Posts Tagged ‘comics’

Daily News: 1/18/2013

Posted in News and Editorials, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 18, 2013| 2 Comments »

ComingSoon.net – Hugh Jackman Talks X-Men: Days of Future Past
“Every other actor who’s ever put on a superhero uniform will be in it,” he said. “There’s an element of time travel and, naturally, it will be action-packed.”

i09 – How to Tell if a TV Show is Probably Not Going to End Well
Happy to note that my series avoids all the writing based pitfalls listed here!

Newsarama – Marvel Comics’ April 2013 Solicits

BleedingCool – Chaos And Order At DC Comics

SuperHeroHype – 9 Things We Want to See in Marvel’s S.H.I.E.L.D.

CinemaBlend – Red 2 Gets An Explosive First Trailer

i09 – 10 Ways John Milton’s Paradise Lost Is Like a Bad Comic Book

and then there’s this…

what if.. deadpool and harley quinn had kids?... by *m7781

what if.. deadpool and harley quinn had kids?… by *m7781

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X-Treme X-Men Cancelled

Posted in News and Editorials, tagged , , on January 18, 2013| 2 Comments »

X-Treme X-Men Finale Artwork

X-Treme X-Men Finale Artwork

X-Treme X-Men Cancelled

Sucks.

I’ve already commented in my reviews how much I really enjoy the clever writing in this series. It’s smart, it’s funny, it’s everything you want in a comic. So why did it fall below the 20k mark in sales which CBR says lead to it being cancelled?

I’m going to blame the fact that everyone thought it was “a Dazzler title”.

Dazzler leads the team but she doesn’t hog the issues. Logan, Kurt, Sage… all these characters have their share of the lime-light and they all bring something great to the scene. The worlds Pak created had a wonderful sense of depth even if they weren’t necessarily explored. The stories were timely, thoughtful, but not overbearing or on the nose.

I’d jump and whine and complain but I know that won’t do any good.

So while I’m really annoyed as this was one of my favorite titles on my current pull list, at least it does look like it will go out with a bang. I’ve also been introduced to the wonderful writing of Greg Pak, will definitely be on the look out for him in the future.

Goodbye X-Treme X-Men, you join the group of wonderful things ended before their time…

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Review: All-New X-Men #5

Posted in Reviews, tagged , , on January 18, 2013| Leave a Comment »

All-New X-Men #5

All-New X-Men #5

Review: All-New X-Men #5

While Hank is attempting to save… Hank, Jean discovers more about herself than she probably ever wanted to know.

That’s really the crux of this whole issue. The one member of the team who is dead finds out why… and when she does, she doesn’t like what she sees. Granted, no one wants to be dead, but considering everything Jean went through, all the times she died and came back, her relationship with Scott being such as it was… it is enough to terrify anyone… and I’m pretty sure that’s what happened.

Jean is smart, she knows if they go back then the Professor will find out and wipe their minds and they won’t have learned anything from seeing the future. A bunch of people are okay with that but she’s not okay with it. She claims they can do better here, fixing the modern world, but in reality I think she just doesn’t want to die, or at least not in the way it happened, nor after Scott cheated on her.

Speaking of which… after learning her fate through Hank’s memories, Jean wants nothing to do with Scott, told him to stay the hell away from her.

I feel sorry for Scott, I really do, this kid hasn’t done anything wrong. Sure, he’s capable of doing many wrongs but he’s a product of his environment… of events both within and outside his control. There is no guarantee he would go all revolutionary or cheat on Jean if he had the chance to again. Wolverine is all about ‘second chances’ like he did with Quire but apparently that doesn’t extend to Scott who is only lucky Wolvie doesn’t gut him.

I fear that if young Scott goes the way of old Scott they will have no one to blame but themselves.

p.s. on a side note, I hope they drop any idea of Wolverine and Jean hooking up, I know he loved her but this Jean isn’t the same one he knew, but more importantly, she’s jail bait, and while Wolvie doesn’t age, if he hangs around waiting for her to become legal… mucho creepy… but thankfully he looks to have moved on from her and will be hooking up with Storm soon.

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Review: Morbius #1

Posted in Reviews, tagged , , on January 16, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Morbius #1

Morbius #1 – Skottie Young variant

Review: Morbius: The Living Vampire #1

I admit I only bought X-Treme X-Men for the cover and that turned out to be a really smart move as it has been a top-notch read. I may have done it again with Morbius: The Living Vampire, which I only picked up for the Skottie Young variant. It’s so cute!

I never heard of Morbius as I’m not a Spider-Man follower, nor am I really big into what is now the ‘modern vampire’, but I decided to read it because hey, I have it, might as well, right?

This literally hooked me from the first page.

I love this writer’s style, the first page is black with only a single line of text. He continues this trend by using either a blank black page or set apart white text with things like “Advantages of being Vampire-ish”. It’s different, it’s fluid, quirky, I love it.

Also, and this is of major importance, the writer understands that this is a first issue of a solo series for a character that is not mainstream. Like I said, I had no clue who Morbius is/was before getting this issue… now I do. Joe Keatinge, the writer, walked the fine line of telling us who Morbius is without either becoming a massive info dump, assuming too much of the reader, or assuming too little of the reader. He also gave us just a taste of action and ending on a moderate cliffhanger.

Basically, this is what has been missing from of a lot of the relaunches, especially solo series launches. Too many of the writers act as if they literally are still in the middle of a title which makes it more difficult to capture new readers. Just because readers have a general idea who Tony Stark/Iron Man is doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give us at least a run down of the major things that have happened up to this point. (side note: read the new Iron Man #1 and as a non Iron Man reader I found it very unapproachable)

Sure, the story in Morbius #1 is a tad on the cliché side and a bit tropey, but the single fact that not only does Keatinge mix things up in style but also successfully introduces you to a character is something that can not be ignored. I had this put on my pull list and we’ll see where it goes from here.

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Review: A+X #3

Posted in Reviews, tagged , , , , , , on January 16, 2013| 1 Comment »

A+X #3

A+X #3

Review: A+X #3

I read a review for this issue and found it to be so completely opposite of how I felt about A+X #3 that it was almost comical.

The first story is Storm and Black Panther. Not only does Storm act a bit petty at times (though admits to it) but she really does have classic ‘ex-girlfriend syndrome’ while BP just stands around all ‘well, I did the right thing’ even though he’s the freaking King and basically Batman meaning he can do whatever the hell he wants.

This is only less shameful than their fight in the AvX matchups where Storm declares “maybe if we had children we could have worked things out”. Iron clad proof that there needs to be more female writers on staff.

Course, I then admit to my hypocrisy when I mention the second pair up of Gambit and Hawkeye, two gentlemen who are very easy on the eyes and women just fall all over (and who are currently battling it out for sales of their launched-at-the-same-time solo titles), and just how yummy they are.

Granted, their rescue of a ‘Damsel in Distress’ is pretty cliché and worn, but then this is Gambit and Hawkeye, it’s what they do, this is partly why women love these characters so much. Gambit is the smooth talking badboy while Hawkeye is the beefcake jock. In the end, Hawkeye gets the lady’s attention but Gambit steals it away, again, this is what these guys do. Never has there ever been a more perfect defining moment for either of these guys.

I’m pretty sure the reviewer I mentioned above is a Hawkeye fan-boy and didn’t like that Gambit got one over on him… but if Gambit didn’t, then it wouldn’t be Gambit, or even Hawkeye, the guy who can’t even go out and buy some scotch tape without everything going wrong, and still not get the tape.

Now I’m waiting anxiously for the next issue which sees Captain American paired with Kid Omega… that should be… fun?

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Avengers Arena being Petitioned

Posted in News and Editorials, tagged , , , , on January 11, 2013| 1 Comment »

Comic books in general have been known to pull some crazy stunts in order to boost sales or attempt to stay in line with pulp culture. Sometimes it’s totally awesome, sometimes it’s utterly fail. One of the biggest examples of a WTF moment was Spider-Man #700 where the writer even got death threats over the ending.

A lesser known WTF moment was the cancellation of Avengers Academy so that the characters could return in a new title. This, in and of itself, isn’t anything too noteworthy, but the fact that the new title is called Avengers Arena and is specifically about teenage students being forced to fight to the death caused several brows to be raised. Not only were they obviously capitalizing off the recent success of the Hunger Games movie but they literally stole their #1 cover from an earlier, and even bloodier, film called Battle Royale.

Avengers Arena #1 cover and Battle Royale poster

Avengers Arena #1 cover and Battle Royale poster

This made a lot of people unhappy for several reasons, least of all being that Marvel has taken a bunch of kids and basically said they were going to start killing them off… for seemingly no real good reason. It’s not the worse thing Marvel has ever done and a lot of the characters aren’t nearly as well known as, say, Spider-Man, and so the title debuted with about as much fanfare as any other title… until recently.

Just as quietly, a petition on Change.org was put up to get Avengers Arena pulled and retconned.

The cancellation of Avengers Arena by Dennis Hopeless: Cancel Avengers Arena and retcon the deaths that have happened.

Marvel has gathered together our favorite teenaged characters in a gambit to ride the coattails of The Hunger Games recent success. We cannot allow these young heroes in training to be killed off, it is an injustice to them and the future of comics – even if the majority of the comic populace; neither care, nor have heard of them. Each of these characters, established before this book, have seen substantial personal growth; growth which is about to be snuffed out in the name of sales. Let us show Marvel that we will not let this transgression go unremarked. Let us show that we will not allow our beloved characters to fade quietly into the night. Let us show Marvel that we are their dedicated fans and these are the characters we love! Join me by signing this petition, and help me show Marvel that this is not the right thing to do, that we will not sit idly by while they lump our beloved characters into the debris pile they have collected. Thank you, each and every one of you , even if you do not sign. So long as you have read this I have seeded the thought of this travesty against fans into your mind.

Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but this is the first time that a petition has gone up for anything like this, esp something that is not so mainstream as one of the ‘big named’ characters. I would have expected a Spider-Man petition long before an Avengers Arena. Then again, all it takes is one person who feels for these characters to put up a petition, and since AA is a smaller title, a petition might be the only way for anyone to take notice.

As for signing the petition, I’m torn. While I don’t like the idea of a Battle Royale style anything, let alone in my comics, I can’t help but think “this is Marvel, they’ll retcon themselves eventually anyway”.

At the time of posting the petition only has 63 signatures and it looks to have been put up almost a month ago (22 days). I don’t know what kind of advertising they did for it but it just hit Bleeding Cool and it’s only a matter of time before a few other outlets pick up the story as well.

In the end, I fully believe that even if the petition got up to 30k signatures, I doubt Marvel would take any notice. It will be all about the bottom line. If Avengers Arena doesn’t sell very well then they will cancel and perhaps go back to Avengers Academy or parcel the characters off into other titles, the ones that are still living that is.

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Review: WatX #23

Posted in Reviews, tagged , , on January 10, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Wolverine & the X-Men #23

Wolverine & the X-Men #23

Review: Wolverine & the X-Men #23

Okay, major question here, just how in the world did they get all the costumes back on if they a) never left the circus and b) have been in a constant fight? Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s a comic book.

We wrap up the Murder Circus and Frankenstein plots for the most part, but again, as both the monster and Kid Frankenstein are kind of a random addition to the story, and they focus on their origins without us having any time to get to know them, esp the kid, his sudden acceptance of ‘who he really is’,  just falls flat.

Granted, this is good background for later, but for now it was basically filler for a lot of fun images and one-liners.

Forget your pathetic teenage hormones for one second!
Focus on killing Zombie Clowns!

I heart you Warbird. Never Change.

The one really good saving point is Idie, just what is going on with that girl? Quire is not stupid, he sees something is up. Question is, what is he gonna do about it?

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Review: X-Men Legacy #4

Posted in Reviews, tagged , , on January 10, 2013| Leave a Comment »

X-Men Legacy #4

X-Men Legacy #4

Review: X-Men Legacy #4

While here we have something a bit more solid in both the story structure and development, I can’t help but think that the writers are suffering from a classic failure of fan fics: don’t drag others down just to build up your character.

It seems to me that the writer is going out of his way to make the X-Men who go after David be the stupidest and most belligerent as possible inside their character… just so David can snark at them, call them out, and be the ‘good guy here’.

What I really want to know though… is why Blindfold? Why does she have a special something-something with his brain patterns, snuck in, shut him down, but then later got ganked?

A lot of this is not making a whole lot of sense… but some of the one-liners are pretty good zingers… so it’s hard to tell where to stand in this title… for now.

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Review: WatX #22

Posted in Reviews, tagged , , on January 8, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Wolverine and the X-Men #22

Wolverine and the X-Men #22

Review: Wolverine and the X-Men #22

This is a little late, to be honest I ran out of time and then forgot to add it. I forgot likely because while this issue was better than #21, it still wasn’t quite up to par with some earlier WatX issues.

It was good to see that at least a couple of the adults were able to work through the mind control and it’s not, in typical kid’s show fashion, left to the kids alone to save the day. Kitty’s reaction to throwing a kid through a window was kinda priceless.

I’m not really happy with the sheer amount of death that seems to be all over this comic, both of adults and kids. Course, that’s an issue I have with a lot of the comics right now so not really going to go into it right now.

The Frankenstein story which came out of nowhere last issue still isn’t all that engaging, especially as we know very little about the Hellfire Club member who apparently is the last descendent of ‘The’ Doctor Frankenstein. Granted, we’re learning about him now but having previously very little contact with him makes this sudden thrust of his ‘origin story’ a bit random and we have nothing to reconcile it with.

It is fun to see the characters act OTT but still something in character, some good one liners and all that, but so far this all just fills like, well, filler.

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Review: All-New X-Men #3 & #4

Posted in Reviews, tagged , , on December 27, 2012| Leave a Comment »

All-New X-Men #4

All-New X-Men #4

Review: All-New X-Men #3 & #4

It occurred to me that I didn’t post a review of issue 3 a few weeks back, my bad, cause it was pretty good.

Really, the All-New series so easily could have fallen into the pitfalls of camp and cheese but so far it’s doing its best to keep the whole thing organic. Characters have real motivations and legitimate responses to events.

Scott’s reaction to seeing his younger self was pretty spot on. There was no high and holy speech or dramatizing. First he doesn’t believe what he’s seeing, tries to figure out who could do it, who could punish him with reminding him of what he was and what he has become. And they also kept young Scott’s thoughts relatively out of it so not to overload things.

Emma’s reaction was probably the best. Jean Grey, having her around again is all she needed… note the heavy sarcasm there.

Bobby is still pretty funny, always screaming when he sees himself. Angel hasn’t really had a chance to do much, I’m hoping we get his, erm, mentally challenged…? older self in to see what the boy thinks.

Next issue looks to be about Jean which is fair, the girl hasn’t been in anything in a long time, she’s dead after all. I wonder how she’s going to take the whole “I died HOW MANY TIMES?” news. There needs to be at least one blank stare in there somewheres…

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