Bart lives a good life. He has a house, wife, kids, and a cute little dog who likes to chew on his shoelaces. His profession's actual reality only shadows the pride he feels in his day-to-day life; it's Bart's last day as a clown, and his family couldn't care less about him. The niche of […]
The wolves are at the gate, and the secrets are in danger, with the people charged with protecting them between a rock and a hard place. This amazing issue does the impossible: taking the brilliance of this already epic series and kicking it up into a wholly unseen and unexpected level. The Order that protects […]
Wow. This innovative, heady, thoughtful issue is unlike any other superhero comic around. A team of five very specific heroes from disparate worlds makes a discovery about the work they do that shakes them all to their foundations, and it is a mind-blower. The facts are these: Four people who were all history-making personalities on […]
Future State: Green Lantern #1 is a book that takes the term "future state" very seriously; things have gone outrageously wrong for the 7,200 members of the intergalactic law enforcement organization. In the very near future, the central power battery that gives the Green Lanterns their light … goes dark. Not for a few minutes, […]
There is a long-honored trope in fiction about "the man on the wall," one charged with the defense of all that matters who has to make impossible choices and do unthinkable things, in S.W.O.R.D. #2, the mutant nation of Krakoa has decided that they want Abigail Brand as that person, heading a complex and potentially […]
One of the challenges with the newly canonical comic books is the need to balance the menace and mastery of Darth Vader against the desire to deepen his sense of loss and, in some ways, justify his failures. Star Wars: Darth Vader #9 is one of the rare ones that perfectly balances the struggle between […]
Shows like The Blacklist or movies like Silence of the Lambs have played with the tropes of "using a monster to catch monsters." Future State: Harley Quinn #1 is a rather clever manipulation of pop culture concepts casts "daddy's little monster" as Red Reddington in a brilliant manipulation of things that only a criminal/psychologist could […]
With a number of wonderful twists and turns to its intricate post-apocalyptic plot, this thrilling opening salvo posits a harrowing question of identity. How good is the message if you're not sure you can trust the messenger? Two hundred and eighty-six years after a nuclear armageddon, a group of young people called Ranger Scouts follow […]
Strap in because it gets very real, very fast in Big Girls #6, closing down the initial story arc and making a big shift for the cast members here. Jason Howard can apparently aptly call himself "writer," "artist," and "genius" after this superb performance. The original status quo was that some pre-adolescent boys would get […]
With an irreverent approach, a team of unlikely extrahuman entities must be quickly assembled to overcome a threat that could wipe out the whole world. With lots of shenanigans, this team is assembled with some kind of agenda hidden from even their members. With a pedigree that likely has as much to do with The Awesomes and […]
An Unkindness of Ravens has stood out from BOOM! Studios recent wave of hit creator-owned series in a big way. In what sometimes feels like a sea of guaranteed hits by the least edgy, most mainstream, already-proven talent, An Unkindness of Ravens stands out as a unique and raw force of pure creativity. With a killer […]
With the power of myth being juggled between existing continuity and new questions, one of the Marvel universe's most enigmatic properties returns to comics in a splashy manner. While Eternals #1 has gorgeous visuals and intriguing "exclusions" offer teases to pull the reader in, unfortunate thematic parallels will inevitably create concerns of similarity. In the "what […]
I Walk With Monsters is about a young girl grappling with a traumatic past by traveling around the country with a man with monstrous abilities. Together, they seek out predators while on another, more pointed mission as well. Written by Paul Cornell, drawn by Sally Cantirino, colored by Dearbhla Kelly, and lettered by AndWorld Design, this is another interesting […]
Much like the worry faced by Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi, this issue posits the idea that the legacy of the Batman is hubris and failure. Much like what happened on the Batwoman TV show, a private security company has essentially supplanted law enforcement in Gotham City, establishing a new status quo that has outlawed masks […]
With a neatly tied up done-in-one, the heroic scion of a problematic property updates the wild west aesthetic with modern sensibilities and some of the wide-eyed wonder of the likes of Stargirl. Unfortunate circumstances lead to equally unfortunate decisions as people's inability to change makes problems through decades and finally find some kind of closure […]
AWA Studios' Upshot imprint has steadily published the most solid lineup of genre comics since it started early last year, but for our money, Bad Mother by crime novelist Christa Faust and veteran artist Mike Deodato Jr. is the publisher's best series to date. And with the 5th and concluding issue, the series ends perfectly. […]
In a creative effort that is both insultingly bad and morbidly humorous, King In Black: Iron Man/Doom #1 is a crossover fueled one-shot that teams up two of the Marvel Universe's brightest minds in one of its stupidest moments. The sky is darkened as the god of symbiotes, a monochromatic and singularly dull entity called […]
Set just before the opening shots of the Cybertronian Civil War, stalwart warrior Ultra Magnus has a laser focus on rescuing his mentor Alpha Trion. Once again, the straight-laced Magnus shows fierce determination in the face of overwhelming odds as he struggles with the unknown. Writer Brandon M. Easton throws everything, including the kitchen sink, […]
In the second issue of this new regulated era, the four Power siblings struggle with the law, getting so much more room to talk than Ms. Marvel, Spider-Man, Nova, or Ironheart got under the exact same circumstances. Along the way, they make a new friend and get some ideas on how to operate within the rules, […]
Crime novelist Christa Faust and artist Mike Deodato Jr. are on a roll with AWA Studio's imprint Upshot. Just as her crime series Bad Mother concludes, her feminist Science Fiction Spaghetti Western begins. Redemption #1 sets the stage for a post-apocalyptic Western where the deadly laconic Clint Eastwood-style gunslinger figure is a tough, mean old […]
