The only reason I bothered to pick this up was that it has the last three issues of Greg Ruck and Eric Trautmann’s run on “Checkmate.”  It was a fun series that successfully mixed globe-spanning espionage with superheroes in the vein of “Suicide Squad.”  (Imagining Rucka’s “Queen and Country” with superheroes, or “Gotham Central” for […]

I mentioned I was probably going to pick this up in the “Captain America” podcast if I could find it for half price, and I did.  Even though I’ve already read four of the issues collected here, the whole package still holds up pretty well as a snapshot of ‘90’s-era Marvel along with the good […]

At last year’s Comic-Con I went and picked up the majority of the “Star Wars:  Knights of the Old Republic” collections and wound up enjoying them a good deal.  Enough to do a podcast on them, in fact.  “Knight Errant” is the new series from “KOTOR” writer John Jackson Miller and it takes place in […]

Because no, I really can’t come back from Comic-Con without finding something from Warren Ellis in their half-off bins.  This time it’s his answer to “Conan” as the titular musclebound, dual-sword-wielding warrior finds himself caught in a rivalry between two tribes.  He’s not particularly motivated towards helping either side out, but a few mushrooms and […]

Ed Brubaker only writes two kinds of comics.  Great ones like “Sleeper,” “Criminal,” and “Incognito,” and “noble failures” like most of his run on “Daredevil,” the most recent volume of “Captain America” and now this.  From what I understand, “The Marvels Project” was commissioned to commemorate the anniversary of Marvel Comics by showing the origins […]

I imagine that, for a lot of people, the appeal of this volume is going to be Steve Dillon’s art.  His peerless skills at depicting emotion and real-world violence on the printed page aside, seeing him tackle the character again makes it feel like Garth Ennis never left.  It’s not Ennis, but Jason Aaron who […]

Now here’s a series that’s easy to describe:  It’s basically the comedy version of “Hellboy.”  The title character is a creation of Nikolai Tesla who, instead of going around the world to fight bizzare monsters from the pages of myth, he goes around the world fighting monstrosities of science instead.  Artist Scott Wegener’s style also […]

Here’s an analogy that you won’t find on any SAT test ever: “Berserk :: Claymore” “Mouse Guard ::  The Mice Templar” I’m sure creator Michael Avon Oeming is sick of hearing people compare “The Mice Templar” to David Petersen’s similarly-themed series, but the fact remains that his title is the lesser of the two.  Where […]

“Pyongyang:  A Journey in North Korea,” wasn’t just a good read for the way writer/artist Guy Delisle’s recounted his adventures in overseeing animation produced there.  It also provided a fascinating window into what is the most dangerously crazy nation on Earth.  You really get a good look at how messed up things are over there […]

While the idea of seeing Bond and Han Solo take on aliens in the old west under the watchful eye of the director of “Iron Man,” the end result seems to have misfired based on the reviews I’ve read.  It was probably inevitable when you consider the origins of the comic that it was based […]