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 MARCH 20, 2022 . . . 267 comics documented
CURRENT COUNT . . . . . 249 comics documented
#234 - #237 PATHFINDER: SPIRAL OF BONES #2, 3, 4, 5 of 5 by Crystal Frasier and Tom Garcia (Dynamite Entertainment, 2018) I recently joined a Pathfinder Role Playing Game Group ( a spinoff from the Captain Blue Hen Book Club) and trying to decipher and comprehend all the rules. I happened to see these issues in a bargain bin and thought it might help with my understanding of the game.
The back content in these over-sized issues ($4.99 each, original price) includes some character sheets, maps, world and ancestry/class details that didn’t help as much as I would have liked, but I appreciate the effort. What I did find was that this was a pretty interesting story with good art.
This series was a plunge into the history and mystery below the “City of Strangers”. The bigger story involves human warrior Valeros who goes even deeper into the great beyond, and ends up defending his immortal soul in the courts of the dead.
Turns out he’s been mistaken for another wanted person and he needs some others to testify to his innocence. But is he? Things don’t get revealed until the final issues, and it’s a neat twist.
There’s a continuing short feature in the back, based on Starfinder (another role-playing game?) that’s amusing but just okay. THREE AND ONE-HALF STARS.
#238 - #241 SEVEN TO ETERNITY, VOLUME 1: THE GOD OF WHISPERS by Rick Remender and Jerome Opena (Image Comics, February 2017)
A review of the four-issue trade paperback collection was posted to this blog for Sunday, March 13.. TWO STARS.
The first issue includes vampires, werewolves, and witches in 19th Century Europe. The second issue adds shapeshifters and mummies.
Unfortunately, the transitions between these three storylines is rather abrupt, like a faulty jump cut in a grind house film. I’m not quite sure how the writers are going to break all the threads together, especially the Egyptian scenes. Plus, the breaks come at inopportune times and break the mood/suspense unintentionally
This is my first exposure to the art of M.J. Hiblen and I’ll be watching to see if any improvements are made to a very promising beginning. The art is very moody and expressive. The images are creepy. However, the coloring and shading gets too murky in many places, blurring the details.
A gypsy family in Transylvania is doing their best to survive between the thievery of some female members being accused of witchcraft as well as some younger members with shape-shifting abilities (gorillas, lions, and other animals). Count Orlock, who may have predated Dracula, is an ancient vampire training his minion, who sometimes goes too far. The mummy story is an origin/revenge tale.
Just to add to the huge cast of characters, here comes a weird circus operated by a goblin. The blurbs for Issue #3 promise the introduction of a steampunk Frankenstein monster. How in the world this is all going to tie together is beyond me. Without some kind of cohesion, this could turn into a big mess. Still, I may have to see more. THREE AND ONE-HALF STARS.
The opening page plunks right down in the middle of a dystopian Mad-Max kind of world, and after a few pages I realized I was not reading the first story in this setting. LOADED BIBLE: BLOOD OF MY BLOOD is a return to the Jesus versus vampires stories that began with three one-shot stories between 2006 and 2008: LOADED BIBLE: JESUS VS VAMPIRES; LOADED BIBLE 2: BLOOD OF CHRIST; and LOADED BIBLE 3: COMMUNION. Still, with a little bit of effort you can pick up on what’s going on here.
Turns out the Catholic Church created the Jesus clone, who ended up going outlaw on them and being disbarred. Now, a desperate Vatican cuts a deal with the vampire nations to unite under their resurrected savior — Dracula. Crazy!
You would think that would make one hell of a story. However, I was disappointed. This story is all-action and not much else. It seems to lack heart and has the blood drained out of it. I like most of Steve Orlando and Tim Seeley’s work but this seems lacking. TWO AND ONE-HALF STARS.
#245 LUNAR ROOM #3 by Danny Lore and Gio Sposito (Vault, March 2022)
Too many times I’ve gotten to the middle book in a five-issue series and find my enthusiasm for the story is waning. I no longer feel the need to see what happens next, still going to see it to the end, but content to wait and read it all in one fell swoop.
Not that nothing new happens here, as at the story does move forward. There just seems to be a lot of exposition, and some of it repetitive. Sin does have a meeting with Zero’s more responsible (but scheming) brother. She also has an encounter with some of her werewolf brethren and is reminded of her heritage.
THREE STARS.
He surfaces in Psiot City, kind of a ghetto community for psiots, with portions of his memory gone. He meets hipster girl Cici, who knows who he is and isn’t afraid of him, who offers him shelter while he works through his situation. The theme of this whole story arc is how Peter seeks a new path and decides to continue on but to “be better.” (Groan).
He’s attacked by a group of murderous mercenaries given super-abilities through H.A.R.D. Corps technology and calling themselves The Warning. (Groan #2). Peter decides to give himself up, but the Warning defeats him and captures Young Ago (Groan #3), a psiot with the ability to rally and persuade others, even a crowd. Peter decides he needs a new identity and with Cici’s help he gets a superhero suit (Groan #4).
Throughout all four issues, Peter spends a lot of time apparently talking to himself and going through a lot of personal head-shrinking. It turns out there is an alter ego, which may be real or just another aspect of his personality, who wears a hoodie to disguise a monstrous face and goes by the name The Renegade (Groan #5). There’s a subtle hint that Toyo Harada (formerly the most powerful psiot) is not dead and may be The Renegade.
I couldn’t help feeling as I read this first story arc that this was the New Age version of Peter Stancheck, sort of the Hipster Harbinger. The other thing I wasn’t comfortable with in this new version is the art, a garish and angular style that, for me, is hard to look at.
HARBINGER as written by Joshua Dysart and later by Rafer Roberts was formerly my favorite title of the 21st Century revival of Valiant. I didn’t really get into the original version of the series, but thought the re-boot was the best thing to come out of the new Valiant, excluding the new series. X-O MANOWAR has always been my favorite Valiant character, excluding the current Dennis Hopeless version. Now there are two Valiant titles that I don’t need to continue reading. Neither one of them is a bad series. They just don’t deliver what I expect them to anymore. THREE STARS.
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