He-Man: The Eternity War #1 (Comics Review)

When DC relaunched the He-Man franchise back in 2012, I rejoiced. I grew up watching the cartoons, specifically the classic and awesome Filmation stuff, and I used to collect the action figures as well, so I have a long association with the franchise. The reboot, so to speak, was certainly quite an interesting thing, and while it got off a little weird, it developed very well as time went on. And then, after the initial six-issue mini-series and the various one-shots, we got the ongoing title He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, which too has been great, much better in fact, with Dan Abnett on the writing duties and Pop Mhan on the art.

Last week’s He-Man: The Eternity War #1 is the first in a new series for the franchise, following on from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe #19 last month which was the final issue of that no-longer ongoing series. Whereas that issue was a one-off by a different creative team, He-Man: The Eternity War #1 gets back on track with Dan Abnett’s meta-story of He-Man and She-Ra’s big fight against Hordak and all that he represents. Recently the leader of the Dark Horde gained access to an item he has long sought, which finally helps him break free of the shadow realm of Despondos and manifest mortally in Eternia, kicking off what I think are the final stages of the Horde’s occupation of Eternia and Hordak’s own downfall.

Catwoman Annual #2 (Comics Review)

Selina Kyle’s world has changed greatly of late. She has given up her identity as Catwoman and embraced that of Selina Kyle-Calabrese, the daughter of one of the most feared and respected of Gotham’s old mob bosses, Rex Calabrese, who now languishes in Blackgate Prison. And along the way, with a new creative team behind her, Selina has picked up a whole new supporting cast to help her (and fight her) transition into the world of mob politics that run rampant through Gotham, and this supporting cast will either make or break her.

Hot on the heels of a recent issue where she had to… deal with a cousin who secretly a snitch for the Gotham PD, we get Catwoman Annual #2 where we get to see the details of one of the more prominent members of Selina’s new supporting cast, Eiko Hasigawa, the daughter and potential heir of the Hasigawa family which is currently being courted by Selina as allies in her bid to secure power in Gotham for the Calabrese family. Genevieve Valentine writes a pretty thrilling issue with a woman who wants to break out of the bounds of her family and make her own life on her own terms, and the art is pretty damn spectacular all the way too.

Tomb Raider #11 (Comics Review)

Dark Horse’s Tomb Raider has undoubtedly been a great series since its debut earlier this year. Under the pen of Gail Simone and the pencils of Nicolás Daniel Selma, the series has thrived as it went on, and recently, with Rhianna Pratchett joining Gail, we’ve seen some more fun stories come to the fore, though Lara has remained as she has always been, even as the world around her has gotten larger and larger. The recent arc, while a fairly good one, wasn’t without its drawbacks and as the series moves into a new arc, time to see whether the kinks are going to get worked out.

Tomb Raider #11 picks up a bit after the previous issue left off, and we see that Lara is back in London and working with her friend Jonah in a theatre production, Pride and Prejudice no less unless I’m mistaken, and things are not working so well for her since she’s a terrible actor. All of this sets in motion some new stuff for the character, which brings in another villain in her orbit, and it remains to be seen whether this new villain is going to be the all-out crazy variety or something else.

Vol’jin: Shadows of the Horde by Michael A. Stackpole (Book Review)

Mists of Pandaria is the World of WarCraft expansion prior to the current one, Warlords of Draenor, and is one that I’ve played for only a very, very small while. About a year and a half back or so I got some free-time from Blizzard and was allowed to play one level up so that I could be enticed into purchasing the full thing. It proved to be a great experience, but I was unable to go back. But I do remember the first zone being quite a good one, and the quests were indeed great too. I always get this immense sense of nostalgia when I play the game on free-time, knowing that I won’t be able to play it properly at level, but then, that’s why I read the novels, to make up for that.

Vol’jin: Shadows of the Horde is set in the opening stages of Mists of Pandaria and it has Garrosh betray the Troll leader, knocking down one of his many opponents in the Horde. From there on, we see how Vol’jin recovers at the Pandaren Shado-Pan Monastery under the supervision of his friend Chen Stormstout and how he defends this new land against its enemies, enemies which include the returned mogu, ancient enemies and slave-masters of the Pandaren, and also a resurgent Zandalari Troll Empire. It is a fairly good story, but there were definitely some parts where I think the story dragged on and on and dropped down into the tedium of connecting to the larger story of World of WarCraft.

Justice League Dark #37 (Comics Review)

The current arc of Justice League Dark has seen the team split up into different sub-teams, and each sub-team has been fighting off a different threat. Zatanna had to face reunion with her father in a rather roundabout way, while Frankenstein, Bennett, Swamp Thing and Asa have confronted a dark, future version of Felix Faust who has gone insane. Which leaves just Deadman, Black Orchid and Madame Xanadu. The previous three issues of the series have seen the team under a lot of pressure and each has done something to move past the challenge before them and set about restoring their unity.

Which is where this new issue of the title comes in, and in a big way too. First Zatanna, then the team of four, have had to face some very obvious but also subtle challenges. For Boston, Black Orchid and Xanadu however, it is pretty much subtle all the way, for they are caught in a web the likes of which they cannot begin to imagine. And at the same time, while we don’t get to see the team of four doing anything this time, we see Zee trying to find a way to bring her entire team together, and by the time the issue ends, something rather disturbing happens, leaving another big gaping mystery for the heroes.

Secret Avengers #11 (Comics Review)

Under Maria Hill’s leadership, the Secret Avengers have been through a lot. Many of them have undergone some sort of a crisis of faith, while others have continued to do their duty to the best of their abilities, though their actions haven’t always borne fruit, and they’ve been faced on all sides by deception and betrayal and schemes and counter-schemes, all of which has really messed up their cohesion as a unit. Ales Kot and Michael Walsh and the others have done some brilliant work on the last few issues, keeping this book one of the most consistent out there, and it looks like things are headed towards something bigger still.

In Secret Avengers #11 we see some really momentous events happening. Hawkeye has finally found Modok and Phil Coulson both, Nick Fury Jr. is still in a coma-state, Maria is at the mercy of Snapper and his band of henchies who have infiltrated Maria’s command Helicarrier, Jessica is still dealing with Ivan, and so on. In all of this, Black Widow’s absence kind of makes me sad, but the good thing is that Ales Kot writes another awesome issue with the characters he has to hand, and the art team outdoes itself yet again, delivering one of the best books to date.

Grayson Annual #1 (Comics Review)

I can say without any reservations that Grayson has been one of the best books that have come out this year. It might not be the most consistent of the bunch , but that hardly matters when you have characters as great Dick Grayson and Helena Bertinelli involved here. And by throwing them together in a spy meta-story where they both work for SPYRAL and are kind of anti-heroes in a way, things get even better, no matter which angle you look at it from, because Tim Seeley, Tom King and Mikel Janin have done absolute wonders so far on the title.

This week’s Grayson Annual #1 sees the origins of New 52 Helena Bertinelli exposed, and the story definitely has to be one of my favourite all-year. Tom and Tim pull a fast one on the reader with this issue, but it is clear that the setup for all of it is there right from the get go, for those who can pick out the little details and what not. Grayson Annual #1 is a story within a story within a story. Kind of like Christopher Nolan’s Inception in some ways, but thankfully not as complicated (and to be honest, I didn’t find Inception to be as complex as most people have called it out to have been).

Inhuman #10 (Comics Review)

The recent Avengers & X-Men: AXIS event has ended up changing things for a lot of heroes and villains alike. Their personalities have essentially been inverted in that the heroes have gotten megalomaniacal and ruthless while the villains have become more aware of the wrongs they’ve done and of their social responsibilities even. Where that comes into play for Inhuman is that Queen Medusa has been affected as well, and she comes back to New Attilan with plans for invading Manhattan and showing the world leaders that the Inhumans are their superiors in every way and are not to be trifled with. Not a good thing for anybody who is going to be involved.

Inhuman #10, which came out in the previous week, saw some major things happening. For one, Medusa took her… grievances to the United Nations in a public show of force and tangled with Spider-Man there. It was a pretty fantastic showdown by all accounts, and made me realize that if Charles Soule gets to writing a Spidey comic, I’d definitely be first in line to get the thing. And then there’s the separate narrative with Reader and Xiaoyi in Italy where the former discovers how he has been played by the people at Ennilux and decides to be the hero for real after all.

Advent Review #25: Judge Dredd: Year One (Book Review)

I’ve been a fan of Judge Dredd for a good while now, which for me translates into about a three-year period. It all started with the horrible 1980s movie with Sylvester Stallone, but then extended into the audio dramas range from Big Finish Audios, and then into the comics from IDW Publishing, and then the new movie with Karl Urban, and so on. Back in 2012 I also read the Dredd Omnibus from Abaddon Books which contained three stories from the perspective of a veteran Judge Dredd and which proved to be a really fun collection with some really strong stories.

And now we have this year’s Judge Dredd: Year One, which collects three more short novels, but the twist being that they focus on a Judge Dredd who is just a year out from the Academy, and is thus still finding his feet in the mess that is life in Mega-City One. Each novel does something different with the character, with the third one, Wear Iron by Al Ewing, which contains quite a bit of misdirection. But still, each novel here is pretty excellent and the stories told are definitely a lot of fun too, such as the first novel City Fathers which shows the Mega-City 5000 race. Great stuff!

Dredd Omnibus (Book Review)

I read Dredd Omnibus back in 2012, just a few short months after Dredd, starring Karl Urban in the titular role, debuted on movie screens around the world, and unfortunately flopped. It was a great movie, truly, but I can see why it lacked a certain mass appeal, not to mention the other decisions taken with it. And then came this omnibus, which collected three novels featuring the titular character and proved to be one hell of a read when put together. The omnibus explored the culture of Mega-City One from many different angles and it also proved to be a great look into Dredd as a character, as he went about the city on patrol and dispensed justice to criminals.

This review is a repost of the original review on The Founding Fields, which can be found here.

12 Days of Best Covers of 2014: Day #12

The twelfth and final book cover I pick for the 2014 edition of “12 Days of Best Covers of…” is for Erin M. Evans’ fourth and most recent Brimstone Angels novel, Fire In The Blood, the cover for which is done by Min Yum. I just posted my review of the novel, so you can head over to the post before this one to check it out, but suffice to say that Fire In The Blood happens to be the best novel in the series so far and that the ending of it gives me a lot of hope for the next novel, which Erin is currently in the process of writing and which will be called Ashes of The Tyrant.

The first of the twelfth and final set of comic covers I pick this year is for Dungeons & Dragons: Legends of Baldur’s Gate #3 by Jim Zub, Max Dunbar, John-Paul Bove and Neil Uyetake with the cover by Sarah Stone. The second is for Hexed #5 by Michael Alan Nelson, Dan Mora, Gabriel Cassata and Ed Dukeshire with the cover by Dan. The third and final cover is for Secret Six #1 by Gail Simone, Ken Lashley, Drew Geraci, Jason Wright and Carlos M. Mangual with the cover by Dale Eaglesham and Jason. Legends of Baldur’s Gate, Hexed and Secret Six are three of the most recent and also best comics of 2014, and that’s aptly reflected by the internal and external content both, and it really gratifies to be able to share these great covers with you all.

So without further ado, hit the break to see all the covers in their full glory! The full list of all these covers is available here.

Advent Review #24: Fire In The Blood by Erin M. Evans (Book Review)

Erin M. Evans’ Brimstone Angels series has proven to be quite a good one as it has progressed. These novels feature the tiefling twins Havilar and Farideh as the main characters, with a great cast of supporting chracters, each of whom is different from the other. And as great as the characters are, the plots themselves have been fairly engaging on a minimal level. I love reading the adventures of these two, with Farideh struggling to learn more about her warlock pact with the cambion devil Lorcan, and Havilar falling in love with a fellow young adventurer Aubrin Crownsilver, and both of them managing all of that while also taking down the bad guys one by one.

In the recently released Fire In The Blood, the fourth novel in the series, we pick up from where we left off at the end of The Adversary last year. The characters have all made their way to the city of Suzail, the capital of the Cormyr empire where Aubrin happens to be a noble, and even one with a half-strong claim to the throne itself. Things have been pretty rough for everyone, and Erin M. Evans revisits the concept of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t”. Each character has to face a great many personal challenges as they are assaulted by tons of things on all sides, and have to figure out what they really want out of their lives and the events around them. Goes without saying really that Fire In The Blood is a pretty damn good novel and is certainly the best in the series so far.