Between the first volume of this and “The Fade Out,” Ed Brubaker has made his way back into my good graces after his lacklustre end years at Marvel and the never-quite-as-good-as-it-should-have-been “Fatale.”  That’s still the case in this second volume of the adventures of spy-on-the-run Velvet Templeton, even though there’s a plot twist towards the […]

This series has been on the cusp of being really good for a while now.  Holding it back has been the supernatural mystery of the revivers and some storytelling that doesn’t surprise as often as it should given the subject matter.  With vol. 5, writer Tim Seely makes some big strides towards addressing these issues. […]

Jonathan Hickman’s penchant for planning out his storylines is well known.  I mention this now because this is the first time I felt that he may have bitten off a little more than he can chew.  This would normally be a really bad thing, except that there are plenty of positives to make this volume […]

Hey, so it turns out that I was mistaken and Earl Tubb, protagonist of the previous volume, really was beaten to death in the street by Coach Euless Boss.  That does make him seem more threatening, but Jason Aaron wants you to feel something different for this particular bastard here:  sympathy.  “Gridiron” is all about […]

For all the noise I made about Si Spurrier’s “X-Men:  Legacy” run being likely to crash and burn within a year, it turns out that it was his take on “X-Force” which turned out to be commerically disappointing.  After a defining run from Rick Remender and a “not bad, but not particularly great” effort from […]

“Superman:  Earth One” is a lost cause for me at this point as I still feel no inclination to check out the third volume which arrived earlier this year.  Its counterpart, however, is a different story.  “Batman:  Earth One” arrived on the heels of “The Dark Knight Rises” and gave us another look at the […]

This latest volume contains a lot of good stuff:  Carl beating down two bastards with good reason, more information about the Whispered and what their deal is, Carl potentially finding love, an assassination plan gone awry, Carl doing something potentially very stupid for said love, and Jesus Saving.  All of this is handled with Robert […]

I did complain about the lack of actual bondage in the first volume of this series, and creator Stjepan Sejic works hard to rectify that here.  Not only are some of the key scenes here set in a high-end bondage club — where we see the performers on stage — but we get some extended […]

The Snyder/Capullo run on this title has been marked primarily by big event storylines:  “The Court of/City of the Owls,” “Death of the Family,” and “Zero Year.”  It hasn’t left much room for shorter stories, but this volume collects all of the miscellany that has accumulated between these arcs.  Worth noting right up front is […]

The good news is that this volume addresses a lot of the issues I had with the previous one.  It’s clear now that the gimmicky descriptions given to the core cast members were just that, and the Queens themselves are quickly becoming their own characters.  Now it remains to be seen if writer Kurtis Wiebe […]