New year.  New titles.  New creative teams.  New trades.  Let’s get down to it. Demon Knights #16:  Robert Venditti, best known around here as the writer of “The Surrogates,” takes over for Paul Cornell.  As was the case with “Stormwatch” my interest in this title has declined accordingly.  While I liked “The Surrogates,” Venditti’s style […]

This is a western written by Garth Ennis that he did through Avatar a few years back.  As you’d expect from his previous collaborations with the publisher it is quite violent, gruesomely so in some parts, and also hits upon some of his favorite subjects.  In this case, the necessity of hard, uncompromising men to […]

The word out of the New York Comic-Con today is that “American Vampire” will be going on a not-quite-year-long hiatus soon as writer Scott Snyder and artist Rafael Albuquerque pursue other projects.  This will include a ten-issue mini-series with Sean Murphy and a new Superman title for Snyder and what I can only assume is […]

Rucka’s go at building a “Punisher” series around the title character’s supporting cast continues in a fairly readable fashion here.  It’s not to say that this approach isn’t panning out, but it does feel remarkably subdued for a story involving Frank Castle and I imagine that some of these issues must’ve pretty slow when read […]

I’ve been down on Ed Brubaker’s “Captain America” for quite some time now, but this is a step in the right direction.  Things kick off with an epilogue from “Fear Itself” which explains that Bucky wasn’t pointlessly killed off during the crossover and is now going to use his “deceased” status to take care of […]

I picked this up on a whim at Comic-Con, as it came from the solid creative team of Chris “whole lotta X-books” Yost and Scott “Atomic Robo” Wegener.  The premise, about an ordinary office drone, Dave Sloan chosen by the Almighty to be his demon-slaying agent on Earth also sounded pretty nifty.  Unfortunately, while Yost […]

Is this Kieron Gillen’s mutant ability?  To get good tie-in stories out of Marvel crossovers? At long last, “Fear Itself:  Uncanny X-Men” has hit softcover and I can find out the story behind Piotr Rasputin’s transformation from sensitive long-time X-man Colossus into the unstoppable… “Juggerlossus?”  “Colossanaut?”  Nah, I like “Juggerlossus” better.  Anyway, the arc collected […]

It’s been a few years since I’ve read about the Ultimate version of the “X-Men” as the end of Robert Kirkman’s run seemed like a pretty good jumping off point.  The series then limped on into the “Ultimatum” crossover before Jeph Loeb gave us the “Son of Wolverine” in “Ultimate X”.  Now it’s in the […]

In the “author profiles” section from “Crimson Empire II:  Council of Blood” Dark Horse co-founder/publisher/occasional writer Mike Richardson was noted to be working on the script for the third installment of the series which he hoped would see print the following year.  That was in November, 1999.  In the intervening 12+ years, not only did […]

Alright, let’s see if I can get through this with a minimum of bitterness, cynicism and sarcasm. … I’ve already failed, haven’t I?  Oh well.  There’s still stuff in here I’m looking forward to even if the cost/page ratio is skewed somewhat unfavorably. Thunderbolts #’s 1&2:  You’ll notice that the Punisher is now a part […]