Posted December 4, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Ultimate X-Men: Hellfire and Brimstone, Mark Millar, Adam Kubert, Kaare Andrews
Isn’t Beast supposed to be really intelligent? I mean, I get that he feels isolated and stuff, but — argh, when a plot depends on someone being a total idiot, and on Professor Xavier not noticing what the hell’s going on with that even though he’s a telepath and we know from volume two that he wiped Bobby Drake and his girlfriend’s mind because they were a security risk?
Nope, back to two stars goes this series. It doesn’t help that the tension between Wolverine and Cyclops is just eyeroll worthy. More macho than thou and so on, fighting over Jean Grey, who… makes it pretty damn clear she loves Cyclops and was always interested in him. (Which does have some cute bits in this volume, actually, and it does help Cyclops unbend a little.)
The Jean Grey/Phoenix plotline seems a bit thrown away, considering that I know it’s a Big Thing in other versions of the X-Men. I assume it’ll recur in later volumes or something, but I don’t think I’m going to read any more of Ultimate X-Men now I’ve finished the volumes I had. Which is a shame, since Kitty Pryde just got introduced, and I did enjoy her in Ultimate Spider-man, but… this doesn’t have the same feel at all. It probably doesn’t help that it’s a team book, so there’s less time to focus on a particular character.
Rating: 2/5
Tags: book reviews, books, comics, Marvel
Posted November 26, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Ultimate X-Men: World Tour, Mark Millar, Adam Kubert, Chris Bachalo
This is an improvement on the two previous volumes, where I actually got somewhat more involved in the story. Not so much Colossus’ story, which kind of seemed out of the blue to me — he seemed pretty engaged with the X-Men and Xavier’s plan, and suddenly he… wants to go off and have a normal life, and he’s not sure about the goals of the X-Men?
But the story with Xavier’s son has genuine feeling and character development, mostly for Xavier. It takes him being the wise mentor to being a guy who can really fuck up on his own account, too. I wish he wasn’t quite so all-knowing at times, but I guess that’s the problem with your character being a telepath.
I’m not so sure about the Gambit storyline; I recall enjoying the character in an animated series or something, but how he’s supposed to be getting by in a world that hates mutants while so blatantly displaying his abilities, I don’t know. And I know the whole Cajun background is an important part of Gambit, but man, is his dialogue ever difficult to parse. That whole section isn’t much connected to the rest of the book, either…
Still, more enjoyable than the first two volumes, I think.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, comics, Marvel
Posted November 21, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
X-Men: Return to Weapon X, Mark Millar, Adam Kubert
I am still not sold on this — and Sabretooth is just a Wolverine knock-off, so I don’t think there’s a single scrap of tension in the scenes with him. Actually, in general the blurbs on the backs of these don’t quite seem to match the reality. Logan doesn’t “go it alone against the shadow-ops organisation that transformed him into one of the world’s most lethal killing machines”, and Sabretooth is not “a predator every bit [Wolverine’s] equal”.
I remember liking Rogue in some TV series or other, but there’s not much to get hold of here. And ugh, that phonetic accent. But Nightcrawler’s kind of cool.
So yeah, still not sold on this, and will someone tell the artist that breasts just don’t look like that? Like, they’re not shiny globes with one point of attachment to the female body. In some of these panels, it just looks like Jean and Ororo are holding pairs of melons in front of them via Jean’s telekinesis.
Rating: 2/5
Tags: book reviews, books, comics, Marvel
Posted November 16, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Ultimate X-Men: The Tomorrow People, Mark Millar, Adam Kubert
After enjoying the Ultimate Spider-man books, I was pretty hopeful about Ultimate X-Men — especially since I remember enjoying the appearances of the various X-Men in the Spider-man comics. I enjoyed X-Men cartoons a lot as a kid, and it seems to me a shame that — as with Batman and Superman, actually — I haven’t particularly enjoyed the comics. Unfortunately, The Tomorrow People didn’t change that much.
It might not help that it’s a team book, so we don’t see one individual character for long, and it definitely doesn’t help that they’re teenagers and that Scott Summers accordingly has a tantrum. A tantrum that has entirely predictable results, of course. Meanwhile, Wolverine switches sides, more or less for no apparent reason. Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch do so as well, with comparatively little background. And Magneto is entirely too easy to take down — obviously this isn’t going to be the last the X-Men see of him in this series, because it’s Magneto, but.
It felt like a lot of flash and not much bang, really. I own three more volumes, so I will read them. After that… I don’t know. Not on the strength of this volume.
Rating: 2/5
Tags: book reviews, books, comics
Posted October 15, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Saga: Volume Six, Fiona Staples, Brian K. Vaughan
As always, the art is gorgeous: I don’t think I could stand to see anyone else illustrate these books. Fiona Staples has everything just right: the expressions, the sense of movement, composition of the panels and pages… Sometimes she can make me laugh by just illustrating the perfect expression or moment.
This volume is as enjoyable as the rest, and it has big emotional payoff — finally, Marko, Alana and Hazel are reunited, Klara has found a place in the world, Hazel’s old enough to start doing some saving of herself instead of just waiting for her parents… There’s some aspects which felt more like filler, like the journalists and the Will’s weird drug-addicted, Lying Cat-less life, and there are a couple of new characters who we might see quite a bit more of, but who for now don’t carry much weight. But mostly, it was a hugely satisfying volume for me, and I can’t wait for more. Particularly with that last scene…
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, comics
Posted October 9, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments
Saga Volume 5, Brian K. Vaughan, Fiona Staples
If you’re a fan of Saga already, then this is probably as much up your street as the other volumes — funny, wise, gross, heartbreaking, and beautifully drawn. To my mind, it suffers somewhat because Marko and Alana aren’t together, and Marko’s storyline here seems to mostly be about moving him from A to B so he’s in the right place at the right time (and in the right frame of mind). I’m not a huge fan of the Will’s storyline, usually, but I do enjoy Sophie and the Brand’s interactions — even if the whole storyline about trying to cure the Will is a bit meh, given I couldn’t care less.
It’s not the strongest volume, I think, but I did enjoy Klara’s badassness, and as usual it’s gorgeous. And I’m very relieved that it doesn’t linger over the story too much, instead jumping ahead when the narrative is ready.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, comics, SF/F
Posted October 2, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Captain Marvel and the Carol Corps, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Kelly Thompson, David Lopez, Laura Braga
This is… actually quite a disappointing volume. I mean, okay, the Banshees (or Carol Corps) are pretty badass, of course, but it’s a tie-in to Secret Wars? I think? And it’s really not clear what the background is. I don’t read most event comics, and when I do it’s just for the characters I love and follow. Sometimes a skilled writer manages to keep things comprehensible, and sometimes not — for a Captain Marvel fan, most of this makes no sense… and has no impact on the character. It’s not clear what the significance of any of it is.
To add to that feeling of it being a rip-off, there’s four issues here which are new… and the final issue is Captain Marvel #17, which I already own, in context, in the proper TPB. Here it’s completely random and doesn’t continue or add to the story of the Carol Corps arc at all. Worse, it’s the Felipe Andrade art — so it looks (to me anyway) absolutely terrible.
I do love Kelly Sue’s take on Captain Marvel in general, but… skip this one.
Rating: 1/5
Tags: book reviews, books, comics, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Marvel
Posted September 4, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Saga volume 4, Brian K. Vaughan, Fiona Staples
Volume Four takes a little timeskip to move the story on, and it’s a wise decision. It drops us right in the middle of Alana and Marko’s difficulties with Hazel as a toddler, and with balancing their lives between caring for her and working, and scraping some time for each other. And it’s kind of awesome how not fantastical those aspects of Saga are — the way Marko and Alana mess up and hurt each other, and don’t manage to do the right or best thing, despite their love for each other and for Hazel.
The other storylines of Prince Robot, Gwendolyn and even the gay reporters are also touched on, but they felt more throwaway when compared to the messing up of Marko and Alana. And, to be fair, the way other people participate in messing them up — looking at you, dancing teacher lady and high-as-a-kite tree lady.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, comics, SF/F
Posted August 28, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Batgirl: A Knight Alone, Kelley Puckett, Damion Scott, Robert Campanella, Coy Turnbull, Dan Davis
I found this second volume of Cassandra Cain as Batgirl a lot easier to digest, somehow, than the first one. Unfortunately for the character concept, it probably helps that she’s now able to express herself in words and understand the words of people around her. There were still some issues for me in understanding the backstory — for example, wtf is Batman’s relationship to the assassin who trained Cassandra? Why did he ever train under an assassin himself? Also, a couple of aspects were skimmed over — like the training Cassandra received from Lady Shiva.
Sometimes, reading this, I felt like the panels were badly ordered; sometimes it seemed to make more sense to read the page right to left. Which is fine, but it’s really not the convention in Western comics, so it throws me every time. Or maybe it’s just experimentation with layout — either way, it didn’t work very well for me, alas. The whole train of events feels unhinged sometimes. I just can’t see how we get from A to B, how the stories relate to each other. It feels like a much less defined arc of events.
Again, I’m still not a great fan of the art, though some of the expressions are great. I’m a little leery of the attention given to highlighting Cassandra’s breasts and butt; come on, she’s practically a kid, let’s maybe not sexualise her.
Still, Oracle continues to play a part, Cassandra proves her worth, and we see her being desperate to do justice. It’s a solid volume, and if I used half-stars, I’d give it 3.5 to show that it improved from the first volume for me.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, comics, DC
Posted August 27, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Spider-Gwen: Greater Power, Jason Latour, Robbi Rodriguez, Chris Visions
The second volume of Spider-Gwen takes us further into the different reality of Earth-65 — a world where Matt Murdock is a bad guy, and Tony Stark sells a lot of coffee via his company “Starkbucks”. Oh, and where Gwen Stacy was bitten by the radioactive spider, and Peter Parker was the Lizard. It’s complicated and I think that to know all the little subverted and tweaked bits unique to this universe, you’d need to be a fan of Marvel bigtime. But a basic knowledge of Spider-man canon (like who the Green Goblin is) will suffice.
This volume has a lot less of Gwen’s ordinary life (there’s references to her roommates and the Mary Janes, but nothing major), and follows her as she struggles — still — with the death of Peter Parker and the responsibility that puts on her. Meanwhile, her dad struggles with the right thing to do, Matt Murdock’s up to something, and Captain America is on the case.
Which, yeah, I don’t know if this version of Cap appears elsewhere, but I hope she does. Captain Samantha Wilson is badass and awesome. Jessica Drew, of the main timeline, also makes an appearance for a couple of scenes that made me giggle, but Cap was really the highlight of the TPB for me.
Spider-Gwen is fun and though I’m not always a fan of the art, it generally looks good. I’m in for future volumes, definitely.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, comics
