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.

SHIELD #2 (Comics Review)

The last week of comics of 2014, that is, the week of 31.12.2014, saw the release of SHIELD #1, a new comics series from Marvel that is presumably set in its own continuity and also contains characters from Agents of SHIELD, Marvel’s first live-action show that is currently in its second season. To see characters like Agents Simmons and Fitz, or Agent Melinda “The Cavalry” May among others is a great feeling, and the first issue two weeks back was a lot of fun indeed, with its focus on Phil Coulson and his particular strengths as a SHIELD agent.

In last week’s SHIELD #2, we got to see some different things than in the first issue, particularly since this issue starred Marvel’s biggest hit character of 2014, Kamala Khan aka Miss Marvel. And the best thing was that we got to see Kamala interact with Jemma Simmons and even bond. That’s pretty fantastic. The comics version of Jemma is of course quite different from her live-action counterpart, but that has little bearing on the matter here since she is so much more immediately awesome here. The art was different this time as the art team is different, but it was still pretty fun, and the final one-page backup with Fitz and May was hilarious.

Comics Picks For 10.12.2014

Almost a month after the last time, I finally had a Magic 40 week! And not just any plan Magic 40 week, but one where I managed to read three graphic novels as well!

For this week, the surprise hits were Fables: The Wolf Among Us #1 from Vertigo Comics, Death of Wolverine: Logan Legacy #6 and Spider-Man & The X-Men #1 from Marvel Comics, Justice League #32-36 from DC Comics and The Valiant #1 from Valiant Comics. The comic (yes, the only one!) that proved to be rather disappointing, even unexpectedly so, was New Suicide Squad #5 from DC. Apart from that, a good run continued on several other titles like Hexed, John Carter: Warlord of Mars, Batman: Eternal, Birthright, Prometheus: Fire and Stone and others.

The three graphic novels for this week were: Grimm Fairy Tales: Code Red Volume 1, which is set during the recent Age of Darkness crossover event from Zenescope Entertainment, Mighty Avengers Volume 2 from Marvel, which is an effort by me to catch up on this mostly-good title, and Supergirl Volume 1, which is an older Supergirl title, pre-New 52.

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 12.11.2014

Getting on a roll again, this week I managed to repeat the “Magic 40” with 2 graphic novels and 38 singles, with many of the latter being absolutely new series, so that was a lot of fun for the most part.

My top picks for the surprise hits of the week would be Archer & Armstrong: One Percent #1  from Valiant Comics, Deep State #1 from Boom Studios, Django/Zorro #1 from Dynamite Entertainment and Vertigo Comics, and The Kitchen #1 from Vertigo Comics also. The most disappointing comics of this week were  Captain America and the Mighty Avengers #1 and Death of Wolverine: Logan Legacy #4 both from Marvel Comics, New 52 – Batman #36 from DC Comics and Grimm Fairy Tales: Cfinderella #1 from Zenescope Entertainment. Other than that, the regularly great titles like Hexed, Fables, New Suicide Squad, Red Sonja and Unity all proved to be immensely fun.

The graphic novels for this week were King Conan: The Hour of The Dragon by Timothy Truman, Tomás Giorello and Jose Villarrubia, and Fables Volume 5 by Bill Willingham, Tony Akins, Jimmy Palmiotti, Daniel Vozzo, Todd Klein, James Jean, Mark Buckingham, Steve Leialoha.

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.

Spider-Verse #1 (Comics Review)

Marvel’s Spider-Verse kicked off in full-swing last week with The Amazing Spider-Man #9 which brought Peter Parker from Earth -616 firmly into the middle of the event. Many of the most powerful of Spider-totems have already allied together against the all-consuming rampages of the Inheritors and we’ve also seen what the larger plan in effect is. This is certainly an event set to touch across all corners of the Marvel omniverse and the sheer volume of stories itself is pretty damn amazing, with Spider-totems from lots of different Earths being featured.

In this week’s Spider-Verse #1, we see some more Spider-Totems in the vein of Spider-Verse Team-Up and it is quite a fun look as well. Combining several different art styles and several different Spider-totems, this issue is mostly just an “extra”. Nothing important really happens in here unless we count this one story featuring the Master-Weaver himself, which is pretty striking in its implications. Though I must say that my favourite story is the steampunk one featuring May Reilly. Brilliant that one. With the mix of stories here, some of them work really well and some don’t and you run the gamut from serious intense stories to cartoony ones.

The Amazing Spider-Man #8-9 (Comics Review)

Dan Slott, Christos Gage and many other writers have been laying down the foundation of Marvel’s current event, Spider-Verse for the last several weeks now and it is pretty much time for readers to get the dividends on their investments. In the pages of both Edge of Spider-Verse and The Amazing Spider-Man, we’ve seen how various Spider-themed heroes have been murdered and their souls stolen by interdimensional beings and how it is going to affect the main Marvel 616 universe. In recent weeks, we also got to see brand-new superhero Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel join forces with Peter Parker as well and The Amazing Spider-Man has definitely moved into a new phase of its second existnece

In The Amazing Spider-Man #7, we saw Kamala and Peter team-up to take down a supervillain who dressed up in one of Carol Danvers’ old outfits from when she was Ms. Marvel. It was a bit of a silly story in some ways but also executed well enough that I ended up liking it. And then we got to meet Spider-UK from an alternate Earth where he was part of the Captain Britain Corps. Fun stuff. But in issues #8 and #9, we see something altogether different. Kamala and Peter’s team-up comes to a nice soft close, we see the debut of Mayday Parker, and then Dan Slott kicks off Spider-Verse in the ninth issue, out this week. As I said, the title just keeps getting better, and the art is improving along with it, which is pretty awesome

Comics Picks For 22.10.2014

Slight lows on the reading this past week since I didn’t manage to finish either of the graphic novels I started this week, and generally didn’t read as many singles either, but I did manage to get through 35 of them, so that’s something, yeah?

For this week, I’d say that the surprise hits are Dungeons & Dragons: Legends of Baldur’s Gate #1 from IDW Publishing, Catwoman #35 and Secret Origins #6 from DC Comics and Predator: Fire and Stone #1 from Dark Horse Comics. The comics that win the “disappointment of the week award” are Grimm Fairy Tales: Dark Shaman #1 from Zenescope, Arkham Manor #1 and Sensation Comics #11 both from DC Comics. Ongoings like Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 10 #8, Aquaman #35, Tomb Raider #9 and Nancy A. Collins’ prelude Vampirella: Prelude To The Shadows #1 were all first-rate comics this week, and quite satisfactory as well.

The graphic novels I’m in the middle of at the moment are Supergirl Vol.4 by Michael Alan Nelson and Diogenes Neves, and The Flash Vol.2 by Brian Buccellato and Francis Manapul.

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.

The Amazing Spider-Man #7 (Comics Review)

The last five months have seen some big changes happening to one of Marvel’s longest-running titles. Following on from the end of Dan Slott’s game-changing Superior Spider-Man, the flagship Spidey title The Amazing Spider-Man was relaunched with the return of Peter Parker and we’ve seen the hero go through some major stuff of late, whether it is fighting an Elektro and Black Cat team-up or finding out that someone else got bit by the same spider as he did, and in stepped new female superhero Silk, who is a match for Peter in almost every way, and also a major problem too. It has been a fun five-and-a-half months, and things look to be getting even better with the ongoing Spider-Verse crossover.

The latest issue of The Amazing Spider-Man brings in one of Marvel’s biggest successes of the year, Ms. Marvel Kamala Khan, as a guest star and also deals with what has been happening in various realities around the omniverse with the villain Morlun and others killing various Spidey-heroes left and right. Both stories are great fun, as they should be since writers Dan Slott and Christos Gage have worked on them, and the Spider-Verse story in particular seems to have some interesting callbacks to more classic stories and the same vibe as well. And the artwork with Giuseppe Camuncoli is also great, just as I expected it to be.

Comics Picks For 10.09.2014

With everything going on right now, I had doubts whether I’d be able to get through many comics this week but it seems that this was indeed the week where I surprised myself in a big way. Not only did I catch up on quite a few new titles, but I also managed to read two graphic novels this week, one of them at almost 300 pages no less!

The surprise hits of this week were Doctor Who: Eleventh Doctor #2 from Titan Comics, Judge Dredd: Anderson, Psi-Division #2 from IDW Publishing and Inhuman #5 from Marvel Comics. This week’s surprise flops were Caliban #6 from Avatar Press, Grim Tales of Terror #3 from Zenescope, and Superman Unchained #8 from DC Comics. Of the others, they were mostly great, and I loved that both G.I. Joe Volume 1 and Witchblade Volume 3 are among my absolute favourite graphic novel reads of the year!

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 13.08.2014

This past week was a bit of a “getting back on track” week, though I didn’t do even half as many reviews as I wanted to. Mostly because of traveling and what not, but the vacation is most assuredly over and so things should indeed be getting back to normal. And what better way to get back than read 30 comics in a week? Or rather, 25 comics in 3 days?

The surprise hits of this week were Godzilla: Cataclysm #1 from IDW Publishing, Hexed #1 from Boom Studios, Grimm Fairy Tales: Realm Knights, and Grimm Fairy Tales: Inferno: Rings of Hell #1 and Grimm Fairy Tales: Oz: Age of Darkness from Zenescope Entertainment and New Suicide Squad #2 from DC Comics. The surprise flop of the week would be Hulk #5 from Marvel where Gerry Duggan is now the writer and took the title in a really strange direction, and Batman #34 where the title was even more disappointing than it has been in a while, more so than the usual of late! Once again, no graphic novels, mostly because I didn’t read most of these comics until like Sunday night, so there just wasn’t enough time for me.

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 30.07.2014

In an effort to catch up, this is my second “Comics Picks For…” post today, and largely because I just want to keep track of my reading really. It is a real effort otherwise as my reading list is seriously outdated. Plus, I like to promote good properly and this is a great vehicle for that other than reviews. In this week, I didn’t really download any new comics so the list of comics read and the top picks are just what I read in that week, instead of including the new week’s releases as well.

The surprise hits of this week were Armor Hunters: Bloodshot #1 from Valiant Comics, The Wicked + The Divine #2 from Image COmics and Cartoon Network: Super Secret Crisis War: Johnny Bravo #1 from IDW Publishing. No surprise flops this week, just comics that didn’t work for me, like Star Wars: Darth Maul: Son of Dathomir #3. The other comics were all decent at the least and I even managed to read a trade collection this week, beginning the start of my big “Witchblade read” from Ron Marz’s epic run on the title.

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 25.06.2014

This past has week has actually been a pretty rough week. I think there were about 3 days in all where I didn’t even put up any posts on the blog. And it took me almost 10 days to read just 2 short books, which is pretty damn rough by my standards. And as of yesterday morning I was well in the position of barely having read even ten comics in the past week. But since yesterday evening I set out to change that and I have managed to read thirty comics in all, which is the first of such a milestone for me. And possibly the last since my wedding is this Saturday and things are gonna kick up a notch from tomorrow afternoon.

The surprise hits of this week were Clive Barker’s Nightbreed #2 from Boom Studios, New Avengers Annual #1 from Marvel Comics and Batman: Eternal #12 from DC Comics. The surprise flops would be Star Wars: Rebel Heist #3 from Dark Horse Comics (again!), Batman #32 from DC Comics and Original Sin: Hulk vs Iron Man #1 from Marvel Comics. Comics that I expected to be great, such as Grimm Fairy Tales Presents Helsing #3 from Zenescope Entertainment, Ms. Marvel #5 from Marvel Comics and both Superman #32 and Justice League Dark #32 from DC, were every bit what I wanted them to be. And I’d like to make a special note of Justice League #31 which proved to be quite interesting after the snoozefest that was Justice League #30 in the month prior. No graphic novels in this week, but that’s fine.

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.