REVIEW: Superman Year One is a little too familiar

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By Jarred A. Luján — Back in 2016, I was sitting on the main theater floor of the Dallas Fan Expo. The chairs were awful, but I sat there, mouth agape, for about an hour staring at Frank Miller as he took questions from fans. Frank Miller is probably one of my favorite writers of all time, and I’d certainly consider him nothing less than a legend in the medium. He was with Brian Azzarello the time I saw him, which was right around the time DKIII was releasing. I remember most of that Q&A pretty well, but there is a distinct moment I have been telling comic friends about for three years: a fan asked Frank why he hated Superman, a question he’s probably gotten a thousand times since Dark Knight Returns came out all those years ago….

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REVIEW: Batman #73 has giant implications for Tom King’s run

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By Alex Batts — “The Fall and The Fallen” story arc continues in this week’s issue of Batman, and while at first glance it might not seem like that much is going on, the developments seem likely to have gigantic implications for the final chapters of writer Tom King’s run on the title. Batman #72 saw Batman beaten and broken (again) at the hands of Bane, while his father Thomas stood idle, brooding. This issue picks up with the Wayne duo in the desert, Bruce unconscious and being secured to the back of a horse, while Thomas nonchalantly sings the classic….

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REVIEW: Gideon Falls #14 plays on small details from throughout the series

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By Jarred A. Luján — If you’ve been following along with my reviews, I’ve enthusiastically written about Gideon Falls for several issues now. Each time I sit down to write a new review, I genuinely worry that I’m going to end up repeating myself each time because…well, because this book continues to be so damn good.  

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REVIEW: Monstress #22 continues this book’s best arc yet

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By Zack Quaintance — Check out some of these quotes without context that I took from Monstress #22: Calm yourself, short-lived being. .... There was a war. There is always a war. War is the deadliest child of the living… …As the poets say, victory is a pair of twins named boldness and caution. I could go on, but I think I’ve made my point—I doubt I will soon read a comic with better writing than this one. Marjorie Liu is one of the industry’s best, from her long-form plotting to how she uses simple turns of phrase like those above.

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REVIEW: Road of Bones #1 is an immersive walk through hope and oppression

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By Zack Quaintance — Let’s start at the beginning of Road of Bones #1 (I’m told that is generally a very good place to start): artist Alex Cormack delivers one hell of an establishing shot. I’m a sucker for grandiose scene-setting in comics, and this book certainly delivers that. Road of Bones #1 introduces us to its world and subject matter with a detailed and gritty splash depicting a snowy prison camp within 1950’s USSR. You can practically feel the cold as the prisoners shovel and the guards scowl, ready to reprimand (beat down) any who step out of line. It’s one hell of an intro, perfectly chosen for this story about gulags and hopes and impossible odds and the compromises men make for…

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REVIEW: Guardians of the Galaxy #5 pays off a plot point from the first issue

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By Zack Quaintance — It’s official, Guardians of the Galaxy has now reached that rare stratosphere of superhero comicbook, wherein I end up reading it in the front seat of my car before even leaving my local shop’s lot. If you’re reading this book, you’re likely nodding in agreement right now. This story has just been so rich with twists and turns and break-neck pacing that it demands that kind of urgency. It’s the type of book that pushes you to pick up your pull list just a little bit earlier that day, because…

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REVIEW: Gideon Falls #13 continues to shift this series’ central mystery

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By Jarred A. Luján — Gideon Falls is back this week, once again thrusting readers into the most insane mystery happening in all of modern comics. This is a series wherein almost every single issues has left its audience with bigger questions than it went in with. Gideon Falls #13 is no different….

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REVIEW: Little Bird #3 continues to establish this series as something special

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By Zack Quaintance — Little Bird #1 was, simply put, one hell of a comic. You can read more about it in my Little Bird #1 review (obviously), but for our purposes today I’ll just note the book grabbed readers with its striking and imaginative aesthetic, before plunging them into one of the most searing sci-fi dystopian plotlines I’ve yet to see in a comic. It felt urgent, like its creators had something important they needed to say and they needed to say it right now. Oh, and—SPOILER ALERT—the titular Little Bird gets shot through…

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REVIEW: Wasted Space #9, now with an even more excellent sense of storytelling freedom

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By Zack Quaintance — I’m not shy about saying this: Wasted Space is one of my favorite creator-owned comics. It’s a space opera in the most grandiose sense, one that features a band of plucky rogues fighting to save the galaxy while dealing with their own issues, agendas, pasts. It’s a book that through eight issues now has built a tone and voice that are so versatile, the story can now do everything from high sci-fi action to deep philosophical monologues over a pint (or several) of space brew. This is all evident….

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REVIEW: These Savage Shores #4 is a stunning work

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By Zack Quaintance — Throughout the first three issues of this series, the real carnage has been a bit understated, with death and monsters often regulated to shadows. Last issue we saw that start to break. This issue, it’s totally gone. The opening sequence is a bloody one, in which we see the supernatural creatures at the heart of this story in the light of day. It’s fantastic….

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REVIEW: Excellence #1 is the start of something new and special

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By Zack Quaintance — First things first, Excellence #1—the new comic from Brandon Thomas (Horizon, Catalyst Prime: Nobel) Khary Randolph (Mosaic), Emilio Lopez, and Deron Bennett—has an incredibly powerful opening scene. And it’s not the usual comicbook thing of fiddling with time to put an explosion, violence, or death up front. No, in Excellence #1 the opening scene finds its power in the universal while at the same time setting the tone for the themes that will….

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REVIEW: Eve Stranger #1 is our first perfect 10 of 2019

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By Zack Quaintance — Welp, it finally happened. After four full months and a few very close calls, we have our first perfect 10 comic of 2019. It is (as one has likely already surmised by this headline) Eve Stranger #1, an absolutely perfect debut comic. There’s a powerful one-two punch on the surface of this comic that really makes it go go go from the first page…

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REVIEW: War of the Realms #3 remains strong at its halfway point

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By Zack Quaintance — With this issue, Marvel’s massive War of the Realms event hits its halfway point, which is as good a time as any to discuss how it’s been so far. I’d like to focus primarily here on the main series of this event. The tie-ins are another thing, and we don’t have space for them here, so let’s instead take this comic as the third in a six-part series, independent from the auxiliary titles. In that context, it’s been very good, especially for any readers (like myself) who have followed Jason Aaron’s long Thor run…

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REVIEW: Gogor #1 practically shines with its bright designs and clean linework

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By Zack Quaintance — Gogor #1 is my first exposure to comics auteur Ken Garing, known primarily for his book, Planetoid,  a 2012 series about a space pirate stranded on a titular planetoid. That series to date has been comprised of an initial five-issue miniseries, as well as a follow up entitled Planetoid: Praxis that ran for another six. I Googled all of that, which is to say, yet again, this is my…

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REVIEW: Descendent #1 is driven by deep mysteries and authentic characters

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By Zack Quaintance — From the moment I paused to take in Descendent #1’s trippy, psychedelic, and slightly sinister cover by Juan Doe, I knew I was in for something different. The imagery on the cover here really sets an interesting tone. It’s powerful, perplexing, and maybe even a little dangerous. It’s all abstract, yet it manages to evoke a shadowy danger coursing throughout history, which the preview text for this book mentions heavily. It’s a really impressive cover, bolstering the narrative before it….

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REVIEW: Fearscape #5 is a finale that elevates all that came before

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By Zack Quaintance — Fearscape #1 absolutely blew me away when it hit last fall. Armed with a singularly pompous meta-narrative voice, the book was a graphic sequential deconstruction of literary culture. It’s main character was a struggling and dysfunctional writer, who was big on ambitions and seemingly short on work ethic and talent. The plot of the series’ debut seemed to put him a trajectory to collide with….

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REVIEW: Queen of Bad Dreams #1 is another great book from Vault Comics

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By Zack Quaintance — The concept behind Vault Comics’ newest book, Queen of Bad Dreams, grabbed me right away. In the world of this story, dream entities known as figments can emerge from dreamer’s minds, and, when they do, there are inspector judges tasked with catching them and deciding to put them back or let them remain in our world. It’s an interesting concept, obviously. What really appealed to me though was how singular it sounded, an especially impressive thing given that…

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The Saga Re-Read: Saga #37 starts THE WAR FOR PHANG (scary)

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By Zack Quaintance — Here begins Saga’s self-contained The War for Phang event story, which I remember being a tad bit disappointed with at the time. In retrospect, it’s really more on me than it is on the creator’s of this comic. Saga is not and has never been that kind of comic, the one to play up grandiose warfare into some kind of marketable event. Besides, have you seen the rest of…

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REVIEW: Guardians of the Galaxy #4 is, for lack of a better word, a slobberknocker

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By Zack Quaintance — To use the parlance of writer Donny Cates’ native Texas, boy howdy did the #$@^ really hit the fan in Guardians of the Galaxy #4. I won’t reveal much more than that, however, just noting that a conflict I thought we were on pace for a few issues down the line, really kicked off in a big way right here in these…

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REVIEW: Tom King’s Batman #69 is a gorgeous ending to an audacious story arc

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By Zack Quaintance — This is it, everyone, the six-part largely separate Knightmares story arc has now come to an end. This has been an audacious set of stories, each illustrated by a different artist and designed to explore a different part of Batman’s psyche, revealing as they did that our hero was suffering some form of torture. Remember those old campy and elaborate death traps Batman always got stuck in back in Batman ‘66? Well, this arc has been like that, but the booby trap is Batman’s own…

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