Scott Pilgrim Volume 6: Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour

Jumping on the bandwagon of the rest of the “cool kids” of the world, I sat down in 3 weeks and read all six volumes of Scott Pilgrim.

Here are my ratings of volumes 1-5:

• Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life
  • Good gracious, this book made me giggle. 8/10
• Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
  • Joseph? You’re my favorite. 9/10
• Scott Pilgrim & the Infinite Sadness
  • This ex-gf nonsense is getting a bit old. 7/10
• Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together
  • Ninja fights and strange lesbian-ness. Yeah, okay. 7.5/10
• Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe
  • Was there a point to this one? Oh, the ending. Okay. 6/10

So, I was kind of in a downer mood when I jumped into volume 6 because I wasn’t the biggest fan of volume 5. Nonetheless, Brian Lee O’Malley managed to keep me reading to the point where I couldn’t stop reading from cover to cover.

More fun and spoilers after the break. (more…)

When I read about what the premise of Turf was going to be 3 months back, I thought, “HELL YES! Tommy Lee Edwards is on another book! Man I loved Marvel 1985!!”

Wait. Stop. Let’s get things in order here:

Turf appealed to me back in February when I was looking through my Previews book. It was a story being told to be about the mafia in New York City paired with none other than vampires and aliens. How cool is that? And then I saw that Tommy Lee Edwards was on the book and got all excited. I looked at the author (Jonathan Ross) and shrugged. “This could be a great comic,” I thought. “It’ll be cool looking, at least.”

Three months pass.

I walk into my local comic shop and this is in my stack. I open it up and get anxious to read it as it looks real wordy. Oh well, the art is fantastic. When I finally sat down to read this comic I was not even close to being prepared to taking in it’s brilliance. Somehow I survived.

More after the break. *mild spoilers abound, dear reader*

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The final act of the 3ish year overarching plot headed by Craig Kyle and Chris Yost is finally beginning its end. We’re talking a five month crossover story contained within Uncanny X-Men, X-Men: Legacy, New Mutants, and X-Force (similar to what they did back during Messiah CompleX) where you have to buy all of these comics to get the full story.

This is the first issue; a one-shot.

What you need to know: Mutants across the world have been cut down to a mere 198 (well, 181 now according to this current issue) thanks to good ol’ Wanda Maximoff (see also: House of M). The kicker is that no new mutants have been born since then. Out of the blue, BAM, a mutant is born. And every group of bad guys you could think of who has tried to kill off the X-Men finds out. So what happens? Cable ends up finding this girl first–knowing with his memory of the past from his future–that she will save mutantkind. Then what does he do? He jumps into the future to save her, but Bishop follows. Why? Well, Bishop has to kill this girl, as she caused his past in his future to be a terrible place. For 18 years (3 years worth of comic books) the chase through time between Cable & the baby (who ends up with the name Hope) and Bishop goes on, and now Cable and Hope are back. As for Bishop… you’ll need to read Cable #24 to find out.

This is where we’ll start things. *spoilers abound*

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Me being the Kirkman-loving fiend that I am, I picked this series up as soon as I could and read it every week as soon as I can (unless there’s a good X-title that comes out that week…), and the thing I simply love about Destroyer is it’s ability to just kick ass non-stop from page one to page 22.

If you don’t know what Destroyer is, know this: Robert Kirkman and Cory Walker have teamed up again (previous team-ups: Invincible #1-7), but this time it’s for Marvel’s MAX label and boy oh boy they take advantage of that “For Mature Readers Only” warning. Basing the story of this comic off of an old Timely Comics character, this story follows the last adventures of the character and it’s just amazing. For the sake of all that is awesome and spoilerrific, I’ll give a brief summary of the previous 3 issues after the break because this series is so good, I don’t even want to spoil basic plot points for you guys.

*spoilers and love after the break*

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Oracle: Search for the Cure #1-3

Written: Kevin VanHook
Art: Don Kramer and Jay Leisten(1,2); Julian Lopez and Bit(3)

Issue 1

Cover: Guillem March

I’m not sure this is so much of a review as it is a rant.  The last issue of Birds of Prey saw Barbara Gordon leaving the team to take care of some personal business.  This personal business leads her to Gotham City and, conveniently, her part in The Battle for the Cowl.  Needless to say it seems that DC is also intent on taking a once brilliantly written character down a few notches, both in quality and characterization.  Only time will tell if the character will spiral further into cliche or once again rise to the status she once held.

If you are like me you’ve likely picked up a series or two not because they were great, but because you felt the need to have a complete collection.  I slogged through these issues because of that obsessive compulsive need and I’m here to try and talk you out of doing the same.  If you are curious about the story and want to pick it up: don’t.  If I can’t convince you to do that, at least try the following:

1.  Wait until the trade paperback.
2.  Let someone else buy it, read it, and then immediately take it back to sell used, probably swearing all the way.
3.  Pick up the copied used, after it has been reduced to a ridiculously low price and consigned to the ultra-bargain bin.

All told that if there is any justice in the world you should only have to wait a week for all of that to happen.

Slightly spoilerific review below

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Review Secret Six #7

Secret Six 7 Cover

Writer:  Gail Simone
Pencilers: Nicola Scott
Inkers:  Doug Hazelwood

Issue #7 concludes the first arc in the Secret Six series.  Once again the writing is spot-on with liberal doses of humor and drama intermixed.  The issue draws you in from start to finish and leaves you wanting more.  In my opinion this is what comic books should strive to be.  Too often we are stuck between entertaining and thought provoking or deconstructing a long running character.  We are confronted with drawn out arcs with a quick single issue filler sandwiched in-between.  Ms. Simone has gone a long way in perfecting a balance in her story writing between giving us a complete story each month and adding to the overall narrative.  Furthermore Ms. Scott’s pencils are as beautiful as ever and her attention to detail is excellent.

Beyond here be spoilers.

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I don’t know how it happened, but Marvel has managed to put their four main X-Men books in one week: X-Men: Legacy, X-Factor, X-Force, and Uncanny X-Men. This last week, we, the readers, were given these three books and, as you would assume, each have their own style and feeling and each make me feel completely different about the X-Men. With writers Peter David (X-Factor), Mike Carey (Legacy), Christopher Yost and Craig Kyle (X-Force) and Matt Fraction (Uncanny) each book I read leaves me feeling excited, okay, blood-thirsty and strange–respectively.

I read all four of these books and have been for the last eight years or so (or however long they have been out–X-Factor, X-Force) and I’ve seen some changes, both good and bad and I think I’m going to make it my goal to comment on these four books every month from here on with a post like this–assuming they’ll keep coming out on the same week.  This month we were handed Uncanny X-Men #507, X-Force #13, X-Factor #41, and X-Men: Legacy #222…

Continue on after the break (spoilers).

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In December 2008, Marvel released a new series written by Fred Van Lente and illustrated by Dennis Calero entitled X-Men Noir. Now I haven’t read Marvel in quite some time, but this concept provoked me to pick up the first issue. Needless to say I wasn’t dissappointed. The art by Calero was sharp. He captured the black and white tones of the 1940′s film noir in full color, only highlighting pieces of the panel to stand alone. You can practically see it come to life. Van Lente’s story was a little hard to follow at first, moving quickly from scene to scene, but the artwork made it enjoyable for the second read. Together they create a wonderfully “dynamic-duo.”

*Spoilers after the break*

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This comic is old school. Writer Len Wein wrote his first issue of JLA back in 1972 (Vol. 1, Issue 100). Earlier that year, Starbreaker, the “cosmic vampire,”  made his debut in JLA. Both the writer and the villain make their returns to the pages of JLA in a Bronze-colored story that will make some feel warm and nostalgic and make others simply roll their eyes.

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G.I. Joe #1 Cover B

G.I. Joe #1 (IDW )
Writer:  Chuck Dixon
Artist:  Robert Atkins

G.I.Joe is the comic that started me down the long road to being a comic book geek.  It along with a few other 80′s properties are near and dear to my childhood.  The comic book that Marvel put out ruled over all that was produced in the name of G.I. Joe toys in the 1980′s.  The cartoons were great to watch, but ultimately they were cheesy and nobody ever died.  Between the lack of mortality in the G.I. Joe and Transformers cartoons I was woefully unprepared for Roy Fokker’s exit from Robotech.  On the other hand the comic books brought action, humor, character development, and even death.  To my 10 year old mind the stories they told drew me in deeper and had more of a lasting impact on my imagination than any 30 minute cartoon could.

I have the full run of the Marvel G.I. Joe, some more beat up than others, and I still find entertainment in their pages.  When Devils Due publishing announced they were bringing G.I. Joe back to comic books continuing the saga Marvel started, the 10 year old inside the 20-something year old me did a little jig.  I collected all of them as well, including the short run of FrontLine AND the even shorter run of G.I. Joe Reloaded.  The stories weren’t quite as satisfying at first, but they hit their stride and I was a huge fan by the end of their run.  Hasbro put the licensing back up for negotiations and IDW won the bid.  Last fall they put out a special Issue 0 that highlighted the three series they would be producing on a regular basis.  Issue 1 of the core series came out on 1/14/2009 and after reading #0, I picked it up with some trepidation.

Review and opinion forthcoming. (more…)