The Essentials is a series of large collections of comics that Marvel puts into a big book. One unique feature of these Essentials, is that the comics are now published in black and white. I don’t think that was a great move, but reading it in black and white is still enjoyable. This collection brings together a lot of Warlock comics, as well as issues of other series in which he appears.
The collection mainly deals with his adventures on Counter Earth and the rise of the Magus (Which leads into the Thanos arc that concludes the collection. On his adventures in Counter Earth, he meets alternate versions of other marvel characters like Reed Richards and Dr Doom. In this world, they never obtained supernatural abilities and Dr Doom was a good person. Warlock had to find the Man Beast and stop him from corrupting more and more people. The President definitely didn’t make things easy, but a group of teenagers allied with Warlock to help his cause.
After Warlock left counter earth, he found out about the Magus whose evil had been spreading across the cosmos. Warlock knew that he couldn’t stand a chance in a battle with the Magus at the time, but he went to go challenge the Magus, meeting up with Gamora, Thanos, and Pip along the way. The best part of this arc was easily Thanos’s battle against the Magus. Both of these titans wielded immense power and Warlock felt pretty outmatched against them.
Finally, Thanos revealed his ultimate plan and Warlock had to band together a group of powerful allies to stop him. The Avengers naturally came to take down Thanos and his vast army of alien ships. If their might wouldn’t prove enough, they had backup in the form of The Amazing Spider Man and the Thing.
Warlock made for a pretty good main character. He definitely goes through a lot of development during the course of these comics. At first he’s a pretty optimistic person who’s ready to help the humans overcome evil. Eventually during the Magus arc, he starts to have some pretty serious doubts about the whole thing. He went insane and his gem started to have a will of its own. After he finished with the Magus, Warlock now has a very convoluted mind. He could remember things that occurred in the future and past which hadn’t happened anymore due to time travel, but he also remembered what did happen. Not to mention that both things overlap at some points including Warlock’s battle against himself.
It’s only natural that all of this got to him and Warlock lost all of his cheerfulness and optimism. He withdrew to himself and became a pretty mysterious individual. During the final comics he’s in a state of rage and is ready to avenge the lives of his friends at the hands of Thanos. Warlock initially never used his gem unless he had no choice, (Since the gem steals a person’s soul, meaning that they will never get to pass on to the next world) but eventually he starts to use it more and more. In the final comics he had begun to use it without hesitation and had a fierce battle with Thanos. Warlock is finally able to experience true peace at the end of the collection and his journey was over.
Along the way Warlock met with other fighters including: The Hulk, The Avengers, The High Evolutionary, The Collector, and Spider Man. For the most part they all looked pretty good. Spider Man had a pivotal role in saving the universe and that window of opportunity was opened by the Avengers. The Collector gave Adam Warlock an incredible fight (Which may have been disastrous for Warlock if the Gardener hadn’t stepped in) and the High Evolutionary kicked everything off with the creation of Counter Earth. From the main characters, Pip the Troll was the only one that I especially disliked. He’s not my type of character and he’s not the best sidekick that a guy could have. He makes a lot of jokes and talks tough, but it can only get a character so far.
Overall, the Warlock collection is pretty good. Granted it’s not the most exciting comic collection out there, but it is pretty solid. Their is a lot of cosmic action in the 2nd half and you’ll meet some high tier villains like the Star Thief, Thanos, and the Magus. The plot is also pretty interesting and I’d recommend this collection to all comic fans.
Overall 7/10
I now own the whole series!
Digimon is a very popular franchise that naturally became Pokemon’s rival. Both of them deal with Trainers and their (Digi or Poke)mon as they travel across the world. While there are many similarities, there are also some pretty vast differences. Digimon has many different series (Or seasons if you prefer to break them up that way) but this review will just be talking about the original. The main characters of this series are Tai, Matt, Sora, Mimi, TK, Kari, Izzy, and Joe.
Digimon Adventure has several arcs including: The Devimon arc, The coming of Myotismon, and the rise of the Dark Masters. Like most shows, Digimon gets progressively better the farther the series goes. The Devimon arc was pretty good and the two arcs after that one were both great. Most of the episodes are pretty fun and intriguing to watch with very few underwhelming episodes.
Let’s go through the Devimon arc first. Since this arc is the first one to begin in the series, Devimon won’t appear to be as formidable as other villains, but was definitely a powerful way to start the series. At the time, the DigiDestined (What the heroes call themselves) only had access to their champion forms, but they were still pretty tough. Greymon will always be remembered as one of the most iconic digimon out there. I will go through each of the characters and their digimon later on in the review. One thing that held the arc back was the lack of a great soundtrack. The Devimon arc is the only one to not feature the iconic theme song during each digievolution, taking away most of the epicness from the transformations.
After the Devimon arc, the next big event was the Myotismon plot. To shake things up, not only was the digi world under attack, but even the human world fell prey to his evil schemes. Myotismon had a legion of powerful warriors under his command such as Dark Tyrannomon and Mega Seadramon. Not to mention that Myotismon was already a very powerful digimon and didn’t need any help to give the heroes a hard time. His power was that of an ultimate level and in his Venom Myotismon form he could give Mega level digimon a hard time. This arc had a much larger sense of danger and the threats became more dire as the humans got thrown into the battle.
Finally, we have the Demon Masters part of the series. Picking up immediately after the DigiDestined deal with the Myotismon threat, the heroes find themselves heading back into a far different digiworld. The Dark Masters took no time in converting the once happy digital world into a dark and miserable place. At this point in the series the heroes all had ultimate level digimon (Tai and Matt even obtaining Megas) so they weren’t that afraid of what was to come. The Dark Masters quickly humbled them and defeated the heroes 4 times in rapid succession. Realizing that they need to get stronger, the heroes head off to save the digital world once and for all, but are the Dark Masters really the villains that they should be worried about? This part of the series was easily my favorite and the stakes had never been higher.
Since Tai is the leader of the DigiDestined, we’ll look into his character first. He’s definitely got the makings of a true main character and while he doesn’t tend to give orders, he can definitely lead a team well. It would be hard to find a better main character around and he’s also got the best digimon of the DigiDestined. Agumon is the name of his rookie form and he transforms into Greymon, Skull Greymon, Metal Greymon, and War Greymon. War Greymon is easily his best form, but I’ve always liked Greymon and his Nova Blast as well. Together Tai and Greymon are almost unstoppable!
Matt is Tai’s rival and he’s also a pretty good character for the most part. I feel a little bad for him since his Gabumon is no match for Agumon in the longrun, but Matt always gives it his all. I can’t say that I’m a huge fan of the rest of the DigiDestined. Sora is alright, but she never really stood out with a really great fight scene or memorable line. Izzy is the smart kid, but I would prefer if he was known as the strong whizkid so that he could get some more fights. Mimi doesn’t tend to fight enough and she’s certainly not as upbeat and commanding as Tai. Joe could learn a thing or two from Matt about toughness and strength of character. TK and Kari get a pass since they’re only kids, plus both of them get significantly better in the sequel series. Still, that’s not to say that any of them are really awful characters. They’re decently alright and they have their moments. Tai and Matt just happen to steal the show in this series.
The soundtrack for Digimon is awesome and you won’t forget the theme song once you’ve seen the show. The lyrical songs that take place during the fights are definitely not that good, but the regular digimon theme that plays during the transformations easily makes up for it. The fights in Digimon are always pretty fun and the animation for them still holds up to this day.
Digimon is a series that I strongly recommend and I would easily say that it’s one of the best anime of all time. With a solid 50+ episode count, there is plenty to watch and rewatch. In the future I know that I’ll be checking it out again myself. So, go out there and buy the complete series, after all you can never watch too much digimon!
Overall 8/10
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