AT LAST IT BEGINS!!
This week's reviews include the highly anticipated and hotly debated kick-off to Before Watchmen by DC comics and we bring it to you along with much more!
Enjoy!
This week's reviews include the highly anticipated and hotly debated kick-off to Before Watchmen by DC comics and we bring it to you along with much more!
Enjoy!
Before Watchman : Minutemen #1
(DC)
Story & Art : Darwyn Cooke
(Reviewed by Anirudh Singh)
Alright, alright, the argument of
intellectual property matters for naught to me in comic books. Hence, we shall
not have it here. Instead we shall talk about Minutemen, one of
my favourite parts about the Watchmen storyline that got all too brief a time in the limelight.
This first installment from Before Watchmen starts with the story of the
Minutemen, narrated through the eyes of Hollis Mason (a.k.a Night Owl). The writing is
a little word heavy and Cooke is definitely no Alan Moore, but the art more
than makes up for it. And eventually the initial awkwardness of the writing
tumbles into a smoother narrative that gels very well with the artwork.
Darwyn Cooke does a marvelous job of
bringing back the magic of the Silver Age. With glorious colours and
art we get a sneak peek into the comings and goings of the famous
mystery men of the day: Captain Metropolis, Nite Owl, Sally Jupiter and Hooded Justice, a vigilante adept at inspiring terror in the
criminal element... and even the Comedian gets a brief flourish. Before
Watchmen : Minutemen #1 sets the perfect platform for the series and the titles to follow.
The two pages
of the Crimson Corsair bonus comic caught the imagination as well. So
all in all I would rate this a pretty satisfying comic book.
SCORE : 8 / 10
Mighty Thor annual #1
(Marvel)
Story : J.M. DeMatteis
Art : Richard Elson
(Reviewed by Anant Sagar)
The first thing that struck me was the
cover : Excellent! It’s got the surfer too!!
The issue opens with a conversation
between The Watcher and The Scrier where Watcher reveals he knows of
the plans that Scrier has for Earth - and these plans have the power
to strike a bit of fear into the heart of even Galactus (at least a
little bit!!). We then meet Donald Blake (a.k.a Thor – this is how
he lives amongst mortals). He’s in a diner with a friend who gets a
headache and suddenly transforms into a strange entity.
The story then picks up and moves in a
new direction; it doesn't take long before Thor is thrust into action
between the cosmic entities, Galactus and the Scrier. What follows is
this really crazy cosmic battle set on a grand scale.
The art in this issue is awesome. There
was a panel or two where I felt Thor looked a little funny, but
overall I thought that the cosmic battle scenes were pretty cool. I
like the use of obscure, jagged panels to depict the different
characters during the action scenes. Also, the colours!! Really
vibrant colours.
If you like inter-galactic battles
centred around omnipotent beings, then you are going to absolutely
love this issue. However, if you need your stories to be grounded a
bit more in reality, then I suggest skipping this. Sure we get an
introduction to Donald Blake, but he doesn't get a whole lot of panel
time. Additionally, this issue doesn't feel that much like a Thor
issue as much as it does a Scrier issue; and if the villain
overpowers the hero then it just doesn't feel right. While it does a
great job showing the ability of Thor as a god/superhero; I don't
think it did a very good job introducing readers to Thor's identity.
He does not feel very "human" in this issue, but maybe
that's how he was supposed to feel.
Overall a fun issue. I give this a...
SCORE : 5.5 / 10
Pantha #1
(Dynamite)
Story : Brandon Jerwa
Art : Pow Podrix
(Reviewed by Akshay Dhar)
Let's put the cat in the bag for the
moment (no pun intended) and not focus on the obvious hot-ness of the
title character and the selling point that it is for many a reader –
if you need me to discuss it then you're either adolescent or daft
and either way I'm not getting into it.
She's hot as hell and as skimpily clad
as the barest modesty could allow. Done.
Alright then! As far as the story goes,
our heroine is a shard of the great goddess Sekhmet from Egyption
mythology – she was given a chance to redeem her bloodthirstiness
by Ra and some trying-too-hard rationalising later we've got this
supposedly last shard of her that is Pantha. She seems to work with
(not clear if it's just a case-by-case team or a full-timer) a couple
of magical heroes and such and is on the trail of some practitioners
of human trafficking. There is an attempted twist and some mysticism
and cross-time stuff and a nemesis is introduced who is suitably
bat-s#!t insane – and of course after the same... thing. (See how I
avoided spoilers there?)
The artwork by the amusingly named
Podrix (if it's a pen-name or such, amusing choice! If it's not, then
I hope you asked your parents about “why the hell?!” at some
point...) is on the good side of things. He renders motion, action
and generally dynamic images well so it makes the panther and action
parts of Pantha more enjoyable and he seems to do a pretty decent job
on faces most of the time as well. Haven't seen his work before but
it's a promising first issue and he might get better as he finds his
feet on the series, but that will be seen.
Overall, I enjoyed that fact that this
felt in some ways like a more old-school comic with hero and villain
and had a pulp-style feel as well (though that's something Dynamites
doing a lot of so maybe it rubbed off) but in the end for some reason
it felt forced at times and a little heavy-handed in trying to
justify itself. Perhaps if the narrative didn't take itself quite so
seriously it would read more smoothly and lightly. I know human
trafficking is not to be made a joke of, but in terms of style you
can make a story interesting and smooth enough that the heaviest and
most intense of topics have a better shot at being read properly and
understood.
SCORE : X / 10
Voltron Year One # 3
(Dynamite)
Story : Brandon Thomas
Art : Craig Cermak
(Reviewed by Anirudh Singh)
Oh man, I used to love the Voltron
cartoons so much. Granted I liked vehicle-Voltron better than
lion-Voltron. Still, there was a grand crusade going on in the
Voltron series where somehow the pinnacle of tech between two
civilization had resulted in giant robots fighting.
Which was awesome. In every single way.
It was a simple concept. You did not
have to take it seriously, and you did not have to meddle around too
much with it.
This comic does both.
The pilots of the Lions are members of
an elite Space Corps dedicated to stopping some unknown menace.
Seriously the main villains in this comic book are some corporate
rivals who are in league with the actual main villains of the galaxy.
So yeah, and the Space Corps is some weird sort of hybrid,
love-child of Commando and Rambo.
Which brings us to this one, issue # 3
of the Voltron Year One saga. A.k.a, the time before they had the
Voltron. Where instead of Space Explorers, our heroes are assassins
in some covert military organisation that kills its own citizens as
and when it likes. Without anyone questioning them. Yep, they made
them into stone cold Altairs.
Not everything has to be recast in a
broken and gritty mirror for it to be good! This is something
especially true for a series like Voltron that created magical levels
of awesomeness simply by getting giant robots to fight. There was a
way this could have been done. The five pilots of the lions could
have been intrepid explorers. The Space Corps could have been a a
group of trailblazers who bring light to the dark corners of the
Galaxy. But alas this is the wannabe Frank Miller version of
the Voltron saga. And I for one will give it a pass.
SCORE : 4 / 10
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