Archive for October, 2007
October 28, 2007 | Trades
The Walking Dead Vol. 7: The Calm Before
Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard, Cliff Rathburn
Image Comics
$12.99 US (Paperback)
**** (out of five)
The world as you knew it is over and the walking dead will rip you to pieces if they get a chance.
But life could be worse.
All in all, things are pretty good, in fact, for former police officer Rick Grimes and a group of about 20 survivors in a world where the dead don’t lay still.
After some time on the road, they’ve settled into life in a well-protected former prison where they need not worry about a roaming zombie getting the munchies for them in the middle of the night and, in spite of all the death and horror they’ve seen since the old world ended, their lives are finally gaining some sense of normality.
And if that isn’t the perfect set up for disaster, then I don’t know what is.
The Calm Before, the seventh paperback collection of the most gripping ongoing horror book around — written by Robert Kirkman (Invincible, Ultimate X-Men) and illustrated by Charlie Adlard and Cliff Rathburn, opens with a wedding, contains a shocking confession, a long-awaited birth, a shocking death and features the return of the last person the survivors ever wanted to see again.
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October 28, 2007 | Trades
John Constantine, Hellblazer: The Gift
Mike Carey, Leonardo Manco, Frazer Irving
Vertigo/DC Comics
$17.99/$14.99 US (Paperback)
**** (out of five)
John Constantine is starting to feel like a walking plague.
Everywhere he goes everyone he gets close to ends up dead.
It’s nothing new, but Constantine’s about as big a self-centred bastard as you’re likely to find, so he just doesn’t let it bother him too much,
Until his flirtations with darkness and magic cost him his sister, Cheryl.
The final volume of writer Mike Carey’s (Lucifer) multi-year run on Hellblazer sees Constantine make a pact with the demon Nergal to go to Hell itself to retrieve his sister’s soul from those responsible for her death — John’s evil children created by the demon Rosacarnis, Nergal’s daughter.
Carey goes out with a bang by putting Constantine in the middle of a battle of magic and guile pitting blood against blood to the death with an outcome that you’re not soon to forget.
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October 28, 2007 | Trades
The Exterminators Vol. 3: Lies Of Our Fathers
Simon Oliver, Tony Moore, Mike Hawthorne, John Lucas
Vertigo/DC Comics
$17.99/$14.99 US (Paperback)
**** (out of five)
The Exterminators gets right under your skin with some of the nastiest creepy-crawlies around — rooms full of cockroaches, sewers packed with rats, an empty swimming pool full of frogs and, worst of all: Rich, powerful white supremacists.
The mysteries of what is causing all the vermin of Los Angeles to revolt (in the literal way) deepen as Henry James and some of the other odd and eccentric bunch at Bug-Bee-Gone Exterminators gets a blast from their unpleasant pasts.
Henry gets an unwanted visit from his former cellmate, a rather nasty white supremacist with a very unsavoury plan for those that don’t into his master plan, while Bug-Bee-Gone researcher Saloth Sar is forced to confront his past role as a key figure in the Khmer Rouge.
All this and exploding house pets all in volume 3 of this disturbing ongoing series by writer Simon Oliver and artists Tony Moore, Mike Hawthorne and John Lucas.
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October 28, 2007 | Trades
Ion Vol. 2: The Dying Flame
Ron Marz, Greg Tocchini, Fernando Pasarin, Paco Diaz, Yvel Guichet
DC Comics
$17.99/$14.99 US (Paperback)
*** 1/2 (out of five)
It may have gotten lost among the seemingly infinite number of new ongoing and miniseries that followed DC last big crisis, but Ion might just be required reading for those looking for clues to the big picture.
On the surface, Ion looks to be the ongoing adventures of Kyle Rayner, the man who was once the last Green Lantern, who now finds himself with a vastly more powerful energy source at his disposal.
In the wake of Infinite Crisis, the last DC mega-crossover series, Kyle is left tortured by the death of his ex-girlfriend, the hero Jade, who transferred all her magic-based green energy to him as she sacrificed herself to save him and their fellow superheroes.
Having survived an attack on both his life and his credibility at the hands of the evil villain Nero in volume 1, Kyle quickly finds his hands full in this second, and final, book as he faces another old enemy, defends the honour of a beautiful alien princess, gets trapped in the borderlands between worlds and, inevitably, tracks down the person responsible for all his woes.
In the midst of all this, writer Ron Marz, along with a team of artists — including covers by Toronto’s Kalman Andrasofzsky, slips in plenty of foreshadowing for many current and future DC Comics, like the weekly series, Countdown, the Sinestro Corps War going on right now in Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps monthly books and maybe even 2008’s highly anticipated, Final Crisis.
If you’re the sort of person who needs to know how it all began, Ion has got plenty for you.
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October 28, 2007 | Trades
Teen Titans: Titans East
Geoff Johns, Tony S. Daniel, Adam Beechen, Al Barrionuevo
DC Comics
$17.99/$14.99 US (Paperback)
*** 1/2 (out of five)
Tick, tick, tick, tick… BOOM!
And just like that another of writer extraordinaire Geoff Johns’ ticking time bombs goes off.
After months, if not years, of dropping hints, one-page asides and foreshadowing galore, the long-awaited showdown between the true Teen Titans and an upstart group calling itself Titans East blows up on the shores of the New York island the heroes formerly called home.
Led by the nefarious Deathstroke The Terminator, Titans East includes villains like Match, a failed clone of Superboy; Inertia, a real clone of The Flash; the Joker’s Daughter; the Riddler’s Daughter; and longtime ally Batgirl, who’s been on an inexplicable deadly rampage of late.
The real question is: Are they simply out for blood or is there a much more complex plan at work?
Johns ends his stellar nearly four-year run of reinvigorating the Titans with a battle that has to be seen to be believed and sets the stage for an interesting future with new scribe, Adam Beechen.
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October 28, 2007 | Comics
Sergio Aragones’ Groo: 25th Anniversary Special
Sergio Aragones, Mark Evanier, Tom Luth, Stan Sakai
Dark Horse Comics
$5.99 US
**** 1/2 (out of five)
So about 20 years ago, I walked into the Mac’s Milk that used to be down the street from my parents house looking for something to eat and something to read.
I honestly can’t remember what I snacked on that day, but I clearly remember the comic book I bought was Groo The Wanderer #1 from Epic Comics because the antics of the oafish, sword-wielding barbarian klutz made me laugh out loud on that 10-minute walk home and people stopped and stared. I didn’t care — I’d discovered something great.
I went back and tracked down the handful of other Groo comics that had been published by other companies and made buying Groo a monthly habit for over 10 years until that Epic series ended. Luckily there have been many other series since then, first at Image Comics and later at Dark Horse and wherever Groo has gone his cult of devotees, myself included, have followed.
To mark the 25th anniversary of the Wanderer’s first appearance, creator Sergio Aragones, perhaps best known to non-comic fans for his work in Mad magazine, along with longtime collaborators Mark Evanier, Tom Luth and Stan Sakai, have cooked up another Groo classic featuring two fine tales: The Plague, a look at just how quickly our hero can start trouble, fix trouble and then start some more, and Groo For Sale, a misadventure starring Little Groo.
Happy Anniversary to Sergio, Mark, Tom and Stan — I hope you enjoy their gift to us all as much as I have over the years.
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October 28, 2007 | Comics
Simon Dark #1
Steve Niles, Scott Hampton
DC Comics
$3.65/$2.99 US
**** (out of five)
Gotham City has seen more that its fair share of odd things over the years — perhaps more than any other city anywhere.
But the city already under the watchful eye of a Bat, a Robin, a Cat and various and sundry other vigilante/heroes, has got a new protector. He lurks in the shadows near the burned out remains of the Sacred Martyr Church, quietly helping those in need and protecting those in danger.
He is Simon Dark.
This acrobatic and brutal community guardian is also confined to the shadows by the fact he would scare the life out of most who saw his Frankenstein’s monster-esque composite self.
His past is a mystery, but his present is clear: Learn, grow and keep his neighbourhood safe.
From the minds of horror master Steve Niles (30 Days Of Night) and artist Scott Hampton comes a dark and delightful new series sure to get under your skin.
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October 28, 2007 | Comics
Justice League Of America Wedding Special #1
Dwayne McDuffie, Mike McKone, Andy Lanning
DC Comics
$4.75/$3.99 US
**** (out of five)
Justice League Of America #13
Dwayne McDuffie, Joe Benitez, Victor Llamas
DC Comics
$3.65/$2.99 US
****
The Justice League of America is the greatest collective of super-powered beings around — or at least they were.
While the JLA may feature some of the greatest heroes around — beings like Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, etc. — they are still only about a dozen altogether, so when Lex Luthor assembles the greatest group of super-villains ever assembled, the Injustice League Unlimited, the good guys are definitely in for a bad time.
The fun begins in the Justice League Of America Wedding Special, where Green Arrow’s bachelor’s party and Black Canary’s bachelorette’s are spoiled when news comes in that the young hero Firestorm has been savagely attacked by a group of villains.
When several groups of JLA members check out different leads to find Firestorm’s assailants, they find themselves the victims of a well-orchestrated assault and taken prisoner.
By the time the action moves into Justice League Of America #13, there may not be enough heroes left to fight back.
Dwayne McDuffie (Fantastic Four, TV’s Justice League Unlimited) takes over the writing duties on DC’s premiere team book and kicks things off with a bang in an epic storyline that is an absolute page-turner.
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October 28, 2007 | Comics
The Vinyl Underground #1
Si Spencer, Simon Gane, Cameron Stewart
Vertigo/DC Comics
$3.65/$2.99 US
**** (out of five)
What do you do when the severed head of a nine-year-old boy is found on a London beach with the eyes missing and replaced by diamonds and a prime suspect is your ex-fiancée’s dad?
If you’re Morrison Shepherd — D-list celebrity, tabloid star and son of a dead former star soccer player — you assemble your crack group of occult crime experts, including a virgin porn star with a forensic science degree, an autistic registered sex offender who has visions, and a tribal magic expert, who happens to be your ex, and get to work on figuring out who the real killer is and why they did it.
The first issue of The Vinyl Underground, written by Si Spencer, illustrated by Simon Gane and inked by Toronto’s Cameron Stewart, offers up great characters, an intriguing mystery and a sense of humour as black as a London night.
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October 28, 2007 | Comics
The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite #1 (of 6)
Gerard Way, Gabriel Ba
Dark Horse Comics
$2.99 US
**** (out of five)
Getting celebrities to write comic books is often a recipe for disaster.
They try to shoe-horn in writing their books between their Hollywood schedule or their tour dates, some simply for ego — talent or not, others actually having something to say, but not always good at saying it and precious few simply naturals.
Having only read the Free Comic Book Day preview issue and Umbrella Academy #1, it seems like Gerard Way is one of those naturals.
The frontman for My Chemical Romance, working with talented illustrator Gabriel Ba, has crafted both a compelling concept and a solid story, revolving around seven unique kids who were raised in the limelight as a force for protecting the planet and are forced to back together 20 years later as a new threat looms.
Filled with humour and wit, style and substance, The Umbrella Academy has all the makings of a breakout series.
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