Back for more dear readers? Well we're as happy to be here as you are and we've got a new lot of fresh-off-the-presses comics reviewed just for you!
Ame-Comi Wonder Woman #1
(DC Digital)
Story : Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin
Gray
Art : Amanda Conner
(Reviewed by Akshay Dhar)
If you had told me months, weeks or
even days ago that I would not only be reading but thoroughly
enjoying a comic based on a really cheesy Wonder Woman statue created
as a gimmick and be a proper fan by the end – I'd have smacked you
sideways and sued you for defamation. And I would have been dead
wrong.
The first big-awesome on this comic?
It's created by the master-class team of Gray/Palmiotti/Conner that
brought us the much-missed Power-Girl series
(pre-reboot) that was and still is one of the single best
heroine-centric series. Period. I admit openly that I'm overjoyed to
find that amidst the mess that DC is making of a lot of titles that
could be better and screwing-up the mainstream (not completely but a
fair bit) titles, it's great to have a book that is lighter, more
enjoyable and disconnected from the massive weight of history that DC
just doesn't seem able to shake off for some reason.
Nothing complicated here, it's an
update on the origin story : instead of WW2 and such, now we have the
mysterious island of Themyscira as an international curiosity
in the present day with the blonde and handsome (he has to be since
Diana's meant to fall for him I suppose) Steve Trevor trying to
convince the US-govt to send in people to contact and aid the unknown
and isolated inhabitants who are about to be invaded by a fictional
neighbouring country. Filled with some pretty serious brutality in
the action scenes (which contrasts nicely with Connors' style and the
cheery look of the book, great characters and a subtle under-tone of
humour that makes me really like this book a lot! Drawn in largely
landscape layouts with rich, vibrant colours and great designs and
intricate detail, Conner continues to be one of my favourite comic
artists and I wish I could see more from her.
I would most definitely recommend this
to anyone and everyone who is even slightly curious and being a
digital issue it is both affordable and more easily available. DC has
a great new product here. Everything a first issue should be, written
and drawn excellently and we're left wanting more!
SCORE : 8.5 / 10
B.P.R.D. Hell On Earth The
Transformation Of J. H. O'Donnell (One-shot)
(Dark Horse)
Story : Mike Mignola and Scott Allie
Art : Max Fuimara (art) and Dave
Stewart (colours)
(Reviewed by Anirudh Singh)
“Fresh” is the word.
This comic book feels like a fresh
breath of spring-kissed air in the now sagging Hellboy/BPRD
storyline. Sagging not due to any fault of the creators mind you -
the storyline sags now under the weight of its own epic
conclusion-to-come. Things have gone from weird to unreal to
mind-warping in recent story-arcs and the idea of things escalating
more is one I'm not looking forward to for the moment.
So here we have a one shot, a reprise
of sorts. A look at one of the minor characters on the BPRD team. Dr.
J.H O'Donnell, researcher of the esoteric for the Bureau has always
been a character that stands out. His ramblings bordering between
madness and prophecy. Many a clever reader would have wondered “where
does the Doctor draw his unnatural insight from?”. A story which is
revealed in this one shot.
The story itself is a throwback to the
older Hellboy, the spookier Lovecraft-inspired Hellboy of days
gone by, with haunted mansions, cults and necromancers in plenty. The
narrative flows smoothly and with practised ease and the artwork is
of course top-notch, as one would expect in a BPRD book. It leaves
you with a sense of haunting. Something missing from most of the
comics out there that like to stake claim to the horror genre. A
nice, short, eerie comic book. My only gripe with it: it could have
been a little longer. Twenty-five pages flew by too fast. A
recommended read for everyone.
SCORE : 10 / 10
Star Trek TNG / Doctor Who :
Assimilation2 #1 (IDW)
Story : JK Woodward
Art : Scott and David Tipton with
Tony Lee
(Reviewed by Anubhav Dasgupta)
Doctor Who and Star Trek.
Let that just sink in. Doctor Who and
Star Trek. The two greatest sci-fi television series of all time in
one canonical story. If THAT is not Nerdgasm inducing, I don’t know
what is!
And this title was much hyped, too.
Every comic-book news site (especially the British ones) went gaga
over it. So, now that we have it, how good is it? Not very.
It’s a comic-book that suffers from
mediocrity. The excitement and mad rush of the Doctor Who TV show and
the sense of wonder and discovery of Star Trek is absolutely lost in
these pages. And that’s a shame, because that’s exactly what we
were expecting from it.
The comic starts with Trek ’s
villainous Borg
teaming up with Doctor Who’s Cybermen
to attack Earth in the Star Trek universe. What should have
been an awesome moment is reduced to mediocrity thanks to the art.
Sure, the comic is really well drawn, and the characters’
likenesses are spot on, but it lacks energy.
This is a comic that needed energy in
its art, and without it, it just misses the target.
The writing doesn’t help, either.
Most of the comic is a Doctor Who story, and an unremarkable one at
that.
The only reason I didn’t flat-out
hate this comic is because it isn’t off-putting or bad, it’s
simply mediocre. And that really, really sucks.
I hope it gets better because this
crossover has such a lot of potential. Also, you don’t need to be
very familiar with either series to enjoy this book. A superficial
familiarity is enough to understand it.
SCORE : 6 / 10
The Ravagers #1
(DC)
Story : Howard Mackie
Art : Ian Chuchill
(Reviewed by Akshay Dhar)
Essentially a very good first issue –
suffering a single weakness (as are far too many DC titles
right now) in that this whole DC relaunch was meant to get rid of the
monster of continuity and allow for some breathing room. The basic
premise might be a bit annoying because it ties into the recent DC
crossover “The Culling” which was spread between issues of
Teen Titans, Superboy and Legion
Lost.
HOWEVER, it's not an overly complex
idea – a secret facility of some kind was experimenting on and
torturing super-powered kids/youths or giving them enhancements and
powers and a bunch of them have escaped with the help of a scientist
who worked at the facility.
What's interesting and makes me want to
come back to this book again (apart from being pretty well written
in just this one issue) is that it is like another DC team book –
Stormwatch – in that it is a heavy composite of
DC and Wildstorm characters. This book's team then is
clearly based on the younger team called Gen13. Hell
it's even led by Caitlin Fairchild (one of THE most popular
comic hotties ever!) who in this storyline is the doctor who helps
them escape. We have a huge cast at the starting gun and then
interestingly (and more realistically I think) not everyone trusts
here and they all have issues with trust and wanting to run off solo
or stick together and personality clashes. Plus having Warblade (a
guy who makes Edward Scissorhands look like a soft touch) and
Ravager (a.k.a Rose Wilson) hunting them down makes for a very
dark and not-overly-long future ahead.
The art has a nice style to it and
Churchill renders his characters pretty well and between physique and
demeanour/body language/manner his art and the script really brings
out the emotions and characters. I love the way he renders Fairchild
because she is super-tough and super-strong but her physique is not
all waify and super-modellish – she's hot as hell but has nicely
defined musculature and looks like she could kick the crap out of
you. This is an advantage in comics that we can make the leading lady
hot and busty and blah, blah but also make her look tough and not
just sexy. The only other comic that I know ever did right was
Marvel's fantastic (loved the hell out of it!) She-Hulk
series.
Definitely a great start and with a mix
of characters (didn't want to name more and spoil anything yet,
sorry) and with a lot of potential to be an interesting aspect of and
very different kind of story-telling and adventures than any other DC
book right now – I would recommend this to most folks and I hope
the issues ahead live up to this one.
SCORE : 7.2 / 10
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