Deathstroke #9 (DC)

Rob Liefeld sucks! Why dont editors see that?! He is a lazy, unskilled artist and his writing is not much better. Just like his old Image buddy, Todd McFarlane, Liefeld gravitates toward characters that wear full masks because they cant draw faces or expressions. So Liefeld gets Deathstroke. Lets break it down. The Cover: Classic Rob pose. No background. Belts and pouches. Page #1: A building with no windows. A room full of smoke? Shapes that are supposed to be people. Faces with no expressions. Page #2: Weak cemetery. Faces with no expressions. Page #3: The one expression he can draw, angry growl. Page #4: Angry growls. It seems Deathstroke can magically put on his mask? Page #5: No faces. Trees for background. Page #6: Deathstroke looses right bicep band. Gloves change cut design and placement. No faces. Page #7: Faces with no expression. Deathstroke gets right bicep armband back. Purple guys have new face masks? Page #8: No faces. Page #9: The "cat" guy had whitish pants now they are red. Deathstroke has two magical shoulder pads appear and his glove turns blue. Page #10: Guy with glasses looses his backpack. Deathstroke looses his shoulder pads. Page #11: 'Peobody' magically appears with shoulder armor for Deathstroke. Page #12: Large tiles. Deathstroke looses sword. Page #13: Deathstroke finds sword. Large tiles. Page #14: No expression faces. Large tiles. Page #15: Zealot has the exact same hair as Deathstroke on page #2! Page #20: Lobo gets magical new outfit and has no blood on his body or face even though he just tore apart all those weak guards. Page #21 and #22:OOOPS! no page #21 or #22. So now we just paid $2.99 for 20 pages of crap instead of 22 ( I guess i should be glad). If DC had such a sales machine in Rob Liefeld why did he not sell enough to keep 'Hawk and Dove' alive? And dont tell me they planned on canceling it anyway because we all know that if it sold well they would not have chopped it. Money talks. Deathstroke deserves better. I have a headache now.

DC New 52 (The Bad): Animal Man #1

This has always been one of the stranger titles at DC, nothing has changed. This book is right on the edge of too strange and not easy to follow. Travel Foreman has some odd line work to his art and I guess it fits this title but

it is a personal choice, either you like it or you dont, I dont. Same old 'Animal Man' here. File: #1 and Done

Ultimate Comics: The Ultimates -First Ten Issues

This is a real good book. From the first issue, Jonathan Hickman has brought a story that fits the Ultimates like a glove. It is global, epic, and making Reed Richards the villain was genius!I was also very surprised by Esad Ribic's artwork. I was a fan of his painted work but the interiors are just as good (Luke Ross has also done a good job on art for issues #9 and #10. He reminds me of Steve McNiven). It also helps to have a nice cover by Kaare Andrews every month. This is a dont miss title! File:Buy it, Read it, Bag it.

DC New 52: Swamp Thing #1

Beautiful cover by Yanick Paquette! The story was very confusing. I guess you had to be a fan of Swamp Thing to follow what is going on. It feels like they threw in some random cameos from Justice League members with a guest star by Superman. This Superman also looks of age and not the younger looking version that is in all the other books. The best thing about this book is the nice artwork by Paquette. Lets use his talent on another title. File: #1 and done

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (film)

I told you about the book, now I saw the film. Wow!, they just butchered the book. (Spoiler Warning!) I knew things where not going to be the same from the start when they threw out the entire part of the author getting the journals. They also skipped 90% of Lincoln's early years, keeping only the death of his mother as the reason for his hate of vampires. The biggest change was a stupid rule they made up of not allowing vampires to kill other vampires. If you read the book you know that Lincoln had vampires as bodyguards against other vampires, so all that was taken out. A very cool part of the novel was the ending with the assassination of President Lincoln and having him turned into a vampire himself...all out of the film! Once again this film falls under the old saying " the book was so much better". Read it, dont see it !

Brave

I have avoided anything that has to do with this film online...on purpose. I wanted to see if the tv commercials did their job. They did not. The animated film opens today and I have no idea what it is about. It seems to be about a big-haired, red headed, Scottish girl that wants to choose her own path. In the trailer they show a large bear, some comedic Scottish people, and what appears to be mini versions of the lead character. I cant even tell if the three kids are girls or boys! At first it seemed as if Disney/Pixar was marketing the film as an epic or a coming of age story. Now yesterday I saw a commercial that showed nothing but humor clips. Is there some lack of confidence in this film by the production companies?( I saw 'John Carter' failing from a mile away and this one has a similar vibe) I know it has not caught my attention, and I have seen almost all their films opening weekend. I will wait for word of mouth before I go see this one.

Extermination #1

I love new concepts. This book has a good one. Written by Simon Spurrier, it is the story of an apocalyptic future(even if it is a bit over done) where aliens have taken over the Earth( I think its the Earth). Now it is up to a surviving hero and a villain to work together and get their world back! The lead hero, Nox, is an obvious Batman clone( just cut Batman's ears off)that spends the entire issue talking about his moral code( spoiler warning) only to throw it out the window in the final scene. His villain partner,Red Reaper, seems to have much more potential as a new character. The over all design of the characters is rather weak but the aliens is even weaker. We never learn the rules of what the aliens can do so the threat is not very clear. My biggest disappointment was the artwork. The cover by Michael Gaydos(cover C) is great but the interiors are rather bad. If Boom! Studios wants to be a big player in the comic book industry they need to get better talent. They even call newcomer Jeffrey Edwards a "secret weapon" and a "hot new artist". Wrong on both counts. It also did not help that the issue was way over colored. It reminded me of those early 90's books by Image Comics where they tried to cover up bad artwork with flashy coloring. Did not work then, wont work now. File: #1 and done!

Ultimate Spider-Man #1

Why do creators or publishers feel that they have to change a characters race to make them more interesting? I always feel a bit insulted when they do it. I gave this issue a chance in spite of that very fact. The artwork was great, Sara Pichelli is a talent and a half, plus the cover by Kaare Andrews was nice. Bendis gave it a good try but I just could not see past the change of the lead character (it also bothers me to hear that in the new Superman movie Daily Planet editor, Perry White, will be played by Lawrence Fishburne. It is just an unneeded change. Are there no good actors that look like the comic book version of Perry White?). For me Peter Parker is and will always be Spider-man!

Bleeding Cool

This site really is " bleeding cool"! That only got better due to them being one of the first web sites to go retro and publish a magazine. Yes, an actual "kill trees to print on paper" magazine. Nice! I have always been worried about the trend of more digital and less print. The big ole' world wide web is not real people. Without a power source or a device to access it, it stops existing. Print something and it automatically becomes real. Rich Johnston puts it best by saying, "print, its the future". Im gonna go read a printed book now.

Epic Kill #1

The story of a young ass kicking girl who has to go up against the President of the United States and all his power. Good concept. I did not like the cover swipe (on the second printing) of the bride's yellow outfit from 'Kill Bill', it even looked too much like a Frank Quitely piece. Lets talk art. Either creator Raffaele Ienco uses some kind of 'Poser' program to draw his figures or he uses action figures. All of his characters look stiff and unnatural and they have awkward hands. On page 5 panel 4 the lead character, Song , is lying in bed and her back is so stiff she looks like a 'Barbie' doll. Nobody lays down that way...maybe he used dolls for the poses. Now the writing. In the back of the book Raffaele writes a small note about this series. He admits to us that he never really wrote a story and that he just started drawing and would fill in the story as he went along...WHAT?! He goes on to say that he had not even written the last issue,#5, and issue #1 was already out...WHAT?! This book is a good idea that needed better execution. Issue #1 will be the last one for me. Can I get my $2.99 back?!

WWE: Cena vs. Big Show @No Way Out

Dose anyone in the WWE Universe care about another John Cena vs. The Big Show feud? The writers have got to use new ideas once in a while...or get new writers. The Big Show is way past trying to seem like an unbeatable giant and I think it is time for John Cena to turn heel. I dont mean " Iron Sheik " kind of heel but somewhere in the grey area like Stone Cold Steve Austin. Cena would make a great bad-ass. If Hulk Hogan can turn so can Cena.

American Ninja Warrior

crazy cool!

Marvel: The Contest TPB

This book took me back to Johnsons Market as a kid. Reading comic books off the spin rack...good times. Well now that I read it as an adult some things have changed. The artwork was about as good as it gets for a 1982 comic, but the writing...what was up with the writing?! It was like eating an extra large cheese pizza with extra cheese...TOO MUCH CHEESE! Now I understand why adults of that time thought comic books where a child's thing. Good thing comics have matured and improved so much over the years because the industry deserves it. I will file 'The Avengers: The Contest' under "childhood nostalgia" on my shelf and scratch one off the bucket list.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Just finished reading this book over the weekend. It was a lot better than I thought it would be. President Lincoln and the entire civil war period are very interesting parts of our American history. Mix in some vampires and write them into that history and for some reason it works. At least it makes for good fiction. Lets hope the movie is just as good.

E3 on G4

What was up with the programming confusion for the E3 show on G4 last week?! I had a horrible time trying to decide what was live content and what was rerun. The split broadcast time did not help the situation. Get your game together G4 (get it? Ha Ha...game?...anyway). Fix it before you get to Comic-Con!

' The Avengers '

As a lover of comics this has been a dream project from the very start. Needless to say that my expectations where sky high that it would be a great movie, and it almost was...almost. The Avengers themselves where good and Loki was a decent villain. It was also nice to have all the alien fodder to beat up on but there was one character that stole the film...HULK! Every single time that the Hulk was on camera it was a scene stealer (Best scene: Hulk tossing Loki around like a ragdoll, so cool!!). My main complaint would have to be Captain America. He just seemed to be out of his element and over matched. They never showed us any of his leadership abilities or his " never give up " attitude. All he did was run around looking lost while the other Avengers where kicking ass. Lets crank Captain America up a few notches for the next film guys.

'GAME OF THRONES' is cool tv. Bring it back soon.