Comic Book Review: Reborn (2016) #1

Officials site is https://imagecomics.com/comics/releases/reborn-1

Mark Millar teams up with Greg Capullo for his next new series. My opinion on Mark Millar books are hit or miss. He has a lot of interesting concepts, but the dialogue he writes is generally the same. I feel like there’s a lack of restraint when it comes to a Millar story. No subtlety and some big twist that will come along and just smack you in the face. In other words, the execution of his stories generally cause me to lose interest after the first issue. This remains true with Reborn.

In this first issue, we learn that those who die in our world are “Reborn” into another, fantastical world where people and mythical creatures are at war. Our protagonist, a woman who dies is reborn into this new world and finds out that the people of this world think she is some kind of messiah and will save them all.

The story is really short and not much happens other than that. The explanation of this world and its mysteries will obviously be revealed in subsequent issues. As with other Millar stories, it’s an interesting concept… but I just don’t really care for it and don’t really want to read subsequent issues.

If I do stay with this book, it will be largely due to Capullo’s art. It’s great to see his style again, even though I feel that his work on Batman was far superior in terms of telling a story.

Score: 5.4/10 Probably not going to read any more issues, even if Capullo is drawing it.

Comic Book Review: All-Star Batman (2016) #3

http://www.dccomics.com/comics/all-star-batman-2016/all-star-batman-3

Ah, my favorite book on the shelves right now. Snyder tells the third part of our story and the fun indeed continues.

Snyder showcases a whole littany of villains from the DC universe these last few issues. The KGBeast makes his appearance and seems to be substantially more powerful and respected over his last incarnation in the old DC universe. It was also fun to the Royal Flush gang from the Batman Beyond cartoon.

One of the best parts of Snyder’s writing for Batman is that he is not afraid to delve into and explore the Batman canon. We get to see another piece of the Batman puzzle in Harold Allnut, another engineer who works for Batman. I thought Lucius Fox had replaced all Batman but it’s nice to see a familiar face from Batman’s history.

We also learn more about his relationship with Two-Face. I thought it was cleverly done in that it does not change all the prior Two-Face stories in past Batman books, but makes some changes to add color and further develop the story.

Regardless, this is book is a step away from Snyder’s work in the main Batman book. It’s not serious and the stakes don’t feel quite as heavy. Instead, the reader gets a fun, high octane joy ride through the Batman universe and a showcase of DC’s villains.

After the main story, we continue with Duke’s story. It’s a surprisingly interesting side story which adds color to what could be a potentially awesome addition to the Batman universe.

As for Romita’s art, it’s good, but not great. Quite frankly, part of the reason why this book is fun is because you simply cannot take Romita’s style seriously. Caputo style danced the line between beautiful and menacing. There was always this feeling of something being hidden in Caputo’s images. Romita’s is mainly concerned with action. Accordingly, even if Snyder’s intent was for a serious, dramatic story, Romita’s art guarantees this will be, at best, a fun ride. It’s interesting because even seeing acid being poured into Batman’s eyes isn’t that terrible. You just get the feeling that people are going to get beat up next book regardless of whether Batman has his sight or not. It’s just the character of Romita’s art.

Score: 6.5/10 

Comic Book Review: Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps (2016) #6

Official site is http://www.dccomics.com/comics/hal-jordan-and-the-green-lantern-corps-2016/hal-jordan-and-the-green-lantern-corps-6

In this issue, Hal continues his rampage. After Hal defeats a bunch of yellow lanterns, Sinestro shows up for a big fight.

There really isn’t a lot of story here. It’s just a showcase of the incredible art by Sciver and Sandoval. Their work meshes together so well it’s somewhat hard to tell where Sciver’s work ends and Sandoval’s work begins. It’s a great issue showcasing bombast science fiction action scenes. Great stuff. However, if you’re looking for a more plot driven, substantive book, this isn’t it.

I’m also just riding that high of seeing Hal Jordan and all these old Green Lantern characters in play again. That in itself is worth purchasing the book in my opinion.

Score: 6/10 Fun book.

Comic Book Review: Doctor Strange (2015) #12

Official site is http://marvel.com/comics/issue/55426/doctor_strange_2015_12

While All-Star Batman is my current number one comic book being released right now, Doctor Strange is a close second. I had my doubts since this movie obviously is meant to hype up the Doctor Strange movie coming out and vice versa. However, Bachalo’s art elevates this story far above the other Marvel books being released right now.

The premise for the last few stories is this: a group from another dimension that worships science has been traveling across the dimensions to destroy all magic and they’ve now reached our dimension and only Doctor Strange can stop them. Doctor Strange subsequently defeats them but a large part of the world’s magic is destroyed. Now  he must make his way in this new world with a substantial portion of the world’s magic gone and his powers gone.

This isn’t a sad or desperate story. This is a fun story and a introduction to the character. It was unfortunate to see no acknowledgement from what happened in Secret Wars, but it’s nice to see a fun Doctor Strange story. The only downside is the similarities between how this hero acts and how Tony Stark acts. I hope in Marvel’s efforts to make Doctor Strange mainstream, they don’t turn every other hero into a variation of Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark. It was also fun to see Doctor Strange interact with the rest of the magical community in the Marvel Universe.

Without a doubt, the best part of this book is the art. Bachalo’s art is, as always, fluid, exciting and fun. Not only are the actions fast and frenetic, Bachalo manages to adds energy and dynamism into scenes where people are just walking and talking.

Score: 7.8/10

Comic Book Review: Invincible Iron Man (2015) #14

Official site is: http://marvel.com/comics/issue/55535/invincible_iron_man_2015_14

Normally I hate when comic books try to into the big universe spanning annual miniseries, but this issue did it right. If you’re unaware, Marvel’s annual big comic book event, Civil War II, is happening right now and a large number of their existing books are putting out issues that relate to it.

In this issue, Iron Man feels the pressure of what is going on in Civil Wars II and decides that he needs to go to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting because he feels the urge to drink again. While there he meets Captain Marvel, whom I did not know also has a drinking problem. The two step outside and exchange a heart to heart.

It’s stories like these that I enjoy the most in superhero or science fiction stories. Some real character development. The conversation between these two reveal a number of things from their history and the current state of their relationship.

This issue also continues to show the weakness of the whole conflict. The crux of the conflict in Civil War II is between Captain Marvel and Iron Man and they even spend many issues of Civil War II trying to build to this conflict. It’s just hard to believe that these two heroes would turn on each other so quickly and be willing to kill and die in order to fight for such a flimsy ideal. This whole thing could be easily resolved if they just worked together, which would likely be what would happen if Marvel didn’t need to put out another summer comic book event every year. It’s just too manufactured a story which deals with ideas that have been gone over ad nauseum in other science fiction stories (Minority Report comes to mind).

Score: 6/10

Comic Book Review: Batman (2016) #8 and Nightwing (2016) #6

Official sites: http://www.dccomics.com/comics/batman-2016/batman-8 and http://www.dccomics.com/comics/nightwing-2016/nightwing-6

While any Batman series not drawn by Capullo or written by Snyder disappoints me somewhat, I still enjoy and keep up with the Batman storyline. I’ve written a lot in past posts that what I loved about Snyder’s run on Batman was his ability to get at the heart of who Batman is and what he represents. With this relaunch of the series, we step back from Batman and explore other characters in the Batman universe. The Batman series, instead of a story centering on one character, has now become a team superhero book.

If you’ve been following along the story, Tim Drake has just seemingly died (though the reader knows that’s not the case). Batman’s team now consists of Batwoman, Spoiler, Clayface, Cassandra Cain, Gotham Girl, Duke, and Nightwing. It’s always nice to discover what twists has been added to characters like Cassandra Cain and Spoiler after the last DC universe reboot, but I feel like they weren’t done all that well.

The character of Gotham Girl is an interesting inclusion. In the last few Batman books, Gotham Girl and Gotham (yeah it’s just Gotham) were introduced by writer Tom King as new heroes in Gotham city. Inspired by Batman, the two started fighting crime and have Superman-esque powers. Actually, they seem to be even stronger than Superman. Regardless, Gotham is dead and Gotham Girl turned into a basket case which really took a bland character and made more of something you’d see in Gotham City. With that said, I do not like the introduction of characters with powers levels similar to Superman. Batman has always been a street level story in my opinion and adding these fantastical elements goes against that tone. The monster men at least have a kind of horror aspect to them which allows them to mesh better into the Batman universe.

As for the general plot, the monster men are invading the city and Batman and his crew must figure  out how to stop them. The monsters are Godzilla-kaiju-esque in their size and appearance. The story isn’t all that great, but it’s passable. No enormous plot twists or reveals or anything like that. The most meaningful thing that’s happened was Tim Drake’s death, but he didn’t even really die and it somehow tied into an overall DC Universe story line, which always yanks me out of the story and breaks the fourth wall for me.

The art is the one great part of these two books. Riley Rossmo draws Batman and Roge Antonio draws Nightwing. They both do a great job capturing the frenetic pace of the action while not being hyper realistic. I really like the cartoon-y nature of their work.

Score: 5.7/10 Not bad, but not great. Worth buying and reading if your desperate for some Batman. If your not desperate, I would just stick with Snyder’s All-Star Batman. Now there’s a quality Batman story.

Comic Book Review: Death of X (2016) #1

Official site is http://marvel.com/comics/issue/60429/death_of_x_2016_1

There is a substantial amount of comic book history needed before you can really get into this book. In 2015, Marvel had it’s big, yearly comic book event, Secret Wars, which rebooted the Marvel universe. In that series, Cyclops was killed, but since the Marvel Universe was rebooted, he should’ve come back to life. In the various X-Men books following Secret Wars, Cyclops has been absent and it’s been implied that something bad happened. Further, the X-Men and Inhumans seems to be enemies regarding what happened. Well, with the first issue of Death of X we are finally getting a chance to find out what truly happened.

The story takes place eight months ago. Black Bolt, leader of the Inhumans, has just released the Terrigen Mists upon the world in the hopes of finding more Inhumans and a massive cloud of the Mist travels around the world giving people super powers. The cloud makes its way to Muir Island, and island of mutants and Cyclops and his X-Men go to investigate. What they find is that the Terrigen Mists are poisonous to mutants and killed every mutant on the island. In fact, Cyclops appears ill and collapses after inhaling some of the gas. The final panel shows Cyclops declaring war on the Inhumans for this transgression.

Now, it isn’t entirely clear what brought about this abrupt change in Cyclops’ behavior, but my guess is that Cyclops died off panel after inhaling some Mist and Emma Frost used her psychic powers to convince everyone Cyclops is still alive and to declare war on the Inhumans. Emma Frost loves Cyclops very much and is likely infuriated from his off panel death. This is just my hypothesis though.

This is not a fantastic story, but a necessary one to bridge the gap between Secret Wars and the X-Men and Inhumans books. I more looking forward to see if there was any fallout from events in the Secret Wars, but it appears anything concerning Cyclops in the Secret Wars was erased and we just continue as if it never happened. Oh and if you didn’t read Secret Wars, Cyclops became the Phoenix and had his neck snapped in the book. I haven’t seen that remotely addressed in any of the current Marvel books I’ve read.

The art is fine.

Score: 5/10 Not great. You can skip this if you want. Only worth a purchase if you desperately need to know what happened to Cyclops and the X-Men.

Comic Book Review: Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps (2016) #5

Official site: http://www.dccomics.com/comics/hal-jordan-and-the-green-lantern-corps-2016/hal-jordan-and-the-green-lantern-corps-5

Oh it’s so great to see Ethan Sciver draw Green Lantern. I still remember his art from Green Lantern: Rebirth, when they brought Hal Jordan back. Great stuff. And to see him draw Hal Jordan again, feels like home.

I have not read every Green Lantern story in the last few years, but apparantly Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps have disappeared for a while. In that time, the Sinestro Corps have taken over as the sole intergalactic police force in place of the missing Green Lantern Corps. At least until now. The Green Lantern Corps have returned, if not in a weakened form. Hal Jordan has returned even though he seems to be turning into pure willpower.  And Guy Gardner… is still Guy Gardner, the ultimate bad ass of the Green Lantern Corps. He is in the midst of being tortured and still, has plenty of energy to insult and crap on his torturer mid-torture. Too cool.

I’ll confess, this was just a nostalgic romp for me. The art, the familiar characters, and reminiscent plot of fighting against Sinestro, it was just a great ride back to old stories for me. To me, this story arc feels like another rebirth of the Green Lantern comic book series. It’s a return to form, and that makes me happy.

Score: 6/10

Comic Book Review: Captain America: Steve Rogers (2016) #5

Official site: http://marvel.com/comics/issue/57870/captain_america_steve_rogers_2016_5

As expected, all of Marvel’s comic series’ are now abandoning their independent plot lines and tying in to the Civil War II mini-series event. However, considering the big twist that occurred in Civil War II #5, I was very much anticipating this issue and boy, were there some reveals.

If you haven’t been keeping up with Civil War II or Captain America: Steve Rogers let me give you a quick and dirty summary. Captain America has had his entire history rewritten by a newly sentient cosmic cube, an object that had the power to alter reality. Instead of being a patriot, he is now and has always been a secret Hydra Agent who has infiltrated the superhero community. Around the time his past was rewritten, an inhuman named Ulysses has awoken his powers and has the ability to see disasters before they happen. Now the superhero community is at arms against one another as they try and decide whether it’s okay to use this power to stop crimes and arrest people before the crimes occur.

When Captain America first learns of this inhuman, he puts a hold on all current Hydra operations. He is afraid that Ulysses will not only reveal Hydra, but his own status as a secret Hydra agent. We learn that the person who sets up Bruce Banner to turn into the Hulk again and gets Bruce killed was none other than Captain America. We see that Captain America also tries to kill Ulysses, only to be preempted by Iron Man who we know tries to kidnap Ulysses in the Civil War II #2.

Lastly and most interestingly, we see him face the vision we saw at the end of Civil War II #5: Spider-Man (the Miles Morales one) will end up impaling and killing Captain America. At least that’s what the vision showed. What’s great about this scene is that no one knows Captain America is evil now so they assume that Miles Morales is in the wrong and they arrest Miles. Captain America on the other hand, must figure out a way to prevent this future from occurring. As we know from the Civil War II comics, these vision can and are likely meant to alter the future. The only question now is just what the heck is Cap’ going to do to prevent this future. Will he try killing Ulysses again? Will he try killing Miles Morales? Or will he continue with his plans and end up getting impaled through his chest? We can only speculate.

Score: 7/10

Comic Book Review: Mighty Thor (2015) #11

Official site: http://marvel.com/comics/issue/55798/mighty_thor_2015_11

So I haven’t been reading this series religiously, but I do come by and take a peak periodically. In the last issue I read, Jane Foster (Thor’s long time love interest) has been chosen by Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir, and Jane has become Thor. Jane also has life threatening cancer and turning into Thor cancel any effects chemotherapy might have in saving her life. So we get a dying, female Thor, and the series is refreshing and new in a way it has never been.

More recently, Thor has picked a fight with the Roxxon Corporation and Roxxon has allied with a number of evil people, including Malekith, a villain from past Thor stories. I’m not really sure what happened in between the issues I’ve read, but it seems S.H.I.E.L.D. has been investigating the new Thor’s secret identity and that has come to a head in this issue.

Thor needs to fight Roxxon and at the same time maintain her secret identity and she does in an interesting fashion.

 

SPOILERS AHEAD

So a copy of the sickly Jane Foster appears next to Jane Foster-Thor and the reader is now supremely confused. Does Thor has the ability to create a copy of herself? An illusions? Or is Jane an alternate personality of Thor in the same way and Donald Blake was to the old Thor? Well, it turns out that the copy of Jane foster was none other than Mjolnir itself. Apparently, the hammer has been sentient this whole time and turned into Jane Foster in order to maintain her secret identity. The Jane Foster copy turns back into the hammer and we are all left wondering what the hell just happened? The issue ends with Jane Foster being zapped away apparently by the hammer. The preview suggests that the true origins of the hammer will be explained next issue. Oh, and Thor defeats Roxxon and saves the day.

END SPOILERS

 

Dauterman’s art is great as always and perfect for the fantastical story of Thor. The flow of the panels keeps up with the chaotic flow of the narrative and helps keep the tone of the story.

Score: 6.4/10 Interesting issue. Telling the story of Thor from a sickly Jane Foster’s perspective has been an interesting twist on the old mythos. Next issue, we likely get to learn about another piece of previously undisclosed Thor history.