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| Star Trek / The Key Collection Vol 2 : 4 of 5 | |
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6.19.2008
7:12 AM | Link |
 I really enjoying reading this collection of Star Trek comics from the 1970s, even more than the first collection that I got for Christmas! This volume includes the next eight issues of the series, and the writing is really excellent. There are much fewer totally ridiculous lines, and the stories themselves really have the feel of the original TV show, because even though there are goofy plots about space buccaneers and so on, there are many original episodes that were just as silly. Of course, it's fun to spot all of the bizarre visual mistakes - Scotty is still blonde at first (they finally correct this in the later issues), Klingons are often shown as bald, one story has an Enterprise shuttlecraft looking like a ship out of Buck Rogers (and then in another story it's drawn perfectly), and the bridge interior is so inconsistent that it's hilarious. I also love reading anachronisms, such as when an evil scientist claims he has "captured the thought waves of history on punch cards"! The covers of each issue are fantastic, too, since they switched from using publicity stills from the show to amazing color paintings, depicting awesome Star Trek action in a pulp sci-fi style! At the end of the book, there are a couple bonus short features, including Captain Kirk's "psycho-file", which is like a Starfleet account of his career and history. The best part is a recollection of his first meeting with Scotty, who he wins over by knowing how to fix their broken down vehicle! I can't wait to get the next volume of stories - there's nothing like cheesy (yet honestly great) Star Trek comics to keep my fandom alive!
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| Batman Chronicles / Vol 2 : 3 of 5 | |
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5.12.2008
8:22 PM | Link |
 After enjoying the first volume of Batman Chronicles so much, I decided I had to continue with this series, since I'm fascinated by the extremely early adventures of this iconic hero, this time from 1940. The stories in this volume begin to take a different tone, since Robin is usually there to pal around with, and Bruce seems to really enjoy his pipe-smoking bachelor lifestyle, although a few plots include his fiancee Julie (which was news to me!). Besides the Joker, there are a few more villain introductions, although they are definitely different than we know them today. Catwoman wears a full cat-head mask, which looks pretty silly, and Clayface is simply an actor in makeup (for now!). The cool thing about these stories is most of them are actually presented as mysteries - lots of suspects are introduced, and Batman really gets to be a detective and solve the crime. But along with the intellectual side comes some extreme violence, with bad guys being tossed around and even slammed into walls (which the narrator loves to call a "sickening thud" over and over again). Robin often uses a sling as his weapon (always with a David & Goliath reference), the Batplane shows up a few times, but there's still no official Batmobile - I'm looking forward to its introduction. If I didn't have so many other books waiting for me to read, I would already be buying the next volume of this series by now!
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| Star Trek / The Key Collection Vol 1 : 3 of 5 | |
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12.31.2007
7:09 AM | Link |
 This was the first book I got for Christmas this year, and it was so much fun to read that I finished it before I left Oklahoma City! I've been a Star Trek fan since I was super-young, and I used to love reading these old cheesy comic book adventures of the Enterprise crew (I even remember buying a big book of them at a Star Trek convention with Dad!). This volume contains eight stories that were originally published from 1967 (when the show was still on) through 1970, but even though they could easily be compared to the series itself, they still have all kinds of hilarious errors! Scotty has blonde hair, the Transporter is called the Teleportation Chamber, and of course the Enterprise has huge rocket flames coming out of the engines. I love these goofy mistakes, but on top of that, these are really enjoyable plots, too! My favorite in this volume is called Invasion of the City Builders, about a society that's been taken over by machines that continuously build city after city, threatening to cover the entire planet. The artwork definitely has a classic charm (Kirk and Spock are drawn very well), and the dialogue has some truly incredible exclamations that are simply priceless ("Suffering solar showers!" comes to mind). All of the original covers are included as well, which featured great production stills from the actual TV show, and I swear I can remember some of them exactly. Reading stuff like this is so much fun for me, not only because I'm still a Star Trek fan, but also because I love reliving my childhood!
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| Superman/Batman / Supergirl : 3 of 5 | |
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12.11.2007
7:55 AM | Link |
 I like reading a good graphic novel every now and then, but this was an unexpected purchase! Since I kind of forced my pals to buy this as part of a scavenger hunt for my Christmas video (it's a long story...), I bought it from them and finally took the time to read it. This is a collection of several issues of the Superman/Batman comic series, telling the story of Supergirl's "re-introduction" to the DC Universe (I really didn't know about her part in Crisis on Infinite Earths, but the introduction filled me in). The story is really well-told, using some interesting dual narration via the thoughts of both Superman and Batman - this is a great device that really added a lot of insight into these characters, which is tough to do with icons that everyone knows so well. Wonder Woman is thrown in as well (since Kara needs some Amazonian training), and the big villian is Darkseid, meaning a good deal of the action takes place in Apokolips. Unfortunately, the transition from a story about trust and family to an action tale is way too rushed - I kept flipping back in the book to see if I had missed a page! Still, there's some good action, and plenty of cool Batman moments, as well as "Superman gets really mad" (which always has to happen in epic stories like this), but ultimately it seems like it was too easy to defeat Darkseid. The artwork is really nice, even though I wasn't too thrilled with Superman's ultra-square jaw (it looks good on Batman, but not on Clark!). I'm not really complaining, though - I enjoyed reading this book, and it makes me think I should pick up graphic novels like this more often!
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| Batman Chronicles / Vol 1 : 4 of 5 | |
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11.27.2007
12:21 PM | Link |
 After rereading the old Eternals comics I enjoyed as a kid, I've been eager to discover the original stories and artwork of famous characters, so I was excited to find this fantastic series which presents all of the original appearances of Batman in a nice (and extremely affordable) graphic novel format. This first volume was incredibly fun to read, since I had never seen Batman's original beginnings as a regular feature in Detective Comics (starting in 1939). The artwork is somewhat crude, but still dynamic and full of charm (and dramatically improves as the series progresses). I love the old style of narration, which describes everything Batman is doing right there on the panel in front of you, and I like the nostalgic touches (such as Bruce Wayne always smoking a pipe!). I was amazed that Batman's origin story isn't told until several issues have past, and it only takes a page and a half to cover it! Robin's origin is pretty short as well, but he's only getting started as this volume ends with the first issue of Batman's own comic in 1940. There are a few regular villains, such as Doctor Death, Hugo Strange, and of course, the Joker, but it's fun to see Batman go up against weird things like werewolves, too. Batman himself is definitely a tough guy, and he barely thinks twice about killing his enemies if he has to, which certainly changes later on. If you're fascinated by the humble beginnings of one of the most popular heroes of all time, you'll definitely enjoy this book, and I'm certainly ready to continue with the next volume!
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| The Eternals / Marvel Omnibus : 4 of 5 | |
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9.22.2007
7:51 PM | Link |
 When I was reading tons of comics as a kid, Jack Kirby was the first artist that I could recognize by his distinctive artwork, and I remember trying out different comic series just because of his amazing style. One of these series was The Eternals, which started in 1976 and only ran for 19 issues - I probably bought all of them, but sadly I'm sure I sold them for pennies or traded them for Star Wars cards, so I don't have them now. Thanks to Marvel's Omnibus series, which collects famous comics and reproduces them as beautiful (and expensive) hardcover books, I've just enjoyed the entire series again, and it was seriously nostalgic and fun! Kirby's art is as incredible as ever - I love how he makes every page so dynamic, even though the panel style at the time was usually just six uniform boxes! He's also not afraid to pull off full-page or even two-page spreads, which are definitely needed to tell a story this big, about the return of massive space gods (the Celestials) and their return to Earth! Of course, each comic's cover is included as well, and I swear I could remember each one as soon as I looked at it. Actually, I didn't really understand the storyline in 1976, so it was fun to read these issues again and figure out what's happening. I liked the concept of different species of beings on Earth besides humans, namely the Eternals (who inspired Greek/Roman god and goddess myths) and the Deviants (who inspired demonic myths). Kirby's overblown writing style is a blast, too, with every issue announced as the one you can't possibly miss! Reading The Eternals again was such an enjoyable experience, and I'd definitely like to check out more of the Omnibus series in the future!
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| Free Comic Book Day | |
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5.06.2007
7:05 AM | Link |
 I hope everyone had a great Free Comic Book Day yesterday! Even though I don't buy very many comics during the year, I always get excited about the first Saturday in May, since it's fun to grab a bunch of cool comic books for free! I usually go to Dragon's Lair (it's a great store and also carries manga), but since my schedule was a little tight yesterday, I decided to visit Thor's Hammer instead, since they are so close to me (they don't have manga or the charm of Dragon's Lair, but it's still a fun shop). I was expecting there to be a limit on how many free titles I could take, so I had already read some reviews of the free stuff to narrow things down, but when I asked what the limit was, the guy thought I was crazy and said, "Um, one of each?" So, I got about 15 comics for free! Way to go, Thor's Hammer! While I was there I browsed for a while, and I really wanted to buy just about everything. I was thinking it would be cool to be locked up with all those books for a least a week and do nothing but read!
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| Free comics and apes, too | |
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5.07.2006
10:52 PM | Link |
 Wow, this weekend went by fast! I usually try to fit too many "chores" into my weekends, but these week I spent more time having fun, which was nice. The whole weekend is too much to talk about in one post, so I'll just start by saying I hope everyone had a nice Free Comic Book Day! I went to two different comic book shops (Dragon's Lair and Thor's Hammer), since they sometimes have a limit on the number of free titles you can pick up, but by the time I got to the second store, most everything was gone, so I didn't get the manga samplers this year. But that's OK, since I still got five cool comics for free (I've only read the Superman/Batman story so far, and it was excellent, so I'm going to start checking out that title!). Speaking of comics, I also got the latest issue of Revolution on the Planet of the Apes, which is an incredible new mini-series published by a Mr. Comics in Canada. The plot is fantastic, taking place right after Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (the 4th film), and it's stirred up my ape-mania once again. I especially like the idea that Caesar has a "conflicted timeline", since he was conceived in the future and born in the past - cool stuff!
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| DC Universe: The Stories of Alan Moore : 4 of 5 | |
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4.11.2006
10:20 PM | Link |
 I haven't bought a collection of comic book stories in quite a while, but I saw this book reviewed on the Attack of the Show podcast, and it seemed like it would be cool to read some good ol' superhero stories by this famous DC storyteller. Since all of the stories are by one author, there are a wide variety of artists here, all with very different styles, some of which I think are great, and others that bore me. For the most part, though, everything is fantastic, and of course the stories are amazing. The Killing Joke, one of the best Batman/Joker stories ever invented, is saved for last, complete with a flashback of the Joker's origin, the shooting of Barbara Gordon (which ends her Batgirl career), and some truly incredible illustrations. The famous Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow is also included, which was a "possible" end to Superman's hero work, and it's really fun to read (even if the end is predictable). I also really enjoyed For the Man Who Has Everything, since it was made into an animated Justice League episode, and many of the other obscure stories, featuring folks like Green Arrow and even Swamp Thing. The Vigilante story is my least favorite (along with the artwork), but it was still cool to read a character's story that I'm not very familiar with. Since reading this book, I've seen plenty of other mentions of it, and folks are always reading it at the bookstore, so it must be something you should pick up!
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| Harley & Ivy : 3 of 5 | |
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9.11.2004
3:46 PM | Link |
 It may have come out several long months ago, but I finally took the time to read the Harley & Ivy three-issue comic mini-series. I'm definitely a big fan of Batman: The Animated Series, where these characters had their debut, and I've always had a thing for them (in fact, I have a cool limited edition cel of the girls, too!). This short comic series was really fun - each issue is fairly compact and tells its own story. There's plenty of opportunities to see the gals in their underwear (and Ivy even has a "special moment" in a rainforest), and some pretty fun plots (I think the third issue was my favorite, where the girls take over a Hollywood production!). I've really been out of the comics loop for quite a while, but it was great to be reading some again.
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| Batman: The Dark Knight Returns / Frank Miller : 5 of 5 | |
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2.03.2002
12:10 AM | Link |
 This graphic novel was a birthday gift from my pal Shelly, who knew that I was a big Batman fan, but somehow missed out on reading this landmark series. The Dark Knight series truly gave us the dark, serious Batman that we love today - even the fantastic animated series traces it's style to here. The story is fantastic - Bruce Wayne is getting old, but still must carry out his work as Batman, and the plot explores his troubled psyche quite well. Yes, we have a girl Robin and some Joker battles, and even a major Superman fight (you'll have to read it to find out why), but the real star is the characterization! All of us live double lives, right?
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| Kingdom Come / Mark Waid/Alex Ross : 4 of 5 | |
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6.02.2001
12:17 AM | Link |
 A fantastic graphic novel (loaned to me by Shelly) illustrated by Alex Ross - each page is a work of art. The story is stunning as well, weaving apocalyptic themes with a huge battle between factions of superheroes - just about everyone you can think of is in this book. Set in an alternate future, we get to see our heroes as older men and women - Superman with gray temples, Batman propped up with an exoskeleton, and Wonder Woman bitchy as ever. The epilogue is precious, with the big three eating at a "Planet Krypton" and ordering from waiters dressed as their own alter-egos. Brilliant!
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