Manga and Comic Reviews
In the podcast where I vented my frothing fanboy rage over the “hiatus” that Hiroki Endo’s excellent “Eden: It’s An Endless World!” was put on, I put the onus of my hate on Dark Horse publisher Mike Richardson. I figured that being the publisher meant it was his call as to whether or not the […]
Getting my badge and running the gauntlet of sales at Preview Night was the easy part. That said, if you’re at the con you should make the effort to stop by Fanfare/Ponet-Mon’s booth (2102) and buy something from Stephen there. He’s a great guy and full of passion for what he does. I thoroughly recommend […]
Picking up the first volume of this series in hardcover was a no-brainer for me. As a big fan of Stephen King, there’s no way I wouldn’t want his first major comic book storyline immortalized in that format. Now that he’s gone, I’ll admit that it did give me pause about picking up this second […]
I’m still patiently waiting for the series to get past the point where the anime ended, but the real attraction in this volume is the art. While artist Shouji Sato’s strengths clearly lie in emphasizing fanservice — be it human-on-zombie violence, or finding new angles to show us the panties of the female cast — […]
Writer Brian Wood returns to one of the series’ recurring themes, the impact of Christianity on the title characters, with the title story. Though its description on the back cover cites “modern day ‘Viking’ black metal” as an influence, the end result reads like the writer let this influence get the better of his grounded […]
It’s been a LONG time since writer Brian Michael Bendis has sat down to write something that doesn’t involve superheroes. While I’ve (mostly) liked his work with Marvel’s superheroes over the years, “Ultimate Spider-Man” being his crowning achievement, his early creator-owned work has always been more memorable in my opinion. Re-reading “Jinx,” “Torso,” and “Fortune […]
After receiving much exposure from Grant Morrison’s “Batman” run, the Dark Knight and Boy Wonder’s English counterparts get their own mini-series. Now, the thing you have to understand about their England is that it’s a place that never quite left what we Americans regard as comics’ “Silver Age.” You’ve got goofy heroes like Salt of […]
Long time readers will know that I like Peter David’s “X-Factor” a great deal. In fact, the first six volumes of his current run are comics that I’d recommend to people who generally aren’t interested in the “X-Men” franchise. That hasn’t been the case for a while now, but David still knows how to write […]
Stories where the future has gone to hell for mutants, or where changes to the past have made for a wretched present day are a recurring trend in the “X-Men” universe. You’ve got classics like “Days of Future Past” that started the whole trend, and the “Age of Apocalypse” which provided the franchise with one […]
No, it doesn’t redeem the series. In fact, this concluding volume is disappointing in a different way than its predecessors. Where the second and third volumes squandered the momentum from the first by proceeding at an abysmally slow pace and dwelling on plot points that should’ve been foregone conclusions, this concluding one actually picks up […]