Manga and Comic Reviews
There are some comics whose first volumes read like first issues. This is in the sense that they take a whole volume to do what a proper first issue should do: Explain the setup, introduce the core cast, and then show the audience where the story is really headed. “Reaver” is the example of this […]
Stop me if you’ve heard this before: A psychiatrist shows up at Arkham Asylum and begins to treat the Joker, convinced that they’ll be able to resolve his madness, only for the Clown Prince of Crime to turn the tables on them. “Killer Smile” isn’t the story of Dr. Harleen Quinzel; however, it’s the story […]
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the biggest Image launch from 2019. For most of that year, Image was having its thunder routinely stolen from other publishers like BOOM! with their launches of titles like “Once and Future” and “Something is Killing the Children.” Then along came “Undiscovered Country” towards the end of the year, and […]
The end of the previous volume promised us a showdown between longtime rivals Io Fleming and Darryl Lorenz. We don’t quite get that here as the first half of the volume gives us a still-thrilling encounter between the two as Fleming presses his advantage as hard as he can. It’s only the unbreakable determination of […]
Well, vol. 4 doesn’t make me want to give up on the series before its final volume comes out. So that puts it ahead of “Sex Criminals” at least. As for the actual story contained within this volume, it involves a lot of running around. Clara and the local police are running after the Laughing […]
This will be the fourth collection of comics written by Garth Ennis that I’ve read this year, and it’s safe to say that the writer has been having something of an off year. Yes, I’m saying that “Out of the Blue” doesn’t measure up to the lofty standards of the writer’s past work either. This […]
The main arc of this volume feels like Aaron had a lot of cosmic stuff he wanted to put his characters through and decided to cram it all in here. Which is why you get to see: Thor infected by the Brood; Ghost Rider, She-Hulk, and Captain Marvel vs. The Silver Surfer, Terrax, and Firelord; […]
BARBARIANS OUT! That’s the rallying cry of the politicians from Kyoto as they despair at the savages — you know, like the British, the Dutch, and us Americans — that are infesting random small parts of the nation. However, it’s not like Japan can just close itself off from the world as doing so might […]
Max Winter used to be an outlaw. He, his brother, and their gang used to rob from those who had too much money, and they left more than a few bodies in their wake. Now it’s 1939 and Max is an old man who makes a living by writing thinly veiled versions of these adventures […]
Scott Snyder’s run (and it’s also James Tynion IV’s too) reaches its climax with this volume. I’ve found his “Justice League” to be a little uneven overall. While the writer did his best to try and “Go Big” with every arc, they never quite connected in the way that I’d hoped they would. Either they […]