Grimm Fairy Tales: Realm War #7-9 (Comics Review)

The first half of Realm War: Age of Darkness was packed with a hell of a lot of action. Writer Joe Brusha devoted a lot of time to fleshing out the post-Grimm Fairy Tales #100 world, one in which the bad guys won and took over the realms, even as the heroes rose up again to fight them, to reclaim their individual worlds. And things have certainly been downhill for them for most of the way. It was a rather classical approach, and it worked out well for me, for Brusha presented lots of fun mysteries and relationships, even as artists Sami Kivela and Maxflan Araujo went to town on the illustrations and all the cool action sequences and what have you.

But, Realm War #7 marks a turning point in that we move into the second half of this epic crossover, and the good guys are now starting to make some real headway. Despite all the adversity, all the losses and the betrayals, it looks like the good guys finally have a real chance of stopping the Dark Queen (retrospectively we know already that they win, courtesy of the other titles from the publisher, namely Grimm Fairy Tales itself). Issues 7 through 9 are full of more epic action, more character moments, etc, and it is the ninth issue that finally gets the ball really rolling, as the heroes strike out for a major blow against the villains, a definitive one in fact.

Comics Picks For 25.02.2015

There haven’t been any “Comics Picks of the Week” articles for a while, and the major reason for that is because I’ve just been too caught up with other stuff and I just can’t be… well bothered. It just takes too much out of my time to keep these titles going, especially when Wednesdays also see me trying to get through two TV shows and doing reviews for them. Though, that situation has kind of abated now.

Anyway, this week’s surprise hits were Batman: Arkham Knight #2 and Gotham Central Book 1 from DC. It was a relatively small week for me since I didn’t read all that many new titles and most of those were middling. Ongoing greats were Django/Zorro #4, John Carter: Warlord of Mars #4, Fantastic Four #643 , Inhuman #12, Aquaman #39 , Catwoman #39 , and He-Man: The Eternity War #3 among others .

Anyway, here’s another edition of “Comics Picks For…”. Full reading list, as always, is available here and all my comics reviews are available here.

Grimm Fairy Tales #107 (Comics Review)

Last month’s installment of Grimm Fairy Tales proved to be a rather interesting one in that it developed some of the concepts introduced back in Grimm Fairy Tales #102, and it was also a stand-alone, so it helped center readers with respect to the meta-story of the series. However, while the issue was interesting, it didn’t wow me as much as the other issues prior to it, and I was hoping that it would just be a blip on the radar-like, because generally in recent months the title has been really good, and I wanted it to stay like that.

Fortunately, this past week’s Grimm Fairy Tales #107 gets things back on track in a great way. It is the start of a new arc on the series, focusing on a former Realm Knight who kinda sorta went missing sometime back, and the issue also brings back Agent Jessica Ciampo, one of my favourite characters from the Age of Darkness crossover, so it was generally all good. I certainly enjoyed this issue much more than I did the last, possibly because it feels like a fresh start, and I’m all for something like that.

Comics Picks For 21.01.2015

Another week of a “Magic 40”, though no graphic novels.

This week’s surprise hits were Ivar, Timewalker #1 from Valiant, Mortal Kombat X #4 from DC, and Twilight Zone: Shadow And Substance #1 from Dynamite. The disappointments of the week were Spider-Woman #3 from Dynamite and Spider-Verse #2 and The Amazing Spider-Man #13 from Marvel and Vampirella: Feary Tales #4 from Dynamite. Ongoing greats were Wonder Woman ’77 #3 , The Flash: Season Zero #11 and Supergirl #38 from DC, Black Widow #14 and Bucky Barnes: The Winter Soldier #4 from Marvel, and, Grimm Fairy Tales: Realm War #6 from Zenescope among others.

Anyway, here’s another edition of “Comics Picks For…”. Full reading list, as always, is available here and all my comics reviews are available here.

Fast-Shot Comics Reviews 28.01.2015

Last Fast-Shot Comics Review for comics released in January 2015!

The picks for this week are: Bitch Planet #2, Jungle Book: Fall of The Wild #2, Robyn Hood #6, Wolverines #1-4, Gotham By Midnight #1-3 and Unity #13-14.

Grimm Fairy Tales: Realm War #6 (Comics Review)

With all the meta-level shenanigans that have been going on in Zenescope’s Realm War: Age of Darkness series of late, it is easy sometimes to lose sight of the small details. But they are always there, and each issue focuses on something different from the rest. This then ends up giving space to some of these mysteries to develop in each issue, and that’s what I love about this ensemble-cast series, that it focuses on both the meta and the more immediate stories so you get a healthy balance of both.

In Realm War: Age of Darkness #6 from this past week, we finally learn one of the biggest secrets of the Grimm Universe, and thus are able to finally figure out why Robyn has been such an important character since her birth, and why Lucinda the Dark Queen courted her so damn much, eventually turning over the Realm Knight to the cause of the evil and mighty Dark Horde. But that’s not everything here since we also get to see how Sela and the others are holding up in the face of constant attacks by the Dark Horde and how it is breaking them all on an emotional level.

Comics Picks For 14.01.2015

Another week going by without a “Magic 40”, but still managed to read a fair number, albeit absent any graphic novels.

This week’s surprise hits were Ares & Aphrodite #2 from Oni Press, Lady Killer #1 from Dark Horse, Wolverines #2 from Marvel and Lazarus #14 from Image. The disappointments of the week were Battlestar Galactica: The Death of Apollo #2 from Dynamite and Spider-Verse #2 from Marvel. Ongoing greats were Vampirella #100 from Dynamite, Grayson #6 from DC, S.H.I.E.L.D. #2 from Marvel and Hexed #6 from Boom Studios among others.

Anyway, here’s another edition of “Comics Picks For…”. Full reading list, as always, is available here and all my comics reviews are available here.

Comics Picks For 07.01.2015

No “Magic 40” in the first week of the new year, but the second week definitely sees me hit that landmark number, and with graphic novels mixed in to boot!

This week’s surprise hits were Angry Birds/Transformers #2 from IDW Publishing, Ares & Aphrodite #1 from Oni Press, Operation: S.I.N. #1 and Wolverines #1 from Marvel. The disappointments of the week were Angela: Asgard’s Assassin #2 and Ant-Man #1 from Marvel and Future’s End #36 from DC. Ongoing greats like Swamp Thing #38 and Detective Comics #38 from DC, Bucky Barnes: The Winter Soldier #3 from Marvel, and John Carter: Warlord of Mars #3 from Dynamite to name a few were just as I expected them to be: superb.

As mentioned above, the graphic novels for the week were Legends of Red Sonja Volume 1 from Dynamite and Quest: Age of Darkness Volume 1 from Zenescope. The former was a fun book where Gail Simone brought together several different female prose writers, paired them with different artists, and wrote a grand, sweeping Red Sonja story. The latter was part of the publisher’s Age of Darkness event and was more a prequel story.

Anyway, here’s another edition of “Comics Picks For…”. Full reading list, as always, is available here and all my comics reviews are available here.

Grimm Fairy Tales #106 (Comics Review)

The first arc on the softly-rebooted Grimm Fairy Tales ended last month, and it was a fairly good end to a fairly strong arc. We got to meet with the next generation of probable Realm Knights and saw how they all interacted with each other and how they were all influences by their own past events, their histories and their own experiences. It created what I think of as a really volatile mix since they are all coming off the Realmsopcalypse that was Age of Darkness, and while things are back to normal, there are still some things needing a work-out.

In this week’s Grimm Fairy Tales #106, we are witness to the start of a new arc, and it doesn’t go off without its own troubles. The students begin combat training under Shang, and their differences quickly rise to the fore, especially between Ali and Wulf, all of it leading to some rather dark things in the second half of the issue. On the other hand, we have Sela seeking answers as to whether her new charges just might be too powerful for their own good, or if there’s a way that their immense powers can be curtailed. I didn’t enjoy this issue as much as I have the other ones, especially from an art perspective, but it was a decent issue still.

Best of 2014: New Comics Series

Last year I did a small roundup over at The Founding Fields with fellow reviewer Bane of Kings which contained a list of the best new comics to have come out in 2013. It was a rather small list with only 10 entries each from the two of us, reflecting our reading for the year and the consequent small pool to pick from. But in 2014, I greatly expanded my weekly reading, and so for the round-up of the best new comics to have come out in 2014, whether as mini-series or ongoings, I have decided to go much bigger.

There were a ton of new comics to come out last year and many of them started off well enough but unfortunately well by wayside since subsequent issues were nowhere near as good. That however, is a call to make on any new comic and you have to have a wait-and-see attitude for the most part. For this embiggened round-up, I have some mini-series here and some ongoing titles. Some have had multiple issues come out in 2014, while some have had less than three.

Irrespective of that, these are all the most promising new series of 2014, and I think that they are all well worth the read in 2015.

Let’s see what makes the cut and which comes close then!

Comics Picks For 31.12.2014

The first Comics Picks of the new year, and while I of course wished for a Magic 40 to kick off 2015, I’m happy with the fact that I didn’t go overboard much and read only a few measly 10 comics, two of which were graphic novels.

For the first week of 2015, the top hits were SHIELD #1 from Marvel, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes from Boom Studios, Legends of Red Sonja Volume 1 from Dynamite, and Star Trek/Planet of the Apes from IDW/Boom Studios. The disappointing reads of the week were both from Zenescope unfortunate, Dark Shaman #3 and Quest: Age of Darkness Volume 1. The others… they were decent, nothing major.

As mentioned above, the graphic novels for the week were Legends of Red Sonja Volume 1 from Dynamite and Quest: Age of Darkness Volume 1 from Zenescope. The former was a fun book where Gail Simone brought together several different female prose writers, paired them with different artists, and wrote a grand, sweeping Red Sonja story. The latter was part of the publisher’s Age of Darkness event and was more a prequel story.

Anyway, here’s another edition of “Comics Picks For…”. Full reading list, as always, is available here and all my comics reviews are available here.

Best of 2014 Part 2b: Monthly Comics

A few days ago I did my best of 2014 list for the comics I read in the second half of 2014. And back in July of 2014, I did the first “best comics of 2014” post. The reason I mention that is because of the changes I’ve made for this list. While previously I used to do it so that I put up my top 6 comics, in July’14 I did a top 12 on account of the increased number of comics I was reading at the time. And that same holds true for this list as well since I’ve gone up on the number yet again, and this list has the top 20 and then 20 honourable mentions.

More comics, yay!

So, with the books of the second half of 2014 already having been covered, I now delve into my favourite monthly comics of the same period. The next post will be a list of the top graphic novels I read in all of 2014.

Let’s see what makes the cut and which comes close then!