Wednesday 17 June 2009

More Mini Reviews - Last weeks comics

Green Lantern Corps # 37

– 4 out of 5

I won’t spend long on this review I just need to let you know this book was great, and if your looking forward to the upcoming epic Blackest Night make sure you pick up this preview arc. I bought the occasional GLC issue prior to Prelude to Blackest Night but this ‘Emerald Eclipse’ arc for me has been not stop excitement and just class story telling by Peter Tomassi. This issue does not let up (Spoilers)- Ion commits suicide (we think) by plunging into Daxam Red Sun and turning it into a yellow sun, thus giving the captive planet of Daxam, basically a world/ army full of Supermen, and all the while the rest of the Green Lanterns are having to deal with a prison break on Oa. Great stuff. Next issue will be an all out brawl I’m sure between the Daxamites and Sinestro Corps and I can’t wait. Get it.


Red Robin # 1

–3 out of 5

This was a read I enjoyed, but I was still a little disappointed as I was hoping for more. The art by Ramon Bachs was okay but nothing spectacular. Chris Yost is a writer I have come to admire over the last couple of years from his work at Marvel and Image, but this was a pretty standard storyline and script for an opening issue.

Tim Drake (or Tim Wayne as he now likes be called) is sure that Bruce is still alive, although we are not really told why. He decides to go globe trotting searching for clues (though what kind of clues we are again not told). During the globe trotting he cant help but get mixed up in local violence in the cities he goes to, providing the action for the issue, which is done pretty well, but is just standard stuff (Girl kidnapped, then rescued by Tim, blah blah blah).

There are some nice flash backs scenes to confrontations between Tim & both Dick & Damian as to why brat boy should take up the position of Robin and Dick makes some good points in that Tim has now grown to be his equal. Tim then makes the decision to go on his quest for Bruce and dons the Red Robin costume to avoid ties back to Batman. I’m sure the future issues will expand on the reasons why he believes Bruce to be alive and why he has decided to search for clues around the globe. It was a good enough issue to have me check back next month and there was a nice last page reveal of a certain person interested in the exploits of the new Red Robin, but overall an average read. Check this out if you’re a Tim Drake fan, or if you want to know how Bruce returns, as I think this will be a key book in that story.


X-Men Forever # 1

– 4 out of 5

Now this was a book I was unsure I would like, but really had a fun time reading. I was a big fan of the X-Men title from about issues 1-60 in the early 90's and this is that same X-Men team in a sort of alternative reality courtesy of Chris Claremont. You don’t need to have read the X-Men issues 1-3 to know what’s going on, the first page catch up is fine and does it’s job well. I love the characters in their old uniforms and this was a nice old school X-Men adventure where their job was to take down the powerful mutant Cortez who had previously taken out Magneto. That’s the main plot, the sub plot is that there are some serious love triangles going on plus it seems Nick Fury and the government will be taking a much larger role in the running of the X-Men in future issues. Art by Tom Grummet is pretty good but don’t expect the detailed feel of early 90’s X-Men artists like Jim Lee or Andy Kubert (which I would have preferred) but as I am treating this as an alternative reality I’m okay with it. I look forward to the next issue which will be out in only 2 weeks, which is a bonus. A strong first issue and def a pick up for old school X-Men fans or fans of the original X-Men animated series.

3 comments:

  1. After reading what you had to say about X-Men Forever, I'm thinking about giving it a read. The only problem is, as much as I hate to say it, I can't really stand Chris Claremont's writing anymore. The last series he wrote that I enjoyed were the early issues of X-Treme X-Men. Since then his stories have really been lacking. If this comic can recapture some of Chris' greatness from the 80's I'll definitely give it a shot.

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  2. I totally agree about his reason work, it has been really dreadful. I was totally unsure about this but, im def gonna give it a few issues. From talking to you I think you might like it also, give no 1 a shot

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  3. Cool, next time I place an order at my online comic shop, I'll throw this book in my cart.

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