Weekly Pull List 8-21-13

Big week this week. had a nice variety too. First off we have Sonic Universe 55. I picked this up because I needed an extra book to spend enough for the punch card and the idea of a pirate sonic is super cool. Unfortunately we don't see Sonic at all in this issue. It's more Blaze, Marine, Amy Rose, Cream, Bark, and Bean. I don't know any of these characters apart from their roles in Worlds Collide. That being said, I did thoroughly enjoy this issue. Blaze and co. are roaming the high seas looking for the final Sol Emerald when they come across another ship that opens fire on them. A battle ensues and the issue ends with Blaze onboard Captain Metal's ship as her boat and her friends are sinking. Much like the Worlds Collide series, there's not a ton to talk about. The art does what it needs to. The story is interesting. The twist is unnecessary and doesn't mean a ton to me as I haven't read the story that the supposed prisoner was introduced in. Good book. 3 out of 5.

Next we'll head to Image with Steve Niles' Chin Music 2. Last issue seemed to just introduce the characters. Issue 2 introduces the story.  We follow Elliot Ness investigating a crime scene where he eventually tells the press to not release that Capone is dead to the press. Ness visits Daniel Shaw to arrest him as he robbed Ness the opportunity of bringing Capone in so he will become a legend. The issue ends with Shaw agreeing to bring Capone in alive. Once again, Steve Niles brings out a really awesome, intriguing idea and story. Messing with history is always interesting and adding a mystical element is such a cool way to do it. Shaw is a man who apparently can't die and now he's supposed to bring back the dead Capone? I'm in for the ride. Tony Harris' art is super stylized and eerie and really adds to the story. Super cool book. 4 out of 5.

I decided to try something new with Batman Beyond Unlimited 1. This is a collection of digital issues of Batman Beyond and Justice League Beyond that were released over the last month. Written by Kyle Higgins who was on the Fat Man on Batman podcast recently. While I haven't watched Batman Beyond and this continues that story, I still enjoyed this book. It's interesting seeing the future of the DCU. I like this book, but not enough to buy each issue. I may be picking up the trade when it comes out, tho I think I need to watch the series before I'll really care about these characters. 2.5 out of 5.

Continuing with DC we'll head to Superman Unchained 3. We pick back up with the stand off with Superman, Gen. Lane, and Wraith. A minor scuffle ensues andSuperman surrenders to the seemingly friendly Wraith. When something attacks Tokyo, Superman and Wraith fly across the world when suddenly (gasp) Wraith says he has to kill Superman! This book is losing quality with each episode. The story is losing it's surprise and intrigue with each issue. There were subtle hints throughout the issue that Brainiac is involved. If that's the case I may still be interested, but this villain isn't very intriguing at all and I don't find myself caring what's going to happen. 2 out of 5

Trinity of Sin: Pandora 3 is a Trinity War Tie-in. We get some more back story of Pandora through the ages, which is interesting to see the training she received and to see it pay off at the end when she kills Envy. She promises to explain how, but also says it won't be till next issue. So yeah. Not a whole lot of bearing on the actual trinity war as her fight with the sins goes unseen by everyone. It's a weird decision and I'll have to wait to see how it plays out. Story itself is alright, but the set up gets this book up to a 3 out of 5.

We continue Trinity War with Justice League Dark 23. Everyone's fighting for the box again. Shazam manages to grab hold of it, sending a magical pulse throughout the world to be felt by all the magic characters, allowing Deadman to sense Madame Xanadu's location. The story ends when Constantine shows up and takes the box. It doesn't effect him negatively as "you can't soil a pot that's already filthy" which I found interesting. Zatana and Constantine whisk away to find Madame Xanadu and meet up with Batman and crew. She reveals that the box is actually a doorway and the Outsider says it's time to open it. A lot of good action, but realistically this book could have been half this long. As I mentioned before, I wish that we could have seen better interplay between this issue and what happened in Pandora's book. You can see where they cross if you examine both books. Decent story. Art is great as always. I'm looking forward to the end. See how they work that out. 3 out of 5.

Finally we have The Sixth Gun 33. Drake is mourning his inability to do anything while Kirby Hale, Gord Cantrell, and friends go looking for the dream hunters who are pursuing Becky. And Becky herself is trapped in an alternate reality dream where Hume is still alive and has killed Drake. There's a somewhat tense dinner scene that's interrupted by the dream hunters. When Hume is speared from through the window, Becky grabs his Sixth Gun and heads out to intercept them with Hume's men. Next issue promises to be a nice, epic fight which is super exciting. However, last book hinted that this one would be dealing with dragons so I will not keep my hopes up. This issue is up to par for Bunn and Hurtt. On a side note, he was on a recent Fight for Comics podcast doing an interview. It's a great one and we get some awesome insight into this book. Definitely check it out! 4 out of 5.

That's all for this week. Next week will be much lighter so I will review some trades I read as well.

Weekly Pull List 7-24-13

Justice League Dark 22 - Part 3 of Trinity War. The Phantom Stranger shows up while the Justice Leagues are analyzing Dr. Light's body and tells them of Wonder Woman's plan to find the Justice League Dark. They go to New York to find Wonder Woman and have a quick standoff. The Question shows Superman an article that reveals that Dr. Psycho is the one behind Dr. Light's death leading him to escape in a rage. A scuffle nearly ensues before Zatana whisks away Diana and the JLD as Constantine lures Shazam away for his own schemes. The book ends with a nice little voice over moment of the mysterious man who has kidnapped Madame Xanadu and is explaining that the "knights" are moving into place nicely and reveals he has a mole in the Justice League! Gasp!! Interesting next step in the story. Another mole? pretty contrived and not very exciting. This series so far has been great books with very underwhelming endings and contrived twists. The story is decent, but seems to be lacking something. Something like a good reason for existing. Not great, but interested to see where it's headed. Especially after the next book. 3 out of 5.

Constantine 5 - This book as well as the character is one I really had little interest in. A few months ago I watched the movie and realized I kinda like the occult story. I picked this one up as it's a tie-in to the Trinity War and takes place after Constantine and Shazam take off. They arrive at a bar apparently frequents and John tricks Shazam into changing back to Billy and manages to take the magical power from him to fight off the demon who is apparently chasing them. The story is rather obnoxious and out there, but it's written in a way that I don't care about that. It's an excellent, quick read and I'm looking forward to picking up another issue or two. The art is rather brilliant. It has a fantastic balance of realism and stylistic imagery that works perfectly to evoke the demonic, surreal story. This book is an excellent surprise in that I wasn't expecting it to be great and it still blew me away. 4 out of 5.

Lastly, I picked up The Sixth Gun: Sons of the Gun 5. This is apparently the last issue of this mini series. I thought it was six, not five. This issue brings together all of General Hume's horsemen and their journeys to a place where a disease has been infecting the town. They destroy all the demons when the widow Hume shows up and recruits/guilts them into joining her. The survivors start heading toward the group when they shoot them all down as they are villains. This series is great. It answers the question I didn't know I was asking about how the men got wrapped up with Missy Hume after banishing the general. I can't wait to go back and read the main series to see how this one helps enhance it. Brian Churilla's artwork homages Brian Hurtt's work on The Sixth Gun while making it a little darker and more oriented to the villainous story. Great book and great series! 4.5 out of 5.

Weekly Pull List 7-17-13

Justice League of America 6 - Part 2 of the Trinity War. The fighting in Kahndaq continues until Superman tells them to stop and turns himself in. ONce in custody Superman is visited by Batman and Wonder Woman. A discussion of science vs. mythology ensues and is followed by Diana going to talk to Hephaestus and then when science and mythology fail, she goes to find the Justice League Dark to see if magic would work better. The last page introduces us to the Question for the first time in the New 52 I believe. I am excited to see what happens with the Question as he's a pretty awesome detective character. Great moments are when Vibe totally takes out the Flash with a crazy sweet audio blast, and finding the Question. They do touch more on Superman being brainwashed which is a good thing. Solid issue, good writing, fun art, exciting set up. 3.5 out of 5.

Sonic Universe 54. In the penultimate issue of the Worlds Collide crossover. This issue is mostly a fight between Sonic and Mega Man and Metal Sonic and Bass. Great action sequences including a montage of them teaming up and using all of Mega Man's new weapons from the series. Pretty awesome. 4 out of 5.

Thor God of Thunder 10. Part Four of the Godbomb arc. Gorr has completed the godbomb and revels in his imminent victory when his wife calls him her god. With his vision of gods, Gorr doesn't like this and kills her. His son realizes this and decides to help the Thors earn their escape and regain their hammers (or axe in the case of young Thor). With weapons in tow they attack Gorr who is working on activating the godbomb. Again a very nice issue. It's a little weird when the other gods refer to them as a Thor, but mostly it's just a very fun ride with beautiful art and ends with the bomb going off in a glorious cliffhanger. Again, it you like Thor at all you should be picking up this book. At the very least in Trade. While I thoroughly enjoy what Jason Aaron is doing with this book, I am ready for the Gorr story to be done, which it is next issue according to the letters page. This just gets me even more excited for the coming issues. Another shout out to Esad Ribic and Ive Svorcina for the amazing pencils and extraordinarily beautiful colors respectively. 3.5 out of 5

Finally, and I mean that in every sense of the word, we get to Scarlet 7. In this issue we see Scarlet set up a rally as a distraction so she can break into the mayor's office and try to blackmail/threaten him into firing all of the cops who are corrupt in the city. This issue isn't great. It's a transition between parts of the story. Very much filler, but it makes for an interesting story. This series always leaves you wanting more which is due to Bendis being an epic writer. Maleev as usual brings out the story in a beautiful way with his gritty, rough art. The only real problem with this book is that the creators are so busy that this one takes too long between issues. While the book is always good, this one was not worth the long wait, unless the next few issues come out quickly. 3 out of 5.

Weekly Pull List 6-28-2013

Solid week this week as I start to prepare for the DC crossover of the summer, Trinity War. This story will cross the three Justice League books.

Let's start with Jusstice League 21. This is the finale of the Shazam backup storyline in the previous issues of Justice League. I am not a huge fan of the character so it wasn't great for me. It's very well written and the art is very solid. we see the introduction of the super-powered Batson family, as well as a super-powered tiger. Fantastic artwork and Geoff Johns' solid writing make it a solid book and if I cared about Shazam at all I would have enjoyed it more. 2.5 out of 5.

Next up is Justice League Dark 21. Again a wrap up to a story I haven't been following. It's a bunch of magical characters fighting Doctor Destiny. It was probably a good story guest starring the Swamp Thing and the wrap up is pretty good. Written by Jeff Lemire Ray Fawkes and art by Mikel Janin, the story was tight and crisp artwork really sold it. I enjoyed it although I would have liked it better had I read the full story, I imagine. The Flash makes an appearance as well zooming around the city and stopping other monsters. Without the cameos I would have enjoyed this much less as I have little background with most of the characters. Decent, but better with context. 3 out of 5.

Justice League of America 5 follows the JLA as they infiltrate the headquarters of the Secret Society as Catwoman has supposedly been killed. Alas! It was Martian Manhunter all along! Not a great reveal as I don't think anyone actually thought she was dead. This book actually serves as somewhat of a prelude to Trinity War as Steve Trevor and Amanda Waller discuss their team to see if they're ready to fight the Justice League. The wrap up of the Secret Society story works much better than the set up of the crossover. Not a great book, but it works all right for me. 3 out of 5.

Lazarus 1. The premiere issue of Greg Rucka's new story follows a dystopian future where wealth is power and power rests in a handful of families. They each have a superior family member called a Lazarus. The book opens with one such person, Forever Carlyle being shot dead. Then getting up and killing her assailants. It's incredibly intriguing and introduces us to a superbly built world where I am looking forward very much to exploring! There's hints of an undertone of family and love that I'm sure will be explored. Greg Rucka does fantastic work and the art by Lark is superb. Stylistic, yet beautiful and a very beautiful blue tinted palette. Three word review would be: Intriguing and Mysterious.
4.5 out of 5.