The Definitive Collection of Pre-release Avengers Footage

In the past, there have been moments in Geek Culture that saw the world take notice and stand in awe. In terms of pure excitement, the release of The Phantom Menace was one. So was The Death of Superman, which got unprecedented media coverage. The inclusion of Watchmen into Time’s list of 100 best novels still makes us proud. More recently, the Christopher Nolan Batman movies have revolutionized the way Hollywood looks at Superheroes.

Come April, it appears we have potentially another such moment in our hands.

Unless you’ve been off-planet for the last half decade or so, you are aware of the upcoming The Avengers film, which hits Indian Theatres on the 27^th of April, as a culmination of the four movies Marvel Studios has released so far.

Listed here is most of the pre-release footage from and related to the film currently available, for your nerdgasmic viewing pleasure.

Review: RAVANYAN #4

The Ramayan is probably the first Indianized/desi superhero/superhuman story we listen to or read in the early stages of our lives, a story which instantly burns a long lasting circuit in the cache-memory part of our brains. I guess the stellar significance of The Ramayan can be felt by the fact that most of us develop the sense and the ideology of right and wrong, good and evil, kind and cruel via The Ramayan and throughout our lives we keep referring to these ideologies and changing them according to our needs and demands, either consciously or subconsciously.

Now why I mention this very trivial information is to emphasize the level of creativity and innovation that the people at Holy Cow have used while concocting RAVANAYAN. I mean they have taken probably the most popular Indian reading material and completely changed the position of the pieces to create an entirely new and extravagant viewpoint. Truly Holy Cow has shown us the other side of the coin. And with chapters 5 and 6, Ravanayan has reached a different level of awesomeness altogether - both in terms of writing as well as the artwork.

Week-In-Review: Army of Darkness #2 / Batman #7 / Kick Ass 2 #7 / Rebel Blood #1

Army of Darkness #2 (Dynamite)

Story : Elliot R. Serrano

Art : Marat Mychaels

(Reviewed by Akshay Dhar)

He's baaaaack!!!

Sweet!

For those who haven't guessed already, Ash Williams a.k.a. the most hard-a** demonite killer and one of the most awesome movie characters of all time finally makes his entrance into the story in this new issue – and what an entrance it is indeed!

We saw the new 'chosen one' last issue getting herself a massive overdose of what she can expect in that role and then some more and still more to follow. That continues this issue as she is looking for the man himself, but thankfully that takes a backseat/cameo sort of role as we get to see the character made famous by the legendary Bruce Campbell (under Sam Raimi's direction...) drive right into our minds again, boom-stick in hand and a whoooole mess of wicked new weaponry to play with and give company to the trusty old chainsaw!

Week-In-Review: Crossed - Wish You Where Here / Deadpool #52 / George R.R Martins A Game of Thrones #4 / The Jungle Book #1

Crossed - Wish You Where Here #1+2 (Avatar)

Story : Simon Spurrier

Art : Javier Barreno

(Reviewed by Akshay Dhar)

It's not conventional to review a web-comic in a new releases list like this one, but I intend to make an exception for this one.

BE WARNED: This series is not for the faint of heart, it's meant for MATURE/ADULT readers and could be scarring to your psyche if horror and the unthinkable are not your cup of tea!

Crossed has been, since its terrifying and disturbing beginning, one of the most gruesome, brutal and in-your-face horror comics I've ever seen and every successive mini-series in the franchise has taken that first step by super-scribe Garth Ennis to heart and built fresh nightmares on top. Soon we have a new mini-series coming out title Badlands by a returning Ennis as we bid David Lapham – who has been helming this franchise for a while now – a thankful goodbye, but in the meantime this FREE web-series was a nice little surprise that almost slipped under the radar.

Top Ten Uncollected runs from DC Comics, Part 2 - 5 to 1

Hello and welcome back to the concluding edition of Top Ten Uncollected runs at DC Comics. You can find my choices from 10 to 6 here. Now on to the final five:
 

5. Supergirl by Peter David and various

Some time after Supergirl (Matrix) was introduced, writer Peter David started defining the blank slate of emotions Matrix had been. Roger Stern wrote her as Luthor’s love interest (for good reason, as in the pocket universe she came from, she was Lana Lang who was in love with that universe’s Lex Luthor) until they had a falling out. Peter David shows her gaining, or rather absorbing the personality, of Linda Lee Danvers (actually the secret identity Supergirl operated under in the pre Crisis on Infinite Earths days). In this series, before Supergirl absorbed Linda, she was a good girl who did bad things, and got corrupted by the dark side, which eventually led to her death, until Supergirl/Matrix found her.

Bambi and her Pink Gun

A page from out of pulp for a change.

I came across this manga recently and cursed the manifold fates that had kept me away from a gem such as this for so long. Bambi and her Pink Gun is almost not a manga. The artwork is distinctly un-manga-like and shifts closer to the Paul Pope style, the story is bizarre and erratic. Few explanations and fewer conclusions. But there is a chase to the manga, a pace inherent within these pages that drives along at breakneck speeds.

Crashing from one adventure straight through onward into the next, Bambi is a sixteen year old girl with devastating instincts and a bad attitude. She is out on a mission see, and no one is getting in the way.

New X-News: Brian Wood gets 2 X-titles!

Greetings O ye geeks a-gathering!

I've got big news and even bigger laughs in store for you today!

As many of you know, it was recently announced that Marvel superstar writer and unquestionable (Trivial Trivia: thats the only word in english that has every single vowel in it!) master of the Avengers line of comics, Brian Michael Bendis, would be wrapping up his time with Marvels main superhero team franchise and be taking on some X-Men. Well I'll just say that on hearing it I was both elated and scared because I like the guy but Marvel has a tendency to give him EVERYTHING to write and that kills it because he's stretched too thin.

BUT now more news has come and given me a big sigh of relief for starters and a big whoop of joy to follow!

 You see at the recent WonderCon that was held, It was announced by the House Of Ideas (as Marvel like to call themselves) at their Next Big Thing panel that star scribe Brian Wood would (ok, can't help that, sorry) be taking the reins on

Week-In-Review: Avengers Assemble #1 / Daken: Dark Wolverine #22 / The Ninjettes #2 / Saucer Country #1 / Scarlet Spider #3

Well folks, here's the last set of new issue reviews for this week - hope you enjoy them! As always, if there's any series you want to know about or see reviewed, just drop us a line.
Till next week, happy readings!

Avengers Assemble #1 (Marvel)

Story : Brian Michael Bendis

Art : Mark Bagley, Danny Miki

(Reviewed by Anant Sagar)

AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!!!

I've always wanted to say that, along with a whole bunch of other things.

So anyway, to the point. Avengers Assemble #1. Excellent read. Basically meant to be an easy-to-access series with the team from the upcoming movie meant to serve as accessible to less regular readers.

THE GOOD:

The story is interesting. I like the Avengers cast seen here. I enjoyed the villains that they have. The Zodiac are an interesting concept explored as super-humans, each named after a sigh of the zodiac. So far we see two - one water elemental (probably Pisces) and Taurus. Action sequences are in abundance in this issue, something I really enjoyed, especially since they are really well drawn.

THE BAD:

Week-In-Review: Adventure Time #2 / Conan The Barbarian #2 / Saga #1 / X-23#21

Adventure Time #2 (BOOM! Studios)

Story: Ryan North + Lucy Knisley and Zac Gorman (backup stories)

Art: Shelli Paroline and Braden Lamb

(Review by: Rijul Raut)

Hoo boy. Let me start off by saying that Adventure Time is one of my favourites of all cartoon TV shows, nay, of all TV shows. Its mixture of bizarre action, surreal humour and the best friends anywhere, ever, makes me watch this show for hours and hours. So when I heard that it was getting a tie-in comic, I was ecstatic. I had extremely high expectations of this comic, and boy, does it deliver. Some pressing issues prevented me from reading the first issue, and so I must bring before you a review of Adventure Time #2.

The main story continues on from the first issue, with the Lich having captured Finn, Jake, Dessert Princess and Ice King inside a mysterious bag. Marceline, Bubblegum Princess and Lumpy Space Princess (boy, this comic has a LOT of royalty. Marceline's a vampire queen) are also caught during the events of this comic, and the plot deals with them trying to find their way out. There are tiny, three-panel mini-comics on the bottom of some pages, and they are hilarious. My favourite moment has to be the Ice King's pet penguin Gunter reading Ice King-penned fan-fiction.

Meeting Maniacs: Yogesh Chandekar and Saumin Patel (a.k.a masterminds of The Jungfrao Encounter!) + Preview Artwork!

Vinod... Agent Vinod.

We have a very special treat for you today everyone!

A one-on-one session with the brilliant creative team behind the awesome new The Jungfrau Encounter: An Agent Vinod Graphic Novel, which is a killer idea in that it does not tie-in directly to the movie but is an adventure all its own – a potential new side to franchising a character? We think it could be, so along with the interview we were lucky enough to get some brilliant art samples from the book.

(Yogesh Chandekar is the writer who cooked up this mad adventure and Saumin Patel is the brilliant artist who has so vividly brought it to life!)

1. Before we dive into the big comic news for which we're here today – would you like to tell us a little bit about yourself and how you found yourself working in graphic story-telling and comics?

Yogesh Chandekar (Y.C) : I’m an ex-advertising professional who simply got bored and left the field in 2007 to join Virgin Comics. Six months later, Virgin shut shop abruptly leaving me without a job. I had no intention of going back to advertising, so I did some freelance writing for a

Grim and gritty in old Gotham (Series in Review: All-Star Western)

Welcome back to another edition folks, hope you enjoy what's on the menu.

Click for high-res!

Today we have a special series-in-review of one of the most acclaimed ongoing series to come out of DC comics recent reboot – one that in my opinion has not gotten the exposure it deserves, not by a long shot.

I refer of course to the sheer awesomeness that is All-Star Western. Penned by the suitably all-star team of Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti who have been the minds behind the long-running series starring Jonah Hex that came to a stop only recently in light of the reboot of the whole DC line, both being highly respected and much-loved among fans for their consistently good story-telling. Joining them on art duties we have the exceedingly talented Moritat whom some of you will remember from the somewhat short-lived series The Spirit which was part of DC's “First Wave” line-up that tried to bring old classics like it and Doc Savage to new life.

In the past, Hex has always been a loner as a character and except for now and again, has largely stuck to more simply told tales and few team-ups as such. He's had series at DC and Vertigo both, travelled to a dystopic future, fought all manner of magical evils and monsters, been a down and gritty gun-slinger, a brutal bounty hunter but always a tough-as-nails man of his word – someone you don't want to get on the bad side of if it can be helped.

Week-In-Review : Action Comics #7 / Age Of Apocalypse #1 / Avengers : The Children’s Crusade #9 / The Manhattan Projects #1

Another day, another lot of reviews people!

This has been a big week and so we had not only a bunch of review yesterday, we've got some more today too – and today we stick to some fan-favourites for you as well as a promising new-comer. So dive in and enjoy folks!

Action Comics #7 (DC)

Story: Grant Morrison / Sholly Fisch (backup)

Art: Rags Morales / Brad Walker (backup)

(Review by Akshay Dhar)

This series started off with a bang and really made me care about reading a purely Superman story again, for the first time in years – seven issues in and that joy and simple pleasure when reading this latest instalment remain just as strong. Morales continues his streak of excellent artwork on pretty much every single page here, his faces, the layouts and the flow through the comic is very beautifully put together and really makes it all the more enjoyable – plus the colouring choice adds to the slightly more retro feel of it all which works great.

Quick recap – Superman has been shoving back and forth with the law, the army (and a predictably anti-alien and super-egotistical Lex Luthor) and pushing to be a hero of the people. He's had good days, bad days and some in between, but so far so good. Ok, now on to this issue.

The last issue ended with a manhattan-like island part of Metropolis called 'New Troy' being simply vanishing in front of everyone's eyes as Superman, General Lane (Lois' father and somewhat a DC version of 'Thunderbolt' Ross, the Hulk's one-time nemesis), Steel (a.k.a John Henry Irons) and the whole of Metropolis.

Week-In-Review: Fairest #1 / Hell Yeah #1 / Irredeemable #35 / The Avengers Prelude: Fury's Big Week #5

We have four awesome new titles for you here folks, with four more to follow tomorrow! (It's been a huge week!) So no wasting time - let's get to it!

Fairest #1 (Vertigo)

Story : Bill Willingham

Art : Phil Jiminez, Andy Lanning (Inks) and Andrew Dalhousie (colors)

(Reviewed by: Anubhav DasGupta)

Fables, in my opinion, is one of the best ongoing comic books at the moment. While I haven’t loved each and every issue, there hasn’t been one that I’ve hated even a little. Bill Willingham has created a universe too charming and wonderful and sexy to be disliked by anyone. Fairest is a spinoff of Fables, but I don’t think you need to be a regular reader of Fables to enjoy the issue that I’m reviewing. One issue in, Fairest has got nothing to do with the current story arc in Fables, and it’s amazingly enjoyable.

Top Ten Uncollected runs from DC Comics, Part 1 - 10 to 6

Hello and welcome back to another post by yours truly after a long gap.

With everything DCnU right now and the new 52 being the buzzword for months, it's time I think, to look to past runs that have been acclaimed as well as underrated - but largely uncollected or partly collected. Sadly, most trades of partially collected runs are also out of print. These runs were done at a time when a collection of back issues was rare unless alarmingly popular (Batman: A Death in The Family, Death of Superman, Green Lantern/Green Arrow). The trend of collecting back issues with any sort of regularity started just in the early 2000s, with Superman: Godfall and Batman: Hush, and for the most part, all the stories after these have been collected, albeit with a few exceptions. So the fault of these issues or the creative teams was, that they were just before their time. I have avoided citing multiple runs of the same character/title for the most part, mentioning other memorable runs under honourable mentions. Let's start with #10 to 6:

10. Green Lantern by Ron Marz, Darryl Banks and Romeo Tanghal

Fans were in a killer frenzy when DC decided that the era of Hal Jordan had passed. Then current script writer Gerard Jones turned in a last Hal Jordan script, which was rejected, and was drastically different compared to what finally saw print, by new series writer Ron Marz. Essentially, Ron Marz turned Hal Jordan into a psychopath who tried to use the ring's power to change the past, and lay waste the whole corps, leaving behind only Ganthet who delivered the ring to a young Kyle Rayner. And if you think this was a global event, it spanned only three issues.....which had more content than the recent War of the Green Lanterns (just sayin'). Then began the era of Kyle Rayner. The fall of Hal Jordon took place a little before 1994...

AvX in Waiting : 10 X-Men To Watch

Welcome back everyone!
We hope you're all looking forward to some happy weekend relaxing and revitalising after an enjoyable Holi holiday!

To give you some food for thought and some more insight as the week comes to a close, we bring you this second installment of our series of articles to lay some groundwork before AvX (a.k.a. Avengers versus X-Men) kicks off in a few weeks - we figured you don't have to do any needless homework on all this if we do it for you!

With that in mind, we did a rundown on The Avengers last week and this week that's continued with everyone's favourite Mutants:

10) Magneto

If you haven’t been following the X-Men books over the past few years, what you need to know is that not only is the allegedly former mutant terrorist a part of the X-Men, but a very important factor in the merry mutants’ leadership equation. Expect Magneto to take the offensive against the Avengers in a big way.

9) Angel

After his fall during The Dark Angel Saga in the pages of Uncanny X-Force, Warren Worthington III is now a clean slate with no memories of his past. Also, he appears to have gained the ability to bring people (and puppies!) back to life. Does that remind you of a cosmic force famous for corrupting a founding X-(Wo)man? Cause it should.

Web-comics: The Meek

Cover sampler for viewing pleasure

Today’s featured webcomic has a tad bit of a darker shade to it– blood is shed, the world is at stake, children have turned smugglers and a naked green-haired girl is relying on a lost man to find the center of it all.

Presenting ‘The Meek’ by Der-Shing Helmer, (popularly known as ‘alexds1’ on the internet) - a rather well known graphic novel, free for everyone to read on www.meekcomic.com, and an inspiring piece of work that is currently running in its 4^th chapter. The series as a whole was launched in 2009 and the creator has stated it will be posted online until it concludes.

Some wicked concept art!

Putting it simply, The Meek is about a young girl on a path to save the world. Angora is a determined little creature with moss-green hair who must find ‘the center’ before all of humanity is crushed in a war of the spirits.

The plot is split into three parts – three separate events taking place at the same time, each set of which is addressed in a different volume.

DCAnimatedU Movie Review - Justice League: Doom

Director - Lauren Montgomery  

Writer - Dwayne McDuffie

Featuring the voice talents of - Kevin Conroy, Tim Daly, Nathan Fillion and others. 

Based on - Justice League: Tower of Babel by Mark Waid 

"Tower of Babel" is one of the greatest Justice League books ever written. And if you haven’t read it yet, take a step back and punch yourself in the face. 

You deserve it. Now go buy it and read it. 

Now, Justice League:Doom takes quite a few liberties with its source material. It isn’t just a Batman story anymore. And there’s more than just one villain. 

Is it a good movie? Of course it is. It’s a DC animated film. I’ll be damned if they ever go wrong. 

But how is it compared to the rest of the DC animated films? Not that great. I’d place it somewhere between Superman/Batman : Apocalypse and Justice League : Crisis On Two Earths. Heck, this is director Lauren Montgomery’s worst DC animated film yet. But it is good. It’s helluva lot of fun and very enjoyable.

Week-In-Review: G.I Joe: Annual #1 / Lord of the Jungle #2 / No More Heroes #1 / Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Donatello

Welcome folks, to another new week and another load of new comics!! Today we have something special for you - turns out this week we are covering some seriously old school favourites, all in ONE POST! Is this a great week or what?!
And in addition, we have a new addict who is trying his hand at this - Anant Sagar - who is joining us for this weeks 0-day reviewing! Now, without any further drama, lets get to work shall we?
 

G.I Joe: A real American hero - Annual #1 (IDW Publishing)

Story: Larry Hama

Art: Ron Frenz, Ron Wagner, Herb Trimpe, Sal Buscema

(Review by Anant Sagar) 
So, I just finished reading this and I’ve got to say I was quite happy with it. Granted it has its ups and downs, but for the most of it, it was fun. So let’s get down to it shall we?

The Good:

It had the same feel as the old animated TV show that I know, which was a good thing for me, because I really loved that show. The character art has the classic feel to it which kept me happy and I got to see some of my favourite characters like Gung-Ho, Scarlett, Zartan and the Dreadnoks!!

The Bad:

I didn’t really enjoy the plot. It’s not like it was terrible, but it wasn’t all that amazing. I mean a cobra sleeper agent who went off the grid, decides to come back and blow stuff up because he got fired and thinks immigrants in the United States are a curse and they should all be killed. Sorry, but that doesn’t really do much for me.

So the basic plot was disappointing but its saving grace was the dialogue.

Now my favourite part of this issue, THE FUNNY:

AvX in Waiting : Ten Avengers to Watch out for

With some time yet to pass for Marvel’s latest much-awaited summer event – Avengers vs. X-Men – we here at Comic Addicts realised that now would be a good time to start off with our speculations and expectations from the event in the form of a series of articles.

Today, we’re gonna talk about those in the ranks of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes who, in this writer’s humble opinion, should play some pretty big roles.

10) Beast

As of right now, Beast seems pretty likely to stay on team Avengers, especially considering all his disagreements with Scott Summers over the last few years over the direction of the latter’s leadership of the mutants. However, what makes his position in AvX interesting is the likelihood of at least some fraction of the Jean Grey Institute faculty siding with their fellow mutants, as well as his recent interaction with the now anti-Avengers Wonder Man.

THE COMIC CON HANGOVER

By ObiWayneK

It has been exactly been 23 hours: 34 minutes: 42 seconds since The 2nd Annual Indian Comics Convention (aka Comic Con Delhi) got over and even after such a span most of my body parts hurt, my head is spinning a little, there is some sort of a pain culminating in a void-like feeling in my stomach (probably because of all the momos I had) and the only thoughts that fill up my mind are my memories from the past 3 days. 
I am actually having a classic comic con hangover. 
But despite being in such a physical and mental state I can hardly wait to start digging into all the reading material that I have procured from the convention, start working on my costume/get up for the next convention and conjure dreams about all the beautiful female cosplayers I saw and interacted with. (oops did I just mention that!!?)

The comic con may have its dilapidated definitions which are coined by corporate tools and capitalists, but for us, the comic addicts and comic book geeks, the comic con is not just a platform for comic book releases and a forum for us fans to meet, but an event symbolizing a unique amalgam of perseverance, passion, patience and resilience. So how did the 2^nd edition (technically the 3^rd) of this almost-sacred gathering exactly pan out?

Well to describe the experience, apprehensions, appreciation and complains in a generic and regular paragraph would be an absolute blasphemy and a crime on my part. 
Thus we should proceed to the 3C categorical analysis of The 2nd Annual Indian Comics Convention and its offerings.