In 2021 I set a goal to post reviews here for 1,000 comics, and finished the year at 1,008 reviews. It was a stretch - - not to read that many comics, because I actually read quite a bit more. The challenge is to find and take the time to write a fair review of what I read - - but I made it. I’m up for a new year, and a new challenge. My goal for 2022 is to read and document 1,200 comics. That’s an average of 100 books per month, easy enough to check and update. Wish me luck!
# GOAL FOR JANUARY 10, 2022 . . . 34 comics documented
CURRENT COUNT . . . . . 25 comics documented
Oops! We’re at the first check-point of 2022, and I’m already 9 books behind. Time to get busy!
#1 CHERRY BLACKBIRD #5 of 5 (Scout/Black Caravan, December 2021)
While there have been some particularly nasty scenes in previous issues, it appears that writer/artist Joseph Schmalke saved the nastiest for this final issue.
The clock is ticking down near the final day of the deadline for Cherry to defeat and send all the escaped demons back to hell. As she prepares for the final battle, she confides in a bandmate and shares her darkest secret, the incident from her past that set her down this path and resulted in her signing that contract with Satan. It’s the worst case of parental abuse that I’ve seen in comics.
A suspicion about a certain character that I had back in Issue #2 turns out to be correct. There’s one final twist in the story and a shocking ending that I thought might occur but never anticipated happening like this. Nasty. Nasty. Nasty.
FOUR STARS.
Howard Porter's art is great to look over, with detailed backgrounds and imaginative special effects. Sometimes the facial expressions of the characters seem odd, but that's a minor point.
Time travel stories are tricky, and if you think about them too much they sometimes start to unravel. Having your main character meet a future version of himself is always risky business, but Williamson navigates this well.
I especially like how he updated the very first villain that the Barry Allen Flash encountered way back in the days of DC's Showcase Comics. (Thanks to another reviewer on Goodreads for making me aware of this). The Turtle is a much more formidable foe here, and almost succeeds in his master plan to slow down time, connect present-day Earth with future Earth as well as the multi-verse and bring it all under his dominating thumb.
I appreciate the juxtaposition of speed versus sluggishness as a major component of the story, and a wry variation on the fable of The Tortoise And The Hare. There are some incredible moments throughout this story arc. My favorite being a wounded Barry Allen collapsing against his apartment door (from a gunshot witnessed by Iris)and not daring to open the door to her knocking while she makes a big heartfelt confession and bares her soul within inches of his hearing.
I read this series in the original monthly issues as they were released, and enjoyed them enough to come back for a revisit. Glad I did. FOUR STARS.
As I have a habit of doing, I’ll pick up a #1 issue as a try-out. If I like it I keep buying but stockpile future issues for a full story arc reading, etc. I admit I buy too many comics, so I never got back to this until now. Sometimes I have to cut back on the monthly purchases, and Deathstroke became the victim of that back in 2012. (Nothing like waiting ten years, is there?) Issue #5 ends on a seemingly fatal cliff-hanger. The Volume 1 trade paperback includes Issues #1-#8, so I stopped buying these too soon. At least I know he survived.
There’s plenty of action and just enough character development in Kyle Higgins’ version of Deathstroke to keep things interesting. Assassin-for-hire Slade Wilson is aging and seems to have lost a step, as well as support group Christoph and Alexander Peabody. All three members of the team slip up and bring death closer to Wilson’s door than ever before.
Wilson’s still lamenting the disappearance of his son Grant, and gets an unexpected briefcase with evidence while on his first mission in Issue #1. Wilson, of course, is out to prove his detractors wrong and runs through a gamut of missions/kills in these five issues. Legacy is a reoccuring armored opponent that Deathstroke keeps putting down, only to find a new and stronger version in the later issues. THREE AND ONE-HALF STARS.
Instead of another series with Iron Man fighting the latest super-villain/global threat, Tony finds himself struggling with the bugs in his own creation, the global virtual reality network called the eScape.
By Issue #3 the eScape is ready for beta-testing, with volunteers wearing a virtual reality mask that resembles the Iron Man helmet. Nice touch! The supporting cast is well-developed and interesting: Tony's birth mother Amanda, her new boyfriend Stark engineer Andy Bhang, Henry Pym's android construct Jocasta, a radical and also very annoying version of Machine Man, the scheming Ms. Bain, and even smarter step- brother Arno Stark.
Tony's short fling/romance with Janet Pym/Wasp (from way back in AVENGERS, Volume 1) is rekindled. Arsenal, the monstrous robot, is now employed as security within the virtual landscape and takes his new role too seriously. Other bugs/glitches/sabotage occur that keep the eScape team busy.
This is handled in a manner that is light-hearted enough to entertain but not over-the-top, and illustrated in dynamic fashion. THREE AND ONE-HALF STARS.
Tony Stark/Stark Unlimited's eScape was supposed to be a virtual reality amusement park. However, the interface gets hacked by The Controller, who creates a backdoor to allow all the previously-banned bad users to get back into the virtual world and create havoc and destruction. But is the Controller being manipulated as well? What's stepbrother Arno Stark up to, and why is he allied with competitor Bain Industries?
The side stories include Tony's birth mother trying to connect with him and being put off because Tony is too busy and distracted to act like a human. And, who's more empathetic and responsible? Is it the androids like Jocasta or the eScape engineers and security who seem to put business concerns first?
The wrap-up to the story is intriguing and opens the door for future storylines. Tony is having an identity crisis, for one that could turn out to be a real doozy. FOUR STARS.
Malekith travels to Jotunheim, where he enlists Sadurang, a massive dragon, to take down what he perceives to be the biggest threat to him on Earth: Iron Man.
Why? Because Tony Stark is clad in iron (really?, I thought that was just the original suit.) and iron is Malekith’s weakness. It’s good to see that Simone has apparently been researching the title, as she picks up the threads from prior issues and continues more of Tony’s soul-searching within the story.
Issue #18 is the middle of “The Ultron Agenda” story arc, with Jocasta quitting Stark Unlimited and turning to Arno Stark for help. She wants to upgrade her humanity. However, a hybrid of Hank Pym and Ultron (half man, half robot) wants to fuse Janet Van Dyne and Jocasta into a similar hybrid. When Tony intervenes, he gets blasted by the molecular fusion and gets bonded to his armor, putting his health in serious risk. It’s up to War Machine to go up against the Pym-Ultron hybrid.
Tony gets free, and ends up inside an old suit, which I believe is the second or third incarnation of Iron Man from back in the heyday. This is the lead-in to the pivotal Issue #20, where Dan Slott pulls together all the plot threads hinting at Tony not being the original version of himself and what the new Iron Age will reveal. Unfortunately, my run of issues ends here.
I was entertained, especially with the “Stark Realities” story line but I really don’t feel compelled to seek out more of this. THREE STARS.
I no longer read the Spider-Man titles like I used to, but I did follow Nick Spencer’s Kindred story arc last year (very worthwhile).
I picked up this random issue at the request of a comics
friend, and took an opportunity to see what’s new with Peter Parker and company. Yikes!
Two Spider-Men, with the latest incarnation being Ben Reilly, as the front man for the Beyond Corporation (who bought the rights to Spider-Man’s name and likeness). Ben has the backing of a big-bucks company and a high-tech suit that outperforms anything Parker has.
So when they both went up against the U-Foes, Peter ended up unconscious in a hospital while Ben went unscathed. He feels guilty about representing “Spider-Man” and decides to ask permission from Peter, who’s still in hospital, conscious but not able to move. Oh my stars and garters!
THREE AND ONE-HALF STARS.
I like the concept of Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson (both as Captain America) traveling the county on motorbikes meeting homespun versions of Captain America along the way. There’s a bigger story involving Red Skull’s daughter Sin and Speed Demon as a faux Cap committing acts of terrorism in an effort to trash the Captain America legend/reputation.
However, it’s the meetings with the members of the Captains network and the back-up stories that feature them that keeps me interested.
Issue #1 features Aaron Fischer, the Captain America of the Railways, who protects rail riders and queer runaways like himself, championing the homeless. Issue #2’s homespun Cap is my favorite: Nichelle Wright, the Captain America of Harrisburg, who protects her underserved community as both activist and vigilante. Issue #3 pays respectful homage to Native American characters in construction worker Joe Gomez of the Kickapoo Tribe as Chiitaska, the Thunder That Jumps Across The Sky.
Somehow, I neglected to pick up the remaining two issues of this mini-series. Hope I’m not too late. THREE AND ONE-HALF STARS.
No comments:
Post a Comment