We're back folks! Here's Round 2 of this week's reviewing for your reading pleasure.
Atomic Robo – Real Science Adventures #1 (Red5)
Atomic Robo – Real Science Adventures #1 (Red5)
Story : Brian Clevenger
Art : Ryan Cody, Yuko Oda, Chris
Houghton John Broglia Joshua Ross
(Reviewed by Akshay Dhar)
More Atomic Robo!! Whoohoo!! If there's
a book/comic/character that I love as shamelessly and undoubtedly as
fellow reviewer Anant loves Deadpool, it's Robo – Atomic Robo.
Period.
From the first issue of the first
series this has been one of the most amazing and unique series with
some of the most original, creative and clever writing and this
latest outing raises the bar yet again. Clevenger ups his game by
changing tactics AGAIN. Previously Robo has started in a series of
mini-series with no regard to chronological order (that I've
personally noted anyhow) and reads like an old school
just-having-a-blast comics. This time around however, we have a
series of five short stories here – three are done-in-one style
simple adventures while two are the first part of (unconnected except
through Robo) multi-part stories that will presumably carry on
through the remainder of this series of “Real Science Adventures”.
I'll tackle them in order for you:
1) To Kill A Sparrow – the first part
of a continuing story, don't know when and how it will include Robo,
but for now it seems to follow a pretty bad-ass team of possibly the
worlds deadliest spy and commando as they fight Nazi's during the
Second World War.
2) The Revenge Of Dr. Dinosaur –
Ohymygodthisisawesome!frikkinsweet! ...sorry, I'm just a big fan of
the idiotically brilliant creation that is Dr. Dinosaur. Here we see
his revenge against Robo being wrought against his nemesis, Atomic
Robo, after he blew up the Doc's secret volcano hideout. Travelling
the world (including India!) the evil mastermind brings his evil
plans to life. And it works too! Poor Robo...
3) City Of Skulls – A perfect example
of how Clevenger has made this series as much of a cult favourite as
it is today. Simple and straight-forward, told in just a few pages,
we get an emotional and sad little story as Robo faces an old mistake
of his that he must now rectify.
4) Leaping Metal Dragon – Oh man Oh
man Oh man Oh man!!! I so desperately wish I could tell you more on
this but it'll spoil everything! The second of the Part 1's in this
book, we see Robo making his way around Hong Kong in 1970 and after
much amusement (for us at least!) as he makes his way through the
market streets, we get to the big reveal and new guest star and this
alone makes me want to beat my head on a rock and pass out till #2
releases!
5) Rocket science is two-edged sword –
Short, sweet and decent. Possibly the most ho-hum story of the lot,
it's essentially Robo on a good old fashioned adventure, out stopping
a magic-science wizard who – what else? - wants to take over the
world!
SCORE : 9.7 / 10
Avengers vs. X-Men #0
(Marvel)
Story : Brian Michael Bendis + Jason
Aaron
Art : Frank Cho
(Reviewed by Anant Sagar)
Interesting. Avengers vs X-men. This
prologue gives a nice intro into what the story will be like.
THE GOOD:
The story concept. Avengers vs the
X-men. This is just waiting to become epic. The story of this issue
itself is very interesting. You see the focus on the Scarlet Witch in
the first half and learn some not-so-nice things about her, if you
didn’t know already. The second half focuses on the mutant messiah,
Hope Summers. It’s a good read. The imagination does run a little
wild thinking about what’s going to happen next. This event will be
the wrap-up of Brian Michael Bendis' on the Avengers franchise and
first time writing the Scarlet Witch since he had her decimate the
world's mutant population waaaaay back when.
THE BAD:
While I like how the characters have
been written and I do enjoy that seeds have been planted for people
like me to start imagining wild and crazy things, there is a problem.
The moment I sit down to think logically (which doesn’t happen
often) I wonder if the prologue will effectively turn to the planned
12 issue miniseries. I get this feeling it might be a bit choppy.
THE FUNNY:
M.O.D.O.K, something about that giant
floating head makes me laugh.
The Serpent Society is in the house.
Yes they come back with Cottonmouth and Bush Master and other such
annoying names and powers. Silly snakes.
The cover, it reminds me of a Cable
and Deadpool cover a little.
Giant flying dinosaur head!! :D
Cyclops getting blasted with his own
powers.
P.S: Vision is a douchebag... but I’ll
still give this baby decent marks.
SCORE : 6.5 / 10
Avenging Spider-Man #5
(Marvel)
Story : Zeb Wells
Art : Leinil Francis Yu
(Reviewed by Anubhav Sharma)
When the title was first announced, I
was personally expecting this to be just another team up book with
hardly any long-term implications in the Marvel Universe. While the
first arc with the Red Hulk was fun with plenty of Joe Mad eye
candy, the fourth issue gave us a heartwarming story with Hawkeye
(albeit with Greg-‘I trace artwork’-Land) and with
the latest issue, Zeb Wells has given us a gem of a one-shot
featuring Spidey and Captain America. While Spidey is seen more as
the class clown in the main Avengers series, the last couple of
issues have given us beautifully-executed glimpses of how a person
like Peter Parker can be very important to a team. The main conflict
in the issue involving the Serpent Society, takes a back seat as
Spidey tries to team up with Cap as writer and artist, after
discovering some of Cap’s work during the second world war.The fact
that we may not be seeing Zeb Wells on the title too much in a while
does make me very sad. Leinil Francis Yu tones down his trademark
grit considerably for this issue, and adds plenty of character to the
talking sequences. Excellent read.
SCORE : 8.8 / 10
Deadpool MAX II #6
(Marvel)
Story : David Lapham
Art : Lee Loughridge
(Reviewed by Anant Sagar)
You have to love how everything seems
so different in Deadpool Max II.
I mean Weasel does stunt diving, looks
weirder than usual. Bob from Hydra, is Action Agent Bob.
THE GOOD:-
As usual with a Deadpool comic, the
script. The fact that you have a mad man running around being the
hero is always fun. It gives you so much room to work.
The story has the characters visit THE
DEADPOOL, (for the uninitiated, that’s the facility where Deadpool
was ‘made’) Fight some and not so much. This is more about that
story and the story has a nice twist to it. You have to love how all
the mainstays from Deadpool's normal runs are so different here and
even DP himself.
THE BAD:-
AS WITH ALL DEADPOOL, I SEE NO FLAWS.
Then I’m smacked on the back of my
head by Akshay and told to make some up because we can’t be so
biased to one man.
The artwork was a treat, but I’m not
too much for retro-ish looking stuff. Also Taskmaster as a
woman....hmmm. not sure if that a good thing or a bad thing. I did
not like Cable. (oops) He looks like s#it.
THE FUNNY:-
As all you followers of Deadpool will
know, the issue is funny everywhere. With Deadpool MAX however it
tends to get a wee bit serious. Here are some of my favourites (I
promised Akshay I wouldn’t type out the whole issue)
Weasel stunt diving. Action Agent Bob
asking Colleen to come stick her tongue down his throat, also notice
the hearts around him.
Taskmaster flirting with Deadpool.
Telling him to spank her. Thankfully Taskies a chick in this, or this
would have sounded sooooooo weird.
Deadpool going, “Thats what they call
me back home - FORESAW THE INEVITABLE.”
You will get these jokes if you read
the issue.
You’re still here? Go read the issue,
I'm done with the review. Now GO READ!!!!!
SCORE : 8 / 10
Ferals #1
(Avatar)
Story : David Lapham
Art : Gabriel Andrade
(Reviewed by Akshay Dhar)
Small snow-laden American mountain
town, bits of human drama, mysterious and gruesome death, mystery
Wolf-man attacks and a VERY strange scandinavian lady. Oh and just so you know, this is the least brutal and gory looking of the 5 covers that this issue was released with. Yeah.
I can't tell you a whole lot more
without going into details other than it starts with the town
Sheriffs best friend and drinking buddy getting savaged, his ex-wife
happy about it, a little wierdness with the strange lady mentioned
above and more stuff with Sheriff and dead dudes ex-wife and one last
shocking attack where we finally get to see the monster in action
before the big “to be continued” ends the issue.
In a nutshell that's what Ferals #1
brings to the table. I picked this up simply because it was penned by
Lapham and I really like his writing – even when he's working on
demented projects like Crossed: Psychopath because he is a very
innovative and real writer. I use the word “real” because even
when writing the fantastic, the magical, the meta-human, etc – he
maintains a very human feel to his characters and a very raw and
realistic feel to the narrative and description. Of course large part
of the credit goes to the artists he's worked with such as Andrade
here who does an excellent job, almost too good and clear for a
violent horror comic. But in the end it's a collaborative process and
I feel his distinctive vision and ideas show through if you read
enough.
This book however is nothing I would go
nuts for anytime soon. It's a fast, intense and well put together
opening chapter that will be appreciated by fans of the genre, but is
it something insanely unique or awesome? It might be, but not in this
first issue, which draws the reader in to its mysteries like a first
issue should – but a demonic/werewolf/wolfman story is a hard nut
to crack and pull out something unique from, so I'll be fair to this
issue but reserve final judgement till the next issue at least.
SCORE : 5.7 / 10
The Avengers #24.1
(Marvel)
Story : Brian Michael
Bendis
Art : Brandon Peterson, David Finch,
Danny Miki
(Reviewed by Anubhav Sharma)
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it
again : Brian Michael Bendis needs to do more shorter arcs and
one-shots. Case in point : Avengers #24.1 . The issue features the
now resurrected/reassembled Vision discovering the new post-Avengers
Disassembled world he has woken up into. We get touching moments with
She-Hulk and Cap, while midway through the issue, we see Vizh do
pretty much the ballsiest thing anyone made almost entirely of metal
can do, that is, pick a fight with Magneto. With the Scarlet Witch
poised to play a big role in AvX, the convenient
resurrection of Vision does look like one heck of a Chekhov’s gun.
Brandon Peterson very admirably nails the action sequences, although
facial expressions tend to get a little too extreme throughout the
issue.
SCORE : 7.9 / 10
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