Comic Picks by the Glick

Manga and Comic Reviews

Velvet vol. 1: Before the Living End

As any veteran of Ed Brubaker’s “Captain America” run can tell you, the man really likes grounded espionage stories.  Using the Star-Spangled Avenger and his resurrected sidekick as a means to tell these kinds of stories in the Marvel Universe worked really well for a while.  The problem is that the moral ambiguity of the […]

Avengers World vol. 1: A.I.M.pire

“JONATHAN HICKMAN’S ‘AVENGERS’ RUN SO EPIC THAT IT COULDN’T BE CONTAINED IN TWO BOOKS OR EVEN BE WRITTEN ENTIRELY BY HIM!” This is what should’ve been at the top of the press release announcing this new “Avengers” title in the wake of “Infinity.”  I can’t think of a better way to describe this title’s existence […]

Baltimore vol. 4: Chapel of Bones

After reading this volume I am utterly convinced that Lord Henry Baltimore’s wallet also has the inscription “BAD MOTHERFUCKER” on it. I mean, if his monster hunting exploits in the previous volumes didn’t establish this then there’s plenty more evidence here.  Going toe-to-toe with the mad Inquisitor Duvic.  Taking out vampires with a large-caliber handcannon. […]

Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi vol. 3 — Force War

Writer John Ostrander and artist Jan Duursema first collaborated on “Star Wars:  Twilight” well over a decade ago.  It seems unlikely that either of them would’ve thought that they’d still be working together on “Star Wars”comics after all that time, or that their partnership would prove to be the longest-running and most creatively successful in […]

Uncanny Avengers vol. 2: The Apocalypse Twins

After saving New York from the new mind-controlling Red Skull, what’s next for the Avengers “Unity” squad?  The answer involves the buildup for an epic storyline that draws a lot from writer Rick Remender’s excellent “The Dark Angel Saga” as well as one that makes the theme of racial tolerance a central part of its […]

Escapo

Let me digress from tonight’s subject for a start:  Podbean unveiled their “enhanced statistics” package last night.  So if you’ve noticed that the “site visitor” tally is now replaced by a “plays” stat on the right side of the page, that’s the main enhancement they’ve unleashed.  Instead of tracking both podcast hits and traffic, now […]

EVE: True Stories

Back when the Penny Arcade Report was active I always enjoyed reading their articles about EVE Online.  While I had some familiarity with this online space mining/combat game, I hadn’t realized that it had developed its own ecosystem with real-life economic implications and various collectives and factions staking claim to parts of space and going […]

Peter Panzerfaust vols. 1 & 2

It may seem crazy, at first glance, to take elements of “Peter Pan” and retell the story in a WWII setting.  However, writer Kurtis Wiebe actually manages to pull it off incredibly well.  The problem is that while he does a good job of selling the core idea, its execution is a little more problematic. […]

Thoughts on some anime and comics news:

As someone who likes the “Knights of Sidonia” manga, I was planning on taking some time out from my *ahem* busy schedule of gaming and comics reading to check out the anime that’s being made out of it.  Now, after the runaway success of the “Attack on Titan” anime last year, I was kinda hoping […]