Wolverine by Jason Aaron Omnibus volume 1:
This omnibus begins with one of the finest character defining shots at Wolverine to remind the reader (and introducing the readers) to the nastiest manipulating gruesome son of a guns there is, Logan aka Wolverine! The Omnibus collects one-shots, small arcs, mini-series and lastly the Wolverine: Weapon X ongoing that Jason Aaron had until Wolverine received a relaunch under Aaron’s pen.
My only real cringe within this book that collects impressive 688 pages of context, is that it does have a chronological feel regarding Wolverine’s character development and the people around him, it still feels rather disjointed as it comes down to random different superhero adventures. Wolverine just happens to go to X location and by next issue it’s’ Y location with Z motive. I mean it’s not that I need to see Wolverine riding the Blackbird Jet, it’s just that at times I felt there was a more natural feel to it, but it’s a very minor nitpick and all the stories have a rather personal reason why he’s there and doing this and that.
What jumps to new readers and new fans immediately is the rather new direction with Wolverine, the man who never knew a thing about his past excluding some fragments of his past, is now the man who remembers exactly everything he’s done. His first kiss, his first sex, his first kill, his first desire for revenge, basically everything he’s done in his life has now come clear and the man is a wreck because of it, but who wouldn’t if you could remember all the sins’ of your past.
The stories provide tons of variety of their settings from Wolverine’s past with Mystique to my favorite arc in the book which is about Wolverine combating the different ninja clans of Chinatown, it’s so bad kung fu exploitation madness that it truly enhances the story arc, especially with Stephen Segovia great panel work and the “angles” he chooses to illustrate all the different martial arts moves. Wolverine vs. Adamtium-Nanite-Powered mercenaries also takes the cake as Aaron’s longtime collaborator Ron Garney (who illustrates majority of the book) as Wolverine has to go all “Predator” and take them with great tactics, there is a good hero vs. villain moment in this arc that I’ll greatly enjoy remembering.
I also liked how Jason Aaron tackles on the Avengers and later on Steve Rogers onto the story, explaining why Wolverine would consume his life with so much super heroics, switching his costumes more often than a Britney Spears’ backstage dancer and pretty much the whole idea of Jason Aaron using the character’s overexposure as a story tool felt great. I also like how he uses Steve Rogers and gives some positive light why Rogers would ever allow Wolverine to be an Avenger without the cost of writing the character wrong like a certain other writer did.
Yanick Paquette illustrates the most absurd arc and it’s wonderfully insane, it’s about Wolverine in an Asylum with a mad doctor, there are no further comments for the craziness!
The last arc is pretty good, but it takes maybe a bit too much inspiration from Terminator, but again I didn’t mind the Chinatown arc being cliché, so this comes off a tad bit hypocritical, but it’s a good arc, but maybe not the strongest of the book, and the Omnibus closes off with a one shot issue regarding Wolverine and the passing of someone important to him.
Rating: 92/100: Wolverine Omnibus is a good treat for any comic fan, you have absurd concepts weaved into great serious stories, with tons of action, revenge, emotions and most importantly the dialogue and monologue of Wolverine, a great personal story of Wolverine and his random adventure’s that chronologically seem to be about the man finding his inner peace and redemption while being the best there is at what he does.
Flashpoint by Geoff Johns & Andy Kubert
The book stars Barry Allen, the man who works as a police officer and also has a double life as the fastest man alive, the Flash. Writer Geoff Johns joins Andy Kubert to tell an event story focusing on the Flash and Batman teaming up very old school fashioned, the Brave and the Bold style.
The whole time stream has been changed and once heroes are now either dead, anti-heroes or villains, while villains still remain villainous but are worse than ever, the world is on the brink of war between Aquaman’s Atlantean forces against Wonder Woman’s Amazon warriors having destroyed half of Europe. The Justice League doesn’t exist, no one has heard of a man named Superman and Batman has been a vigilante far longer than usual, and also happens to be a man with close to no hope, and his hands full of blood.
That’s the basic premise, the history has been changed and Flash’s memories are changing in time, so he and the detective Batman have to resolve the mess before it’s too late and the world’s going to hell, it’s a very basic premise, having a fun team-up between the good cop and the rough detective, and it really works well enough to see both Flash and Batman team up like this, there is also Cyborg, Element Woman and a few more surprises along the adventure.
Andy Kubert’s story telling deserves all the praise it can, because the book is filled with panels that focus on the emotional aspect of characters, plenty of silent moments and important dialogue points that really come off as very character and emotion driven, and you can’t accomplish this with writing alone, you need good art, and what we get is amazing art. The characters, their unique designs in this counterpoint world and the splash pages are all stunning that contain a lot of detail, this is a great book by its’ art alone.
The extras in the book contain character sketches with insight info alongside some sketches of splash pages, variant covers from different artists, but sadly the World of Flashpoint map splash page was very awfully adjusted to the book and comes off very weak in its’ middle section.
Rating: 100/100 – It’s a very emotional driven story about a man fixing a huge mess and going thru a variety of pain to make it all work, alongside receiving help from another man who for years has had no hope in his life, but finds light and is utterly dedicated to accomplish his dreams of a better world. The setting is intriguing, the artwork is awe-inspiring and the dialogue is good. If you’re interested or want to become interested in the Flash alongside (or only) wanting to read another Elseworld tale with a very Clint Eastwood Dirty Harry type Batman, this is a good treat for you.
Who’s strong & brave, here to save the American way? The Star Spangled Man of course! This omnibus collects Jack “the King” Kirby’s run on Captain America & the Falcon from 1976, as Kirby was one of the very creators of the character, this almost feels like an happy family reunion where the creator takes his character to whole new adventures, and boy is this book filled with over the top, creative, bizarre and at times just flat out insane ideas.
The book follows Captain America & Falcon as SHIELD agents, who play a heavy part in the book, but for some reason you don’t see Nick Fury at all in this book, but simply referenced. Sharon Carter, the love interest of Captain America plays a very small role as well on the book and it’s sadly also as a rather distressed damsel, but luckily towards the end of the book we see her return as a proper SHIELD agent and kick some butt!
Story structure wise, there is a sense of continuity within standalone issues, 2-3 issue arcs, but there isn’t any long endgame plan here, people have to remember this was written in the 70s, and thus the way the panels, dialogue, stories and pretty much everything can be seen a bit dated, I felt this wasn’t Jack Kirby’s strongest work when it comes to the dialogue: Falcon talks like some generic happy-go black guy, the exclamation marks are thrown around to imply dramatic effect and at times it feels like all seniors talk the same referring Cap as “Son” and yeah sometimes it just feels there is no unique voices outside the two protagonists, Cap & Falcon.
Now the best part is obviously the ideas Kirby encompasses to his work, and the villains in this book, while not really classic Captain America villains excluding the Red Skull, Arnim Zola (1st appearance!) alongside Magneto and the Brotherhood of Mutants making an appearance, the villains here are rather unknown, but they carry the perfect theme against the Sentinel of Liberty.
The 1st major villain in the book is the Elite, ruled by William Taurey. William’s family comes off of descendants who fought with the English army during the Revolutionary War, but the Taurey family lost to Steve Rogers’ descendent, so not only do we have this superiority vs. nobleness theme, we also have a family rivalry going on. What make the Elite so intriguing is the weapons they’ve device, which are the Mad-Bombs. What are Mad-Bombs? Why bombs that don’t explode! Instead they send brainwave signals that cause total chaos, people become feral mindless beings that just want to maim and destroy everything and everyone, and it’s up to Captain America, Falcon and SHIELD to stop the Mad-Bomb “Big Daddy” from destroying the United States of America!
Other villains in the book include a whole different wave of Alien beings, corrupt Humans who love slavery and torture, the introduction to Arnim Zola shows his bio-chemistry as he has created an whole army of shape shifting beings that he has enslaved, and of course we even have the Red Skull appear as he and Zola wish to resurrect Adolf Hitler and mock America by cutting Steve’s face off. I love the thematic value these villains have. Captain America is everything that’s good about the people: nobility, compassion, trust, the truth, justice, helping others and so forth, and these people are about destroying the individual’s rights, slavery, corruption and just creating chaos and tyranny. It works wonders and can be easily compared with something more mainstream acknowledged such as Batman’s Order vs. Joker’s chaos.
Rating: 80/100 – It’s definitely a powerful art book showcasing Jack Kirby at his finest, I loved how over the top the book is and I barely even scratched the surface with that, you got alien invaders, time travel with adventures such as Captain America and Benjamin Franklin hanging out, you got the Mad-Bombs and Adolf Hitler’s brain in a robot, it’s really hilariously awesome stuff, but I really do feel like the dialogue and narration really do bring down the quality a lot, it just makes the pace slower and a bit dull at times, so I’ll definitely say this is for the Silver Age and Jack Kirby fans, fans of Captain America could check this out to see a rather old school take on the character.
There needs to be said a little bit of backstory before recommending this book to anyone. Kieron Gillen was tasked to finish the story begun by J. Michael Straczynski (JMS), and then his following issues are Tie-ins to an Brian Michael Bendis event titled “Siege” where Asgard is sieged.
I felt Gillen did a good job with this book, granted for brand new Thor fans it might be best to read JMS run first, the book does open with a 1 page summary and gives information on minor characters such as Bill & Kelda, alongside how Dr. Doom is connected to all of this, but it still makes one ponder if they could have given them some backstory. The Doom arc is wonderful showcasing the treacherous Doom having his own Destroyer battle armor, Billy Tan’s penciling on the fight scene is fantastic and seeing Doom with an army of mind warped Asgardian humanoid monsters was truly like something from a horror movie.
The Siege parts, is rather disappointingly constructed due to being an tie-in, you don’t really know who is attacking outside the US government, you know Norman (Green Goblin) is running the show, but wouldn’t a new fan ask how that even happened in the 1st place? It shows the start of the siege, then jumps to the middle of it and then again just jumps to the aftermath, as all the “Main” events happened in the “Main” Siege book. I really enjoyed the Siege segments, because they don’t really focus on Thor, but on heroes such as Balder the Brave, Tyr the God of War, Heimdall, Fandrall, even Hela and Mephisto have important roles during the end of the book.
While this is a Thor book, and he does appear in majority of the issues, I’d still claim the main star of the book is none other than his brother, Loki. Loki’s tricks, lies, manipulations and schemes carry the whole book from start to end. While he doesn’t appear at all issues, even then his presence is felt as everything revolving the heroes is due to Loki’s actions, and that’s what makes me see Loki as star of the book, and with the Siege tie-ins focusing on minor characters, it gives this cool “anthology” like story, as each Siege segment focuses on some Asgardian and how they’re dealing with the war, it was interesting to see the different perspectives and stories, because Gillen gives all Asgardians this great charm and elegance to their dialogue.
Rating: 88/100 – While the way the book is construct with the Conclusion to JMS’ story to Siege tie-in issues and then lastly Gillen’s story that grew from these book, I can’t help but to cheer for his writing ability to make it all work, the dialogue is wonderful, as I felt Asgardians have this elegance to them, especially Balder’s dialogue shines here, the book has a good amount of action, Loki’s plotting and scheming and seeing it all unfold alongside Hela and Mephisto being great manipulators as well is a sinisterly sweet. Not to mention the book does plant the seeds for Gillen’s Journey into Mystery which stars none other than Loki!
This deluxe edition collects Scott Snyders (best known for his American Vampire series) 11 issue Detective Comics run, illustrated by the talented artists Jock and Francesco Francavilla. The story in short resolves around Family and the new generation, and how this new generation lingers in the shadows of the past generation one way or another.
The stars of the book are Dick Grayson as Batman, Commissionaire James Gordon, Barbara Gordon aka the Oracle and there is this nice tight family theme going on between all 3 characters, after all Dick Grayson has known James Gordon since his Robin days, and did date the once-Batgirl Barbara. Now new readers might be shunned by the idea that Bruce Wayne isnt starring this book or that they need to know some mass amount of previous continuity to catch up and appreciate the story to the fullest, well fear not, because this is a very self-contained book, with a short introduction to the Gotham world, so it isnt any different from any other Batman book that might provide small details such as that Bruce Wayne and Batman are the one and the same.
The book contains 3 stories, the main story stretching from start to end which is the return of James Gordon junior, the son of Jim Gordon whom fans have only read about previously in Frank Millers Batman: Year One, fans of Year One will also probably get a kick out of Detective Flass reference thats in the story. The 1st story connects nicely how Gothams history with its freak show has molded into Gothams society as Dick is the todays generation Batman, but you got crooks with all random devices from past villains, you got Mobsters with Umbrella guns, Poison Ivy poisons, Man-Bat serums, Joker Toxin, you name it. So much damage has happened around Gotham alongside its good that some Gotham socialites have begun worshipping this very evil to a lunatic level.
The next story has Snyder reinvent the classic Batman villain Tiger Shark, with a complete new design, while keeping the undersea headquarter, now Tiger Shark is more of an smuggler using the undersea pipes, while alongside being a collector of near extinct animals, his new visual design and motive screams of upper class elitism, which nicely reflects to the whole nasty Gotham socialites that we read about. It also reflects again upon the Old vs. New with a certain woman unable to escape her fathers shadow, new crime empires rising and so forth.
The last arc is the big conclusion with the Batman family and Gordon family resolving a family crisis with none other than the Prince of Crime himself making his appearance, whoever designed Jokers lettering type deserves credit and Snyders dialogue for all characters, especially Joker is spot on.
The dual team of artists really works well, despite the art styles being different, both deliver excellent action scenery, but I feel Jock is the man who did the dirty city skyscraper with Dick diving in, with Francesco he gives a lot of emotional power with his characters faces and the beautiful painted feel to it all. Fans of Batman the Animated Series will also likely get a nice kick out of the red sky that is seen from time to time, both artists give this great dirty feel to Gotham City.
Thats one thing about Gotham and this whole story however, its very dark. The conclusion to the story is also rather dark, its a very post-9/11 kind of a trope where the world is so dark and there is only the tiniest fragment of hope and light alive, its the good guys vs. the evil in Gotham, but if Gotham truly was this huge pile of evil, why would anyone live there to begin with? What is the point, if it really is just sewer pipes and corpses with so much darkness and so little light? This really goes to show how does the individual reader interprets his/her Gotham city in the Batman universe.
The extras in the book include unused covers, cover sketches, character designs and best of all, an actual script pages from the 1st draft of a particular issue. I always love getting some insight and get to the mind of the writers, seeing how much visual imagination they must empower to their scripts to have the artist make it come alive, its an exciting process to learn.
Rating: 100/100 While my minor nitpicks are the dark scum with seemingly no hope in Gotham, with just tiny fragments of course, it doesnt hurt my enjoyment or scoring to the degree to not give it a perfect score. The characters are well rounded and fleshed out, the dialogue is great, you get some classic Snyder family trope inner monologue, the villains are unique and inspiring, and the whole book carries this element of mystery with hidden clues, which is what a Detective Comics title should always have. Like I said, its self-contained, well written and drawn, its a great Batman comic book for casuals and hardcore Batman fans alike.
Grant Morrison & J.G. Jones team up under Marvel Knights imprint promising mature action, innovative storytelling and showcasing us a brand new badass anti-hero or rather anti-establishment character, Noh-Varr the living weapon! The young Kree foot soldier, who decides the best way to protect the planet he’s now forced to remain on, is to destroy the current establishment and replace it with the supreme Kree society.
If you’re a fan of sci-fi and especially a fan of the Morrison-type of sci-fi alongside high amount of action, clever dialogue and brilliant characters, this is a big treat for you. Alongside just being a 6 issue long story, it’s nicely paced and tells a full story on the character’s origin and his motivations around Earth, it’s just a major disappointed how badly Marvel ruined this character, because when you get to read this book and see how much of a total boss Noh Varr is, it really makes you want to facepalm on how stupid the character has been turned.
The book opens with Noh-Varr & his comrades are on their way back to their home planet after countless adventures of different multiverses, microverses across the Omniverse, but a multi-trillionaire human named Midas learns about them and thus forces them to crash land on Earth, killing everyone Noh-Varr cared and knew about inside the ship and thus starting the revenge plot against Midas, what Noh-Varr also does is as mentioned: destroying the establishment to replace it with the Supreme Kree society! You get the craziest fight scenes and adventures you couldn’t had imagined from SHIELD purchasing the Bannermen! Policing the 21th century with the powers of Captain America and Hulk, or how about Hexus! The super sentient corporation that plans to brainwash the entire planet with its marketing schemes until all that is left on the planet is nothingness! These are just a few examples of the kind of high packed adventures Marvel Boy faces.
Rating: 100/100 – This is everything you want in a Grant Morrison comic and a great comic in general (Is there a difference however? I don’t think so!) regarding the “innovative” storytelling, this book was launched in 2000-2001 so that was 10 years ago, so for me I’ve seen scripts where Morrison pulls the artist to make scenery, panels and panel grids like these before and certainly from J.G. Jones in books such as Wanted and Final Crisis, but hey great art is always great art. It has that photo-realistic feel to it, like it really is part of our world and not some wacky cartoon, the designs are intriguing and the book comes with sketches at the end of it as extras to get behind the scenes look. Overall it’s an action packed sci-fi adventure with not your so usual superhero as the protagonist.
Grant Morrison & Jae Lee team up under the Marvel Knights imprint to tell a more mature and darker story of the very 1st Marvel family there is: the Fantastic Four! It’s an interesting short 4 issue story with its usual setting of Dr. Doom wanting to destroy Reed Richards while teaming up with Namor & Mole Man, each issue focusing on a certain FF member from the Thing to lastly Reed Richards himself.
I knew this was going to be a darker take on the Fantastic Four, but it still took me by surprise and Jae Lee’s dark gritty even to the point of “noir” art came off as a surprise, but it really does work here because this isn’t just about Dr. Doom’s millionth time trying to destroy Reed Richards, but you got Thing’s self petty, Johnny’s boredom with his thrilling celebrity life and Sue Storm’s feelings of being ignored by her husband. So not only we got high sci-fi battle of the minds with Dr. Doom playing chess against Reed Richards, we got the emotional drama going on too as New York is being attack yet again by Dr. Doom bots.
Without spoiling the context of the last issue, this is an interesting take on Dr. Doom vs. the Fantastic Four, but at the end of its just another Dr. Doom vs. Fantastic Four story if you can catch my drift, but it comes with good dialogue, good art, interesting sci-fi concepts and a pretty darn awesome humiliations towards the bad guys.
The hardcover collects the Nick Fury one-shot story Grant Morrison did and it’s pretty darn hilarious, showcasing how far and willing Nick Fury can be just to take down 1 villain who isn’t even some level a classic comic book villain, but simply anti-democracy agent.
Rating: 87/100 – Self-contained Fantastic Four story with an interesting take on a typical story with great dialogue, good art and as an added bonus you get a rather hilariously cool Nick Fury story with (again) great dialogue and decent art.
The age of heroes must be the greatest time of it all when it began with Superman and continued with the Justice League, but what if there was a Secret Age of heroes that began 3000 years ago & raged through one thousand years of prehistory? What if the Justice League of America consisting of Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner), Flash (Wally West), Martian Manhunter & Plastic Man we’re send there to battle and actually died? What happens then?
That is the pitch writer Joe Kelly went with as he proposed the Obsidian Age story to DC and I felt it was the best way to describe the story. The artists joined by Joe Kelly are Doug Mahnke & Tom Nguyen on the past, with Yvel Guichet & Mark Propst illustrating the present timeline. The story is collected in two softcover volumes.
There is a great deal of central focus towards magic and magicians in the DC Universe, but also one of its greatest civilizations ever known: the Atlantis! Aww yeah, Atlantis and Aquaman get a nice central focus on this time travel adventure. Zatanna & Tempest both play important roles to the story, but the main secondary characters are the new Justice League that Batman chose personally in case the original members would all wither away, these Leaguers are: Green Arrow, Hawkgirl, Etrigan/Jason Blood, Firestorm, Faith, the Atom (Ray Palmer), Major Disaster and their leader; the one and only, Nightwing!
I love how the story rotates around between the past and the present, between the main Justice League and the new Justice league. It has a lot of time travel madness you’d except from a writer such as Grant Morrison, but receiving it from Joe Kelly is a pleasant surprise. Tons of great superhero moments from a Superman match that takes across the globe, Batman and Wonder Woman romance, Nightwing leading the Justice League, Green Arrow being a horndog Plastic Man being hilarious and one of the most utterly insane awesome Bat-god moments, this book keeps delivering. It all ties down at the end leaving no plot holes whatsoever behind and concludes its story well.
Rating: 93/100 - Incredibly well written story that gives readers two Justice League teams in one story that delivers action, thrills and awesome character moments while also world building DC universe with its past and Atlantis. The art is good and very consistent, while some artists make it a bit more cartoonish then others, the action is good, the facial expressions show emotion and everything looks good.
