Reviews - Review - FA Online

Warlord of Mars – Dejah Thoris 1 & 2

Okay, admittedly I’m a stranger to the twilight world of the heterosexual, but honestly, guys –what is going on with these covers? The variants on the two issues so far have run a gamut from ‘That’s a bit cheesy’ to ‘Sweet Zombie Jesus, Get It Away From Me!’.

Justice League of America 80-Page Giant 2011

I love the JLA: as a concept, in that I love plenty of past issues, and in that I love many of the mainstays of the team. I always want a reason to read it, and rarely regret it. But oh my god this is fucking dreadful.

Caligula 1

Oh look: someone’s been watching HBO’s Spartacus and has decided to rip it off. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. There’s a long tradition of comics inspired by popular TV series and films, and some of the results have been as good or have exceeded the standards set by their source of inspiration. This is one of the better ones.

Herc 1

This is a good first issue, and it does pretty much everything you want a fresh start to do. We get an opening fight scene, making clear that Hercules is now mortal and vulnerable, but still strong and with an array of ancient magical weapons. We get what looks like a new supporting cast, which also gives him a job and a place to live. We get mysterious voices of worship, suggesting that his demigodhood is not entirely dispensed with (and being a superhero comic, we can have no doubt that it will be returned sooner or later). Finally, we get some more action, leading to confrontation with the (or a?) Hobgoblin, who is working for the Kingpin.

Nonplayer 1

This appealed because the drawing looked so lovely – the trailed comparison was Moebius, and I see that, but it reminded me a little more of Miyazaki on Nausicaa. These comparisons do of course overrate it some, but many of the panels are beautiful, there are a few very good faces, and the creature, costume and scenery designs are strong.

Fear Itself 1 & The Home Front 1

Three comics in, and I am very irritated by this Fear Itself event. The prologue set up the Red Skull’s daughter, Sin, tracking some mighty weapon. In FI1 she gets it, and it’s like Don Blake getting Mjolnir: she becomes some ancient scary Asgardian god (of fear, I suppose). Odin immediately runs away, taking all of his Asgardians with him. Oh, and Sin meets some old guy, an alternate or evil Odin type by the look of it, and summons something or other. This is a double-length issue, so 66 or whatever pages in, and we still don’t actually know what is going on, but just keep getting “OMG Odin is scared and look the Watcher is hanging around so just imagine how big and exciting this is!!!!” stuff thrown at us.

Essential Captain America 6

My god the slump in standards some way into this is painful. I’m not sure I can think of another Essential volume where it’s so precipitous.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight books 6 & 7

There were opportunities and difficulties in continuing Buffy as a comic series, and there are all kinds of interesting effects both from those and from putting a TV writer in charge of something that used to be a TV show.

Cyclops 1

This suffers the same fault as most other recent one-shots, in that it is utterly inessential, not being a notable or pivotal moment in Cyclops’ life, but what it achieves that the others don’t is being thoroughly entertaining, a virtue you don’t find in so many Marvel comics these days.

The Dingbat Family (The Family Upstairs)

Before Krazy Kat there was The Dingbat Family. It was, in fact, the comic strip that gave birth to Krazy, who literally emerged from the margins of the strip to occupy his/her own series. Thanks to Fantagraphics, the Krazy Kat strips are readily available, but its progenitor is only very occasionally reprinted. That makes the appearance of this collection very welcome.