Episodes

Sunday Sep 10, 2017
Catching Up With "Star Wars"
Sunday Sep 10, 2017
Sunday Sep 10, 2017
Thanks to how I buy comics, when I buy comics, and the supply of where I buy comics from (more Cheap Graphic Novels than Amazon these days) I’ve wound up with a small backlog of “Star Wars” comics to write about. Given the generally good quality of the line from Marvel so far, there are worse problems to have than dealing with this kind of backlog. Especially since one of them is the first volume of the Kieron Gillen-written “Doctor Aphra” solo title and another is one of the better volumes in Jason Aaron’s “Star Wars” run. As for the third... well... Charles Soule continues to do the best he can with what he’s given in “Poe Dameron.” Further thoughts on all of them, starting from the best on down, are after the break.
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Saturday Sep 09, 2017
Thanos vol. 1 -- Thanos Returns
Saturday Sep 09, 2017
Saturday Sep 09, 2017
To his credit, it does appear with this volume that writer Jeff Lemire does have a story he wants to tell about the title character. Specifically involving the tortured (to put it mildly…) relationship he has with his son, Thane. You see, Thanos the Younger has assembled a group of people -- Nebula, Starfox, and Tryco “Champion of the Universe” Slatterus -- who all have issues with the Mad Titan with the aim of finally taking him down once and for all.
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Friday Sep 08, 2017
Moonshine vol. 1
Friday Sep 08, 2017
Friday Sep 08, 2017
Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso’s work together on the excellent and long-running “100 Bullets” cemented them as one of the best writer/artist teams in the industry. Their concurrent/subsequent work on “Batman” also bore this out even though Azzarello’s overwrough vernacular derailed their subsequent creator-owned collaboration “Spaceman.” The Prohibition-set “Moonshine” is their latest work and I believe the first time they’ve worked together outside of DC/Vertigo. It involves a good-looking, smooth-talking mobster by the name of Lou Pirlo who is sent by his boss to the backwoods of Appalachia with the job of getting a top-tier moonshiner by the name of Hiram Holt to sign on with them. Hiram, however, isn’t interested in dealing with any cityfolk lets Lou know that by way of showing him the corpses of the last people who came around asking about his business. Lou can’t really afford to come back empty-handed, but as he keeps digging deeper into the Holt family business he finds that the secret to their success and security doesn’t lie just with their moonshine. Rather, it’s because of what happens to them under the shine of the full moon.
In case I didn’t make it obvious, the title of this series is both descriptive of the high-quality homebrewed hooch Holt makes and a pun on what the big family secret is. Well, it’s only a secret if you’re coming into this series completely blind and didn’t hear Azzarello talk about the series back when it was announced. As I was listening I found there to be a lot of dancing around that big reveal to little effect here. In fact, there’s a bunch of literal and figurative dancing around in this first volume that doesn’t really go anywhere either. While Azzarello and Risso’s storytelling has always been of the “slow burn” variety, there was always something happening in every part of their stories to make the burn induce more ecstasy than agony. There are moments where things do click -- when the other mobsters show up and the bullets and blood start flying -- but they’re few and far between here. Though this first volume ends with the clear indication that things might get more interesting from here, I wouldn’t be too put out if Azzarello and Risso decided to take a mulligan with “Moonshine” and move on to something else instead.

Wednesday Sep 06, 2017
Comic Picks #245: Inhumans vs. X-Men
Wednesday Sep 06, 2017
Wednesday Sep 06, 2017
Whoever wins, we lose! ...No it's not one of the better "X-Men" crossover events, but there's better stuff in the tie-in issues.

Monday Sep 04, 2017
Happiness vol. 5
Monday Sep 04, 2017
Monday Sep 04, 2017
The bad news is that there’s not one moment in the art for this volume that gets me like it did in vol. 4. There are some striking moments, however. Gosho’s iron-willed determination to get out of a fiery situation late in the volume is impressively conveyed and followed up with the sequential art version of a match cut to show Makoto in a very bad situation. Makoto’s drug-fueled hallucinatory freakout a few pages later is also pretty memorable.
Yet the majority of vol. 5 is concerned with two threads: That of Makoto and Nora versus the organization out to get them, and Gosho and Sakurane trying to deal with Yuuki’s murder of his girlfriend and her family. Mangaka Shuzo Oshimi does at least put some work into getting the reader to believe that these threads are going to turn out one way, when in fact they wind up going in the more familiar, expected route. I still found the overall experience to be an involving read, even if it ultimately wound up hewing closer to convention than I wanted it to.
Then Oshimi quickly tosses the current status quo aside for the final chapter of this volume. I’m still wondering if that was a good move because it happens when the drama in these two threads has reached their peak. So I was left with this feeling of, “Why would you do this?!” before I started feeling uneasy about all the time that had passed for the characters and what that meant for them as a result. Except for one character as we focus on this person to establish that they’re currently living a normal life save for one physical reminder of the time things in their life got really weird and dangerous. Which is going to happen again as while this chapter makes for an awkward segue from the high drama of what has come before, it still manages to intriguingly set the stage for things to get crazy from here.

Sunday Sep 03, 2017
Marvel Previews Picks: November 2017
Sunday Sep 03, 2017
Sunday Sep 03, 2017
Looking at Marvel’s actions over the years, the publisher clearly thinks that any major event they have is worth overdoing. Which is why in addition to the renumbering of several of their ongoing titles to match their “Legacy” numbering, we’re getting several additional one-off revivals of cancelled series from yesteryear. Why? Most likely because Marvel received some (hopefully) decent pitches from Chad Bowers & Chris Sims, Devin Grayson, CM Punk, and Christa Faust to do additional issues of “Darkhawk,” “Power Pack,” “Master of Kung-Fu,” and “Silver Sable and the Wild Pack,” respectively. It could also be Marvel’s way of testing if there’s any interest in reviving these series/characters. I wouldn’t expect a new ongoing title for any of these characters to happen as a result of these one-shots, but stranger things have happened…
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Saturday Sep 02, 2017
Image Previews Picks: November 2017
Saturday Sep 02, 2017
Saturday Sep 02, 2017
After hitting it big as the writer of “God Country” and “Redneck” for Image, Donny Cates has been busy transitioning his backlist over from Dark Horse to his current publisher. This includes a miniseries which had an unusual route to its collected editions. “The Ghost Fleet” was an eight-issue miniseries about a trucking company that specializes in transporting the most secret and dangerous cargo around. Cates wrote it, and the art was provided by future Image creator Daniel Warren Johnson (writer/artist of “Extremity”). What was noteworthy about its publication history was that it was one of a few titles from Dark Horse that didn’t finish out its print run at the time. The other two being “Sundowners” and “Resurrectionists.” Yet the publisher delivered the final issues digitally, and reprinted the eight-issue miniseries in two $15 trade paperbacks.
Now that Cates and Johnson are known properties at Image, we’re getting a brand new edition of “The Ghost Fleet” from the publisher. The Ghost Fleet: The Whole Goddamned Thing collects the entire eight-issue miniseries for $20. While it was cool of Dark Horse to offer up the final issues or the title’s original run in digital form, all this goes to show is that having a hit comic can make all the difference for a creator’s backlist.
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Friday Sep 01, 2017
DC Previews Picks: November 2017
Friday Sep 01, 2017
Friday Sep 01, 2017
The big ticket item in this month’s solicitations is the first issue of Doomsday Clock, the twelve-issue maxiseries from Geoff Johns and Gary Frank that will further the integration of “Watchmen” into the DCU. This is problematic for a couple of reasons -- aside from the fact that integrating “Watchmen” into the DCU is still a morally and ethically dicey thing to begin with. First off is the fact that it’s debuting while “Metal” is still ongoing. Not only does it run the risk of cannibalizing sales for both series, but “Metal” has been very well-received so far. Putting them head-to-head like this is going to invite comparisons and if “Doomsday Clock” comes up short then its twelve-issue run is likely going to feel much, much longer for DC. Though I’m sure DC Publisher Dan Didio wouldn’t mind that too much since “Metal” is more his thing in the ongoing “My Relaunch Is Better Than Yours” he’s having with Johns behind the scenes.
That aside, “Doomsday Clock” is likely to actually to take that much longer regardless given its creators’ track record. While Johns and Frank have a good history together for quality -- see their run together on “Action Comics,” “Superman: Secret Origin,” and the two “Batman: Earth One” volumes -- they’re not the most timely of creators. While it takes time for Frank to deliver the detail he’s known for in his work, Johns also has his day job overseeing Warner Bros. slate of DC films. Unless the two will have eleven issues of “Doomsday Clock” in the can before the first issue hits, expect plenty of delays over the course of its run.
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