Wednesday, May 25, 2005

New Comic Day May 25

Here are the comics I purchased today:

Secret War: From the Files of Nick Fury #1


Since this series has been so late, Marvel decided to hash out this piece of garbage. I thought it would be an actual comic describing the Secret War Mission and how things went down, but instead I got character profiles of the secret team and a look at Nick Fury's thought process when deciding who would be suitable for the covert ops in Latveria. I didn't even finish it and I doubt if I will. Just goes to show you folks, flip through your comics before you buy them!

Ultimates 2 #6


This was a pretty interesting issue as it had Hank Pym trying to regain some glory by joining the Defenders. It backfires of course and hilarity ensues. The ending is such a tease too! You think the last page will be a reveal of the team's traitor but Millar leaves the reader hanging. This is a series I consistantly enjoy and will be definately sticking on my pull list for a while.


Outsiders #24


This isn't normally a book I get monthly and I only got it because of the tie-in with the Teen Titans. I wasn't terribly impressed and it seemed like the last issue of the Titans except replace Superboy with Indigo and butt-whipped Titans with butt-whipped Outsiders. It may deserve another read though, as I might have missed some things along the way. As well, the art is a different style that what I'm used to, much more dark and gloomy...not sure if I like it or not.


The OMAC Project #2


Finally! Batman explicitly tells the reader that he knows he was mind wiped! Its awesome to see that even though Batman is the ultimate hardass, he's the hero that won't cross the line that the wipers did. I am looking forward to the rest of the run, but supposedly later issues tie in with other books which I'm not a fan of.

Ultimate Iron Man #2


After a long delay, issue two finally arrives and it's not quite as good as the first one, but it's close. We see young Tony being born and the steps his father takes to keep him safe from Stane. Stane comes off as a Lex Luthor type villain rather than just the ambitious buisiness man from #1 and I look forward to him meeting a grisly end (keep your fingers crossed!).

Girls #1


This is the next project from the Luna Brothers (Ultra) and I absolutely loved it. The main character has trouble dealing with girls and goes on a great drunken rant. Every guy can relate to this book because every guy does not understand women. Besides this, there is a mystery regarding a naked girl :D

Thursday, May 19, 2005

New Comic Day May 18

So I've been tinkering around with the Comic Collector program and I really like it. As mentioned in the previous post, I have a link to my collection on the sidebar. Every Wednesday I'll update that as well to include everything I've added in a week for those that are interested. I'm debating whether to include a zipped file of images as well as I'm sure many of you can use them. Let me know if you want this available.

Here are the comics I purchased today:



Here's a little review for each (from left to right, top to bottom):
Ex Machina #11

This issue shows Mayor Hundred as a bit of a prick as he cracks down on the fortune teller "industry" in New York. I can see his point that people are losing their money to these con artists, butI think that's their own problem. His justification is that it will help the economy by diversifying tourist funds, but I disagree. For example: tourist gives money to fortune teller, fortune teller gives money to drug dealer, drug dealer gives money to car salesman for 1976 Ford Mustang. See? That still helps the economy as much as a tourist spending $30 to visit the Empire State Building. But I digress. Similar to the theme of the story, this issue also acts as a portent of things to come, suggesting Hundred will be a super hero again, which should be interesting.

Teen Titans#24

AS you can see by the cover, this issue has Superboy dealing with the fact he's half Lex Luthor. A subliminal command (boy those are popular these days: see Hobgoblin Arc in Ultimate Spider-man) from Luthor has SB shaving his head and ruthlessly attacking the rest of the Titans. All in all, a good issue and I'm sure it has something to do with Infinite Crisis this fall. As well there is a tie-in with the Outsiders for the next two months so I may pick that up as well to get filled in.

The OMAC Project #1 (2nd Printing)

As mentioned in previous posts, I missed the first printing of this and passed on paying $10 for it a week after it was released. I'm glad I picked this up though because it was an interesting read and I assume Sasha Bordeaux will have a big role to play in the (assumed) downfall of Checkmate and Max Lord. Batman's dialouge seemed odd though and I don't think he'd really talk to himself, prefering instead to mull things over in his head. It was somewhat sad to see the way they disposed of Blue Beetle but many people are thinking Ted Kord will reappear as the new Spectre. Seems likely enough knowing DC.

Young Avengers #4

The first three issues were kind of slow in pacing and this one is as well, but it makes up for it by revealing new powers of some of the team and the nature of those powers. The story has to due with time travel though and that usually hurts the brain if you think about it too much. For instance, the fact that current events in the timeline are changing indicate young Kang doesn't return to the future to become old bad Kang, because if he did then time wouldn't change in the first place. Unless however, things are still able to be changed and the longer young Kang remains in the present, the more likely the changes will be permanent (which begs the question why the regular Avengers aren't asking who this strange purple guy is because they never would have met him). I didn't care too much for Kate Hudson's outfit: it looks to much of a Huntress ripoiff to me.

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Comic Collector Program

Hey folks,

I've been made aware, by Jon Ben, of a program called Comic Collector. In short, you can enter all your comic book information and it presents it in a nice, visually appealing way. I played around with it for about 6 hours last night logging some 66 comics into my database. Mark, if you're reading this, then this would be a good program to get.

Although the payoff is nice, the program definately has a drawback: you have to input EVERYTHING yourself. This is fine if you're just getting started in the collecting hobby, but if you have thousands of comics like I do, then it can be a real pain. This failing comes about because there is no online database for comics and comic information. I would like to see the big publishers collaborate to come up with a program like this and have it so if you type in Ultimate Spider-man #60, the cover and all the credits and publishing information come up automatically. Despite this time consuming task, I kind of enjoy it because it gives me an excuse to look through all my comics.

You can literally spend years with this program if you have an extensive collection and if you're a perfectionist like me. I say this because not only can you input the comic information mentioned above, but you can fill in which characters appear in the comics so you can then search your collection for all your books that have that character. A nice feature in my opinion. As well, the program also offers statistical information such as number of comic by a given writer, or with a character in it. Furthermore, it gives me an idea of how much I spend on comics because it keeps track of cover prices as well.

If you're interested, you can download the trial version here. I'll also post a permanent link on the sidebar as well as my collection file which you can download to see exactly what I have in my collection. Furthermore, to help out anyone who chooses to use this program or another one, I'll post some links to websites that have a good amount of cover images that you can associate with your collection.

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

New Comic Day May 11

Here are the comics/magazines I purchased today

Astonishing X-men #10


Here we get to see the big throwdown between the X-men and the sentient, walking, talking, ass-kicking Danger Room. Not at all what you'd expect and I was genuinely surprised at the outcome. In previous posts, I have commented that this second storyline wasn't as strong as the first, but this issue has things starting to come together and I have a feeling the next two issues should be really good. Not only can Joss Whedon write good TV but he can do damn good comics too. Cassidy's artwork is what I think of when I think of the X-men so I guess that means he's doing a good job.

Fables #37


Even though this arc is only two issues in length, it is probably one of my favorites in the series. We actually get to see the Homelands and see what's been going on since the big exile. Boy Blue isn't just some pansy that plays a horn (what he seemed like for the first 25 issues or so) but rather is an experienced fighter and is a one man killing machine (with the help of some magical items of course). I can't wait until next month when the Adversary is finally revealed.

Green Lantern: Rebirth #6


This wraps up the mini-series bringing Hal Jordan back as Green Lantern and I must say this issue was a bit of a letdown. Sure there was the big fight with Parallax, and the Corps is now together again, but there didn't seem to be a real sense of closure with this mini. I guess this is because they want you to go out and buy the new series, which I won't be doing (Carlos Pacheco = yuck). Hhhmm, now that I think about it, if Hal is supposed to be the guardian for Earth's sector, then why are there so many Lanterns from Earth? Guy Gardner, Kyle Rayner, John Stewart... seems rather fishy to me.

Ultimate Spider-man #77


Also another letdown this week was the conclusion to the Hobgoblin arc. A big fight with an ending telling us about bad things that are going to happen to Peter via Nick Fury blah blah blah. How Harry got his powers wasn't explained to my satisfaction and neither was Harry's imaginary friend. Thumbs down for this storyline. This is the last issue of this series I'll be picking up on a regular basis and I think I'm going to re-evaluate my list at Elfsar to see what consistantly entertains me on a monthly basis.

Monday, May 09, 2005

Reviews of Stuff Bought on Free Comic Book Day

So some of you may notice come very subtle changes done to the template of this site, but more than likely not. I made some of the text have capitalization and added a list of blogs created by some friends of mine. Jon Ben's, Trapped in an Optical Lattice, doesn't really have a theme to it. He more or less just puts down things going on in his life and whatnot. Rob Ferdman's, Stuck in the Sun, however, is quite musically oriented and has links to all sorts of cool stuff. I encourage anyone to check them out. Most likely though, you've arrived at this page from there's so you already know what I'm talking about.

Anyhoo, on with the reviews of stuff I picked up this past Saturday.

Check the post to see what images I am referring to.
From left to right and top to bottom:

Formerly Known as the Justice League TPB

My interest in this Trade PaperBack (TPB) was piqued after reading DC Countdown to Infinite Crisis, which featured the Blue Beetle, Ted Kord. I must say this is one of the most humourous comics I've read in a LONG time and it was really quite refreshing. From Fire's libido, to the sickening goodness of Mary Marvel, to the marriage-like relationship between Booster Gold and Blue Beetle, this book really focuses on the characters rather than big fight scenes (though there is a great one between Mary and Captain Atom). I think I might pick up the creator's sequel to this called "I Can't Believe it's Not the Justice League!" in JLA: Classified. Very funny stuff.

JLA: Earth 2

This would seem like an Elseworlds title except it does take place in regular continuity. Written by Grant Morrison and drawn by Frank Quitely, this book shows evil, anti-matter versions of our favorite heroes that oppress the people of their world and ingage in inter-office debauchery. It was a really good read except I would have like to have seen a bigger fight scene between the good versions and their counterparts rather than the "common enemy" cliche. Something that did kind of irk me was that it was $22 and not very big for a TPB. But oh well, I got it, Ultra (see below) and FKATJLA (above) in a buy 2 get one free sale, so it's not too bad.

Ultra TPB

This collects the 8 issue mini-series from Image Comics. I must say, I was very impressed by this series. This is the Luna brothers first published work and it's very well done. The premise is that heroes work alongside the police force and are represented by various superhero agencies. The heroes also have celebrity status in the community and all the scandals that go along with it. It has a definate Sex in the City feel to it as all the main characters are female and like to chat about sex and other regular stuff (Olivia = Samantha buy the way), but there's also elements of Powers as well while remaining original. I look forward to the Luna Brothers' next project, Girls set to release this month.

Young Avengers #1-3

Yes I've jumped on another bandwagon. The reason I did was because there was three issues out and I succumbed to the temptation of the "buy two get one free" sale. Written by Allan Heinberg of The OC fame, the mystery of who these kids are is the main focus of the story. Like all new titles, I'll give it 12 issues and see how it is. The first three issues seemed a little slow for my liking but the story was interesting and #4 (which comes out this week) features Kang (the evil one).

Freebies
Batman Adventures/Strikes

Just stories seen in the animated shows.

Wizard's Top 100 TPBs of All Time

This was a cool reference to have. Cooly enough, I have all of the top 12. So maybe if I get more $$$ in the near future, I may go around trying to hunt these suckers down like I did for Wizard #60's "Top 100 Comics Every Modern Day Collector Should Own" article." There is a wealth of good stories in here and it would be interesting to see an updated version of the list (it only goes to about 2003ish).

Saturday, May 07, 2005

Free Comic Book Day 2005

I showed up at Elfsar early because I didn't really know if it would be a busy day or not. I was pleased to see that there wasn't a mob at the door waiting to get in. There was probably 25 or so people through the store in the half hour I was there so I guess that's pretty good. They had a really good sale on where if you bought two of anything you got the third free. For example, buy 2 comics, get the third free, get two action figures, get the third free, etc. So I took advantage of this and got three trade paperbacks, three comics, and three small comic boxes as well as a few freebies. As well I bought 70 bags and boards at the regular price and got another 30 free. So I walked out of there $90 lighter and have a good amount of time ahead of me reading. So here's some images of the things I bought and I'll provide a bit of a review once I get through them.

Further more, I spent the afternoon organizing my comics and went through most of the hundred bags and boards I got. Here's the end result:



Here's what I got:



Elfsar is still open, so if you haven't been down, check it out!

Thursday, May 05, 2005

New Comic Day May 4

Just to let everyone know: this Saturday, May 7, is FREE COMIC BOOK DAY!! I suggest every comic lover in Vancouver head to Elfsar for what promises to be a great event.

Here are the comics/magazines I purchased today
Lex Luthor: Man of Steel #3


This is by far the wierdest issue of the series so far. Not only does it leave the reader wondering if Lex knows Bruce Wayne is Batman, but Batman and Superman have a big fight for what appears to be no reason whatsoever. It was a very odd issue. I hope things get cleared up next month. The artwork didn't seem to be as good as the previous two issues. I say this mainly from a very goofy looking headshot of Lex on page 12. It seems like the issue might have been rushed.

Ultimate Fantastic Four #18


This concludes the N-Zone storyline and like the seafood sub at subway, didn't leave me very satisfied. Johnny is ok and there was a big fight, blah blah. I'll get the next arc to see how it goes, but I think that may be it for this title. And I really don't see what it is Reed found that was supposed to bridge the gap between the Ultimate Universe and the regular Marvel U as was hyped alot before the arc started. Maybe it was Ultimate Secret though...we'll see.

New Avengers #5


Wolverine makes his appearance in the book and gets his butt handed to him by Spider-Woman of all people. Some of the dialouge in this issue was a little cheesey though, but all in all it was a good issue and had a good twist at the end. I'd like to see The Sentry make a reappearance in the book though. And like I said from the start, if after 12 issues, this series hasn't made a good impressiion on me, it's gone.

Y: The Last Man #33


Now we're talking. This was my favorite book this week and it adds an interesting element to the sailors the gang has been travelling with. No kissing girls in this issue though. As well, it's always good to see Yorrick get a little action. Still waiting for an HBO series about it though.