The first volume, “Bloody Liars,” was a lot of fun.  It was about Combat Magician William Gravel killing some very, very bad magicians in imaginative and gruesome ways.  That’s not the highest aim in the world, but it was done with such style and efficiency, and a few clever twists that it didn’t matter.  The […]

(Or, vol. 12 in Ed Brubaker’s run for those of you still keeping track at home.) Now that Steve Rogers is back in the present, the next item on this series’ agenda is settling who gets to be Captain America in the “Who Will Wield the Shield” one-shot that kicks off this volume.  Surprise:  it’s […]

Normal service has finally been resumed. After a volume of short stories and a side story about the organization’s past, we finally get the next “proper” volume in the “B.P.R.D.” saga.  Regrettably, it’s a little underwhelming.  Picking up after the events of “The Black Goddess,” Abe, Liz, and co. decide to take the fight to […]

I wouldn’t say that the stories Grant Morrison has been writing on “Batman & Robin” have been genre-redefining masterpieces.  Really, the biggest thing he has accomplished with this series is getting me to take Dick Grayson seriously as Batman’s replacement and likewise for Damien Wayne as the new Robin.  That said, the stories contained in […]

In case you hadn’t already heard, this volume has been such a success that writer J. Michael Straczynski will be stepping down as scripter for “Superman” and “Wonder Woman” to focus on getting the second volume out ASAP.  For a title that was shrouded in so much secrecy and murk prior to its release, that’s […]

Note to whoever wrote the text to the back cover of this volume:  Vikings trying to survive the winter while a plague ravages the countryside isn’t “survival horror” unless there’s some actual horror.  Usually involving zombies.  In Raccoon City.  But I digress… This fourth volume of Brian Wood’s ongoing saga about the struggles of Vikings […]

I’ve been increasingly suspicious of the back-cover quotes on DC’s hardcovers ever since Ed Brubaker said some glowing words about “The Chill” earlier this year.  Maybe he really did like the worst entry in the Vertigo Crime line, but I can’t look at these things and take them seriously anymore.  Then “Superman:  Earth One” arrives […]

… and I enjoyed it.  It didn’t really grab me, in the way that something truly fresh and exciting tends to do, but it was a faithful adaptation of the comic’s beginning.  Not slavish in the way that “Sin City” and “Watchmen” set out to be as there were some additions to the shootout that […]

Just when you think they’ve run out of “Hellboy” comics to collect, a new volume shows up featuring stuff you either forgot about or didn’t know existed.  This isn’t a proper volume of the series, but a collection of the two crossover mini-series featuring Batman and Jack “Starman” Knight in one and Ghost in the […]

… and my assessment that it looked like “Grumpy Old Retired Ex-Government Killers” turned out to be pretty spot-on.  Outside of the basic premise of having a former CIA “problem solver” be hunted down by the Agency, the filmmakers took nothing from Warren Ellis’ and Cully Hamner’s comic.  I’m glad that they both got a […]