The phenomenal Who is Jake Ellis? has finally been collected. If you missed it while it was coming out in single issues, it’s time to rectify that grievous mistake. The first 6 pages of Nathan Edmondson and Tonči Zonjić’s spy thriller might be the best opening sequence of the entire year. There’s some hyperbole mixed into that sentence, but not enough to make me feel uncomfortable opening with it. Jon Moore is on the deck of a cruise ship off the coast of Barcelona, presumably cutting a deal with some shady criminal types. The proceedings quickly go south as Moore…
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“As I step into the cage… I hear my opponent’s family booing me. I look forward to ruining their night.” That line perfectly sets the tone before the fists and knees start flying in this fantastic debut issue from writer Blair Butler, who many will know from Attack of the Show’s Fresh Ink segments. To sum it up, Heart #1 is the tale of Oren “Rooster” Redmond, a tatted up, fanged MMA newbie. Readers are thrown straight into the octagon with Rooster and get a healthy dose of backstory while they’re at it. Butler’s script is sparse and simple, and…
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Cole Cash is having a really bad day. He’s hearing voices in his head while being pursued by an enemy only he can see and he’s got no one to turn to. That’s rough, buddy. Just for some transparency, I’m going to say up front that I have almost no history with the Wildstorm characters other than reading Ed Brubaker and Michael Lark’s magnificent Sleeper. That being said, I’ve always liked the idea of some of the characters and have been looking for a fun place to dip my toe in. Luckily,  the new 52 is letting me do just…
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Secrets can really mess things up, you know? They can also make a story that much more fun. Superboy #1 is a massive web of people keeping secrets from each other. Definitely not a bad way to start off a book chock full of crazy big sci-fi ideas. This issue is only 20 pages long, but Scott Lobdell and RB Silva have crammed in enough ideas to fill out at least the first arc of your average sci-fi comic. They even do this while playing in the well-worm field of the “clone stuck in a tube” story. Yes, when I…
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All Jason Blood and Madame Xanadu wanted was a drink. A nice, quiet drink. Apparently that’s just too much to ask in the hamlet known as Little Spring. Demon Knights is one of the easiest sells of the New 52 for me. You’re telling me the guy who wrote Captain Britain and MI:13 gets to play around with The Demon in the Dark Ages and act like I’m not going to want to pick that up? Fine, but you’re crazy. Paul Cornell is at his finest when he’s playing with the zany and it’s here with bells on this time…
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Vegan. Family Man. Stunt Man. Actor. Animal Lover. Superhero. Buddy Baker is a busy man. Right off the bat (no pun intended) writer Jeff Lemire tells readers everything they need to know about Animal Man with a quick excerpt from a recently published interview with the titular hero. Turning the page to see Buddy reading that same interview at his kitchen table and discussing it with his wife felt like a nice little nod to this title’s fourth wall breaking, metafictional past. From that point on, this book just keeps moving and getting better. I’ve been a fan of Lemire’s…
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Apparently, it’s really hard to kill a Xombi. I didn’t know this until a few weeks ago when I picked up the first three issues of DC’s Xombi from my local comic shop after I saw Frazer Irving’s name on the covers (albeit misspelled on the first one.) Sadly, it looks like DC’s reboot is what it takes to finally make a Xombi take a dirt nap. Xombi is a relaunch of a Milestone book that’s been handled incredibly well by John Rozum and Frazer Irving. Only four issues of the book have hit the stands so far, and that’s been enough…
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Six kids are forced to hang out in the basement while their boring parents conduct some boring business up in their boring study every year. They’ve finally had enough, so they decide to go see what the hell their parents get up to when they’re secreted away. No one is expecting to find their parents killing a hooker and stuffing her in a trunk while wearing super villain costumes. No one. Everyone who reads comics has got their first, and Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona’s Runaways was mine. Sure, I had dabbled in comics as a kid. I even…
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In a break from our usual content, Chris stepped out to enjoy Free Comic Book Day at his local comic store, and has put together this personal account of his day. Nothing drags me out of bed early in the morning quite like the promise of free comics. For some reason, I even shaved. Best foot forward and all that. I moseyed on down to the bus stop with two of my friends to catch a ride to our local comic shop, The Source in St. Paul, Minnesota, for the annual nerd holiday, Free Comic Book Day. It’s a huge…
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Full disclosure: I’m a big baby when it comes to horror movies. Chalk it up to seeing Thriller a little too early and then having my brother lock me in the dark in the basement or some such nonsense like that, but I have almost zero threshold for the scary stuff. This is a problem, thanks to some of my friends being really into the horror adrenaline rush that I’ll never quite understand. Thanks to this, I’ve spent many a night acting like I was watching a movie, crouched under a blanket, or with my hat cocked down ever so…
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