposes of gore-related shock value.  So imagine my disappointment when […]

The first volume of this series was pretty great.  The second was a disappointing mess.  If you’ve been following my writing here for an extended period of time, then you’ve probably seen me (repeatedly) mention my hopes that this third volume will help get “Gotham Academy” back on track.  Well, “Yearbook” is a lot different […]

Simon Roy is probably best known for co-writing and illustrating a decent chunk of the “Prophet” revival spearheaded by Brandon Graham.  As his short-story collection “Jan’s Atomic Heart and Other Stories” showed, he’s a pretty capable talent when flying solo.  “Habitat” offers further proof of this in its story of a spaceship whose crew has […]

I’ve read some crap this year, and I’ve also read a lot of very good comics as well.  Yet there hasn’t been anything which has surprised me.  With most of this year’s comics, they’ve been entertaining along expected and established lines.  There haven’t been any out-of-the-box shocks which have come my way.  Until now.  I […]

There are merits to this volume.  Bendis’ dialogue, now that he’s back to having real people talk to each other, feels more energized and believable than it has in a while.  Maleev’s art perfectly captures the grimness of the story while taking periodic stylistic departures to remind you of his range.  There’s also a certain […]

Why yes, this did originally come out back in July.  It’s been sitting on my “to review” stack for that long too.  I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to get around to actually getting out my thoughts about this particular title.  Probably because this first volume of “Monstress” is a very ambitious […]