Hey folks, welcome to another new week of reviews! We've got three very exciting and anticipated titles for you today. Some surprising results and some great finds for you to check out as well as a surprise after the reviews, so let's get to it!
- Always Assistive Akshay
All New X-Men #1
(Marvel)
Story : Brian Michael Bendis
Art : Stuart Immonen, Wade von
Grawbadger
(Reviewed by Akshay Dhar)
Well, it's finally here, the much
anticipated (re)debut of Brian M. Bendis as the scribe for an
X-Men book after he turned the mutant world upside down waaaay back
in House of M in 2005. Now that catastrophe has been
reversed thanks to the recent finale of the much-hyped but really
mindlessly boring Avengers Vs. X-Men - which could have
been so much better – and the world is replete with mutants again.
When last we saw Cyclops (a.k.a Scott
Summers) in the genuinely awesome AvX: Consequences
mini-series, he was torn on what path to take – to be a martyr or
to keep fighting or to face justice for what he has done. It was
really well handled and the closing moments of that series lay the
base for this one with Scott having escaped thanks to Magneto and his
new allies. This series picks up that thread and shows us a
determined and motivated “Team Cyclops” who are now renegade,
kicking arse and taking names. I quite liked that and had been
waiting for it.
But then we get to the core of Bendis'
story. We get too much dialogue at times. We get Beast suffering from
a life-threatening 3rd stage of his
mutation – which by the way I think is the single stupidest idea
yet, he was gorilla boy who became cat man and now it's going to
happen again? It practically never happens to other mutants so I wish
they'd stop picking on poor Hank. To make it worse, he makes the
oh-so-believable choice to go back in time and bring the original
team of kid-X-Men to the future (without telling Prof. X of the past
because – big shocker! – he'd stop them) so that young Scott can
tell his older self to what? Chill out?
The art is a saving grace, but only
just. I'm a big fan of Stuart Immonen's work from his time on
Nextwave and Ultimate X-Men, but even his work is not enough to make
me want to read more of this series and that is a sad, sad moment for
a fan. Just so you know, at least half of the score (if not more)
that I've given this book is because of the art.
Poorly handled and an ill-conceived
storyline in my opinion, I think I'm going to put this on the trash
pile and not read any further issues. I've got the fantastic
X-Factor, Brian Woods' stellar X-Men,
the alternate reality X-Treme X-Men and Wolverine
and the X-Men for my X-cravings and even though I already
miss Uncanny X-Force and New Mutants,
I'll stick with what I've got and ignore this new title, thank you
very much.
SCORE : 4.5 / 10
Thor: God of Thunder #2
(Marvel)
Story : Jason Aaron
Art : Esad Ribic
(Reviewed by Anant Sagar)
This has to be one of the most
interesting issues of Thor that I have read. I know, I know; this is
part 2 of 5, but as I read it alone, without the other four, it’s
just an excellent issue.
The story focuses on three ages of Thor
: the past, the present and a glimpse of the future.
Following mostly a young Thor’s
adventures as he tries to be worthy of Mjolnir, we see him journey
through Midgard. He guides the norsemen to war against the Slavs,
hoping to meet their Gods in glorious battle. But the gods don’t
know.
By now it has been established that
someone or something is out there. We find it is killing Gods. A
butcher of the Gods.
Thor meets it in battle and just
manages to defeat/get away from it.
We glimpse the present and the future
as Thor hunts for this God butcher.
Expect some beautiful art in this
issue. Exceptionally well done. Rivic and Ive Svorcina
(colourist) have made this look more like a work of art than a comic
book does.
Jason Aaron has done an
excellent job with the storyline. It kept me interested and at the
edge of my seat; and yes my nose was almost literally in the comic
book.
I’m dying for more of this story, I
want to know more about this God butcher and why it’s killing Gods
across the universe, everything. Feed me more!!
Not since Deadpool have I
wanted to read a saga so badly!
SCORE : 10 / 10
Witch Doctor : Mal Practice #1
(Image)
Story : Brandon Seifert
Art : Lukas Ketner
(Reviewed by Akshay Dhar)
I think I just cried. Just a wee bit.
No, I'm not sad, I meant the other
thing!
…I just tend to forget how happy a
genuinely good story and comic can make me when faced with the deluge
of mediocre stories that get way too much attention – and not just
in comics.
This title right here – effectively
the 3rd volume of the Witch Doctor franchise
by Robert Kirkman's Skybound imprint – proves yet
again that if you want quality comics these days, it's all Image.
We follow the adventures of Dr. Vincent
Morrow, occult physician, and his “colleagues” - Penny Dreadful
(some kind of demonic something or other in a frail girl-like body)
and Eric Gast (former combat and para-medic) – as they deal with
evil and problems of a (obviously) occult nature using a wonderful
combination of the dark arts but handled like a real doctor would –
scientifically. In this latest installment however, the problem hits
a lot closer to home. We start off with a exorcism of demonic larvae
and things are all action and snarky and fun, but soon after they
take a turn for the worse and we find the good doctor facing a threat
directly, one that actually scares him, and a new enemy that clearly
knows more about him than he does about this new evil. What will he
do next?!
A heady and always darkly witty and
exciting mix of Hellboy, Doctor Strange, ReAnimator and
TV's House M.D,
this book is one of the freshest takes on fantasy and the
supernatural and since the very first issue, I've been hooked.
Brandon Seifert was not a writer I knew but his adventures with the
possibly-out-of-his-gourd but always on top of the game Dr. Morrow
have been brilliant but sadly very short. This latest volume however
is a new story that for a change is a multi-issue story-arc. While I
love the shorter adventures and all, it's going to be nice to have a
more detailed story of one of these adventures and both in story and
art, seeing Penny get more page-space and action alone is a good
reason for a longer tale.
Little
needs to be said about the art except that it is perfect for this
story. The monster designs, the look, the atmosphere and just about
everything is pretty damn close to perfect – Ketner really, clearly
has a love for this. It's a big part of why I'm doing something I
rarely do and giving this issue a perfect score.
Read it. Now.
Read it. Now.
SCORE : 10 / 10
Oh and the surprise at the end? We found this wraparound piece of promo art for your desktops! Enjoy!
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