Category Archives: Comic Reviews

The Amazing Spider Man Spider Hunt Review

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Time for another classic Spider Man volume! You can never tire of these adventures and this was during the height of quality for the famous hero. As much as I liked Next Chapter, Mary Jane was pretty out of character and stopped being a likable character. That was reversed here although I believe this may have taken place before the earlier collection. Either way, it deals with the origin of Spider Man’s alternate costumes, which is always neat.

Things aren’t going well for Peter Parker because Norman Osborn has taken over the Daily Bugle. This spells trouble with a capital T. Norman has spread the Anti-Spider Man regime even more intently than J Jonah Jameson to the point where the hardened reporter does not get along with him. Norman has also threatened Jameson so this comes as no surprise. Spider-Man will have to be sure not to go outside all that much, but that’ll be difficult to pull off. When someone’s in danger, you can bet that Spider-Man will be on the case no matter what.

The art is big and bold in the classic style that it always fun to see during these Spider-Man issues. As with the Cosmic Spider-Man trade or the other recent ones that I’ve been reviewing, the art just works really well. It is also a clear signal that this is from the Prime Spider-Man comics where he was depicted just right. It’s hard to ever call something a perfect adaption, but this Peter Parker is about as close as we’ll get. Spider-Man’s not treated as a joke, but is seen as a capable hero just like any other. His sense of justice isn’t skewed or in doubt. Spider-Man just takes on the villains and never crosses any kinds of lines.

One of the main sagas involves the Punisher comic from the cover. Punisher has lost his memories yet again so he’s not sure what he is even doing at this point. He wants answers though and Spider-Man isn’t about to let anyone die from this quest. One thing leads to another and Punisher decides to help Spider-Man out, but it is really a one way road. Whenever Punisher shows up, Spider-Man just ends up tying him up or pushing him to the side. Spider-Man’s not really sure what is happening here, but he certainly doesn’t want to team up with anyone who uses guns so freely. He’s not really given a choice though as bounty hunters start showing up from the woodwork to take Spider-Man down.

Spider-Man can take these guys down no problem if it were all one on one fights, but they start wear him down as the collection continues. Bullseye comes into play and Norman’s son also goes missing. Of course, it could all just be a ruse, that’s not a risk that Peter Parker can take. This collection eventually sees the start of his costumed personas since going outside in his full gear starts to get a little dangerous. It’s a nice compromise since he is still out there saving lives instead of simply putting the costume on the shelf for a little while.

One problem with not reviewing this comic for so long (It’s probably been on the back burner for almost half a year at this point) is that it’s easy to start mixing up the plots a little. The Spider-Man comics have always been iconic for having numerous subplots scattered throughout the issues. When one plot ends, another 3 or more will pop up in its place and then those will interconnect to others along the way. As a result, I can’t say with full confidence whether or not these plots have started or even begun to wrap up in this one. Some that I recall (Probably) involve the Venom calls to Mary Jane, the Kingpin is starting to get back to power as well. I think Black Cat and her luck powers may be around, but that plot may have actually ended already. Well, you get the jist of it. There are dozens of players running around at this point so it’s tough for Spider-Man to even know which villain to focus on. Every time he turns around it seems like someone else is in danger.

One odd issue involved a crazy scientist kidnapping Spider-Man and forcing him into a fake virtual reality world until Spider-Man finally broke free and snapped the machine. For a while there you didn’t know if the whole thing was fake or not so it was a little intriguing although probably one of my least favorite issues. I don’t think we ever even find out how Spider-Man was kidnapped and that’s likely because it is all a little sketchy and hard to believe. One fun issue was seeing Spider-Man don the now famous paper bag over his head to fight a few comic relief villains. It just goes to show that even without a good costume Spider-Man can take down some villains.

Another stand alone story away from the main plot of being framed by Osborn has Spider-Man take on the combined forces of Sand Man and Hydro Man. Both of these villains can be very dangerous on their own so combined they make for a very good opponent. Their team work isn’t the best though so Spider-Man can exploit that. Another random issue has Spider-Man go up against the cosmic villain Blastaar. Spider-Man goes to town on him although it’s a fairly good fight. It’s another match up that I can’t picture going quite as smoothly in the newer comics. Even if it did, the art wouldn’t be quite as full and dynamic as it is here.

Two more stories involve fights against Mr. Hyde and Black Tarantula. Black Tarantula is a surprisingly powerful villain who actually gives Spider-Man a really good fight. I also like the design here and feel like it is much better than any other incarnation that I’ve seen of him. Mr. Hyde’s not quite as interesting and I don’t care for him as a villain. Still a decently fun issue, but I would prefer a different villain. I do hope to see more of the Black Tarantula in future Spider-Man collections though. That guy has a lot of potential.

Overall, This was a fun collection. I always enjoy seeing a comic have many plots at the forefront so you never know which plot the next issue will follow. The framing of Spider-Man was a complete success by Osborn here so Spider-Man is once again being driven into a corner. I suppose it wouldn’t be one of his series without that as it is practically a requirement of a Spidey title by now. I definitely recommend this to all Spider-Man fans out there. This era certainly has a lot of stories to pull from and hopefully they all get adapted into collections like this one someday. I feel like a lot of them are probably lost in the shuffle between collections. We need a “Marvel Masterworks” sort of series for these issues. A series for the titles that aren’t super new, but aren’t extremely old either. The 90’s and early 2000’s lose out a little in that respect. That’s why I’m glad that everything goes into trade so quickly nowadays. 50 years down the road, those will be extremely helpful for new comic readers. This review’s a bit short for a comic of this size, but hopefully I’ve still illustrated why this is a must read. It has good writing, solid art, and likable main characters. All of the issues are interesting as well with even the filler ones still making for good stand alone adventures.

Overall 8/10

New Avengers Volume 2 Review

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I actually read this comic many months ago, but haven’t had a chance to write the review now. Well, the epic Incursions Arc reaches a boiling point and this is certainly the height of the whole thing. It’s technically still going on to an extent, but the team has had enough of it all so this will probably be the final true battle revolving around it. The series has been leading up to this moment with some time and even survived various tie-in issues to Infinity in order to get here. Without further ado, let’s discuss this title.

The collection was quite large as it was longer than that of a normal trade paperback, but the majority of the issues were about the big confrontation with the homage to the Justice League. Earth was coming under attack from another Incursion. If you don’t recall what that means, it essentially refers to the phenomenon of two Earths starting to exist in the same place. If they collide for even an instant, then both planets die along with the Solar System. The only way to prevent this is to destroy the other Earth. For decades, many planets tried to find another way around this, but no such way was found. This has been occurring for all of eternity with numerous versions of the Avengers so the modern day ones have finally acknowledged that they don’t think it is possible to avoid this fate. Their only choices now are to simply accept their destruction or to destroy the other Earth to spare their own. The team has many debates about that, but at least they’ve been lucky with the fact that the other Earths have been uninhabited..until now.

The Earth that appeared this time is home to the Justice League. Their Earth is the only one besides the 616 (Marvel’s main Universe) Earth to have survived multiple Incursions to live til this point. Both Earths are undefeated, but only one planet can walk away from this one alive. The New Avengers roster is fairly stacked at this point (Since it is really the Illuminati and not the New Avengers per say) since they have Iron Man, Dr. Strange, Namor, Hulk, Black Panther, Black Bolt, Beast and Mr. Fantastic on their side. However, the Justice League team has all of their signature members as well. One factor that helps the Avengers not get completely decimated in the opening seconds is that fate was not kind to DC’s team. When their Earth first appears, it happens immediately after the League had just finished fighting off another Earth. Dealing with one Incursion is already tough, but two of them in a row? The League is exhausted before the fight with the Avengers has even begun. (The previous Incursion had them fight against power mages who had previously wrecked the Illuminati with ease when it was just a few of them. The Justice League had to take on dozens of them in a planet wide invasion, but they pulled through.)

That was a mouthful, but some backstory is pretty important to fully appreciate the stakes. It is as much of a battle of morals as it is physically. The Avengers have been skirting the issue of whether or not they would pull the trigger and decide to essentially destroy a whole planet of innocent people in order to save their own skins and that of the planet’s. They would be choosing to swap their own lives for others, thus saying that theirs are more important. It’s a very dicey conundrum and one that is easily seen as morally wrong, but still hard to stop. After all, you’ll naturally be tempted to save your friends and family over total strangers. In the end, this is that situation, but on a grand scale. The fact that it is so grand also makes the whole thing very impersonal as it all becomes a lot of statistics instead of lives.

In the end, The Avengers mostly make the right call although they weren’t as decisive as I would have liked. They decide not to destroy the planet, but they also don’t decide to destroy the device. One by one they all simply say that they can’t do it and leave the machine there so it was easy for someone to walk up and press the button anyway. Hopefully they will be more alert next time, but it doesn’t change the fact that they just let an entire planet blow up on their watch. This was definitely not their greatest moment and will be something that they likely won’t want to share anytime soon.

The tensions with Black Panther and Namor have escalated as well. Black Panther now knows that Namor was responsible for the massacre in Wakanda and having a planetary genocide to add to that rap sheet doesn’t help matters either. It’ll be tough to get to Namor now though since the graphic novel ends with the Sub Mariner forming his own Cabal. The group is fairly powerful with heavy weights like Thanos, Terrax, and the mysterious lady from another dimension in their ranks. If necessary, this group could likely defeat the Illuminati and with ease I might add.

The author likes his use of synergy and repetition, but with a twist. For example, the speech that Namor gives at the end is the same one that Mr. Fantastic gave to the heroes at the beginning. It’s the exact same dialogue word for word, but the words have been twisted thanks to the context of how Namor is saying it all. It was definitely a solid piece of writing and the whole collection is quite good with that. There are no poorly written scenes in the entirety of the collection and a lot of plots are juggled around. Once you start reading this saga, you really can’t put the book down. The saga even has its own lore and universe built to support it without interfering with the rest of the Marvel Universe. This story is essentially taking place in a vacuum. It doesn’t effect the other titles, but you can still feel that the stakes are real. For example, I like all of the original characters that were added for this event.

Black Swan is the main one and she gives the heroes the various ideas for how to destroy worlds. She’s the dark voice urging them to give in and just destroy their obstacles. Acting as a bad influence to the team, she tends to succeed in breaking them all down slowly but surely. Her powers are vague, but she seems to be quite powerful. Her standard looking energy attacks are deadlier than they appear to be. She also got an origin story towards the end of the saga, which shed some light on her motivations, but she’s still an odd character. At the very least none of the factions should trust her.

All right, let’s talk about the Justice League. They were easily the best characters in the comic and I was rooting for them right from the start. It’s hard not to since they appear to be completely heroic and just want to protect their planet. From their side of things, the Avengers just look underhanded. As soon as the Justice League turned their backs, Namor threw his spear into one of their members. Sure, the Illuminati didn’t think that Namor would be that corrupt, but the whole thing is on them. The Justice League tried for a peaceful solution, but this destroyed negotiations so they decided to fight. As it stands, Superman was completely decimating the Avengers. (Not even going to bother with code-names) The Justice League did a great job of showing that unity and experience can defeat individually powerful fighters any time.

While they relied on heroism and good ole fashioned team-work, the Avengers had their Namor traitor and Dr. Strange, who decided to sacrifice his soul to get help from a demon. That did give him a massive power boost and ultimately it is what turned the tides against the Justice League, but it was definitely a very dicey decision. The Avengers had to pull out all of the stops for this fight. It was great to see Green Lantern, The Flash, Batman, and Superman in a Marvel comic. There was even a Martian Manhunter member although I don’t recall if there was a Wonder Woman fighter in the group. I was on Team DC as expected, but even the Marvel fans reading this may side with them given the circumstances. I hope to see them all again soon.

Even if I was rooting against them, the Illuminati members are all rather solid as well. This is not counting Namor of course as he is just another petty villain in the end. Mr. Fantastic was a bit out of character during some points as he was overly protective and making quite a lot of threats. It seems like this arc started to slowly corrupt him. Iron-Man and Beast retained their composure and were fairly in character even if there wasn’t a lot of opportunity for Iron Man to crack jokes. Black Bolt didn’t say much, (Shocker) but he also made the right calls in the end. Hulk was really just here to fight and get stomped by Superman. It’s a solid cast, but with the team fractured and more Incursions to come, what will they do? They have essentially decided to just let Earth die and I believe that all of this ends up tying into Secret Wars so maybe there won’t need to be much of a conclusion in the series.

It almost goes without saying that the art is excellent for this collection. It’s some of Marvel’s best work in that area and can hold its own against the DC powerhouses. As a comic, this one is also one of the best titles out there. This New Avengers run may be the best Avengers arc that I’ve read. Currently, I’d say that the best Marvel arcs are Infinity Gauntlet, Civil War, and X-Sanction. We can’t forget Secret Wars and World War Hulk either, although while I love that final arc, it is a bit of a step down from some of the others. If I had to rank them all (Counting tie-in issues that I’ve read for them) It would go: Infinity Gauntlet>Secret Wars>Civil War> New Avenger Incursions> X-Sanction> World War Hulk. As of now, I haven’t read much of the other big Marvel events like AVX, the new Secret Wars, or the new Infinity. The big X-Men arcs are solid as well, but none of them even come close to ranking up there at this point in time. There are probably other arcs around that I’m not thinking of at the moment, but Marvel does have a ton of them in the lineup so it would take forever if I was actually listing all of them.

Marvel’s events have been consistently good even if some of the later ones look a little anticlimactic. The new Secret Wars always looked rather boring from what I’ve seen and the new Infinity seems like the Infinity Gauntlet, but on a much smaller scale. Luckily, tie-ins help to stretch out the events. Infinity should have good fights though so hopefully Secret Wars threw some in there as well. Plus, if it does tie in to a lot of the material from this series, then that will help bump it up quite a bit. Personally, I think Secret Invasion looks like an epic arc with all the intrigue of who is turned and who isn’t, but I know that the comic doesn’t have the greatest reputation so it’ll be interesting to see how that one is someday. I don’t know what big Marvel event is coming up next, but I’ve been rather out of touch with the comics lately so I’ll work on getting a little more involved again.

Overall, This is definitely a comic that I highly recommend to all comic readers. Even if you haven’t read the previous volumes yet, you’ll be able to quickly get into the situation thanks to the recap at the beginning and the fact that the heroes will remind you a few times. This comic is very dialogue heavy, but also has a lot of action so it makes for a good mix. The comic should take you a little while to read as a result. The highlight is definitely the fight with the Justice League. While the League should have won even if they were already exhausted, out of energy, and got hit by a sucker punch at the start, it was still a good fight. It’ll be tough for this comic to be surpassed by other Marvel comics with how solid this was. It’s hard to imagine another event being this engaging at the moment either.

Overall 9/10

FCBD 2016 Vailant Review

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Valiant 2016
All right, it’s time for another anthology collection from Valiant. They like to take short chunks out of several comics instead of picking one or two which means that each adventure only gets 3-4 pages at best. Naturally this also increases the chance that you’ll run into a bad story so it is a risky strategy. The first story is about a guy who was banished to Earth and now he wants revenge on his father for doing this. Earth is pretty warped now in its false Utopia state so he wants out of there pronto. This story could theoretically have potential, but who am I kidding, it’ll probably be quite bad and ultra violent by the end.

The next story is horrendous as it starts with a rat being eaten and I couldn’t be bothered to care about the Star Trek ripoff planet afterwards. Seriously, starting a comic out with an animal being eaten is poor form. The next comic is about two guys yelling “It’s Miller Time” (Practically anyway) as they down some drinks. Unfortunately, 60+ years later one of those guys fell inside his super large backpack so the other one jumps in to fight some demons and to find his friend. This could be tricky! This story could be decent, it’s certainly a unique adventure I suppose.

Next up was about a super heroine who likes helping people, but she also wants to keep up with her human job instead of just living as a hero 24/7. It’s her choice I suppose. Unfortunately, she can’t save everyone and gets down about it, but for once the town and the cops are on her side so the situation isn’t all that bad. This could be a happy superhero adventure, but this is Valiant so I doubt that it will stay happy for long. The final comic is about Bloodshot (I think that’s his name) who is in the forest at this time. He is running, but ends up running into a clone of himself who immediately has a censored line since his potty mouth can’t be stopped. That’s the clone’s only line by the way so it is an….interesting way to be introduced. I liked the dog, but I’m worried about how things will ultimately end for him. There better be a happy ending here!!

At the very least the art was fairly good for most of these stories. Beyond that, there really isn’t a whole lot to say about them. Most of these stories don’t have a whole lot of potential and none of them had any action scenes. I miss the big crossover story that they had last year. Ah well, better luck next time guys!

Overall 3/10

FCBD 2016 The Legend of Korra Review

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It’s time to tackle the next free comic. I never got into the Avatar show and naturally that applies to the sequel as well, but that just means that I can look at it from the “General Audience” perspective. The story actually isn’t bad. It’s about Korra as a kid and how she meets a Polar Bear cub. We get to see them grow up and bond and this finally shows us how the two characters met since they are main characters in the cartoon. It’s a decent little story. There really isn’t a lot to it though as it is really just their chance meeting, but there’s nothing bad about it either. It’s a fun enough story in the end. The art is decent as well. The problem is that it has to share with two other stories which are significantly worse.

The second story is from the How to Train Your Dragon series. It is an anthology as various characters talk about the past. The main problem with this is the fact that the story is already going to be short since it is sharing with Korra and Plants vs Zombies. So, the “anthology” doesn’t have time for any of its stories. It doesn’t help that the characters all have extremely boring designs and none of them seem even remotely likable. It ends with the heroes charging towards the villains and it should have been epic, but it was rather boring instead. The art was also fairly bad as all of the backgrounds were dark and dreary. It’s a cave, but caves can still be drawn to be interesting typically.

Finally, we have Plants vs Zombies. It’s not as terrible as last year’s since it is only about 5 pages or less, but it is still very bad. The whole comic is based around the running gag that the main character smells bad since he forgot to take a shower. That’s the plot and then the characters destroy some villains along the way. You can’t go a page without that plot being brought back to the forefront yet again. It’s just quite sad and reminds me why this franchise may be one of the worst comedies that I have ever seen. It’s just truly horrible and the comic can’t survive this story mixed in with the boring middle one. I’d just stick away from this comic if I were you folks.

Overall 3/10

FCBD 2016 Spongebob Freestyle Funnies Review

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This comic was surprisingly bad. I expected better from Spongebob and usually his comics are fairly decent, but not this time. The comic is split into two stories. The main one is about Spongebob taking over the hamburger making at the local cafe. The problem is that he’s not fast enough to really satisfy the customers so he is forced to split his arms up and have them multiply. They finally start achieving the goal so then Spongebob eats his arms and serves the burgers. I have to say that this part was pretty gross. Why did Spongebob have to eat himself in the end? It didn’t serve much of a purpose and that was an anti climactic way to end it all. The art was also fairly terrible for this story. It may be the worst art from all of the free comic book day issues, which is a true shame. Nothing could really save the comic after this rough start.

The other half was about Mermaid Man and his sidekick in their classic Batman homage series. Mermaid Man and his partner have to stop the villains and they make some good puns along the way. Honestly, there’s not much to say here. This may be a parody, but unfortunately it isn’t a very good one. The issue isn’t funny and just comes across as generic and time consuming. The comic isn’t bad so much as it is just not very good. It’s another missed opportunity for the Spongebob comic. The art was certainly better, but it was still nothing special in the end.

It’s scary to think that titles like the Simpsons and Bob’s Burgers were funnier this year. Maybe Spongebob has lost its touch. Like Bongo, Spongebob is typically around year after year so at least it will have a chance to redeem itself for this issue. At the very least, there’s no way it can lose to this one. I’ve heard that the show has also gone downhill since the older seasons as well so maybe there is a correlation here.

Overall 3/10

FCBD 2016 Serenity Review

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Serenity/Hellboy/Aliens

Serenity/Hellboy/Aliens


Time for another FCBD issue. This one brings three stories with it and unfortunately that increases the likelyhood that one of them will be a flop. That certainly does happen as this batch isn’t particularly strong. The main story features a character telling a little kid a story. Apparently it seems like this story is basically a remake of the first arc of the series. The living embodiment of wind met a skilled heroine and a noble pirate. Together, they decided to have some fun adventures and hang out. The plot twist at the end of the short is that the story was actually real and the main character’s Mom was the heroine. The art wasn’t really my cup of tea, but there’s nothing really wrong with the story. It’s a charming little adventure I suppose even if it didn’t really stick out. It’s better than sticking out in the wrong way like the next story though.

Hellboy goes to these mysterious ruins where an old lady warns him not to mess with the spirits there. Hellboy scoffs and looks through the mirror where the spirits quickly begin to overwhelm him. Before he is eaten alive, he begs the old lady for help and she moves him away from the mirror. Rather than being apologetic or grateful he basically tells her to get away from him and sulks for a little while. His tough guy act was certainly shattered here since old/weak spirits can wreck him so easily. This comic certainly won’t make you a fan of the guy. The art is fairly consistent with the Hellboy franchise. The colors are faded and not very vibrant so it’s not quite up to DC levels of art, but it’s clear at the very least. A little underwhelming overall, but not that bad. This comic would have hurt the overall score a little more if the ending wasn’t so funny. It was unintentional, but you should get a good chuckle from it.

The final story was an Alien one. A crew has been sent out to exterminate the entire Alien race one planet at a time. They are going through the route that the original ships went through to retrace their steps and find every possible place where Aliens may be hiding. The only problem? They weren’t prepared for this and the Aliens quickly overwhelm the heroes. They seem so shocked that you’d think they had signed up for Mountain Hiking as opposed to Alien Extermination. There is also an android on the team who doesn’t seem to understand that humans don’t play by the rules and can’t pull off perfect pivots or incredible precision like a robot. As far as alien stories go this one was actually quite boring and uneventful. You won’t be eager to see where the story goes and the art was fairly generic as well. None of the stories make for a great draw so this ends up being one of the weaker free comics.

Overall 5/10

FCBD 2016 Bongo Free For All 2016 Review

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It’s time for another issue with the Simpsons. Bongo has been an annual tradition for FCBD. The stories have actually been fairly decent for the most part and this year’s issue actually had a very solid story. It is still the Simpsons so none of the characters are made to be particularly heroic or likable, but they don’t seem all that bad either. I doubt that the show would be even semi good, but it is good that they step up their game for the comic. The main story involves two new criminals who attack people using Donuts, Bread mix, and other food ingredients. This forces the townsfolk to have to come to terms with each other whether they want to or not. Luckily, Bart and the other Simpsons character are on the job with their food powers. The contrast of foods and snacks is pretty hype and they are perfectly matched up for this task since no donut is safe from these guys. The villains are put in their place and the day was saved. It was a very solid all around comic if you ask me. The art was good as well.

There were other stories inside as well. There was a short one about the Cops stopping an Ice Cream truck so they could get a few scoops. The poor guy probably realized that profits were going to be a little lower that day. There was also an issue where one of the kids decided to play a prank on the Principal and impersonated a Dentist so he could give the guy some fangs. The principal was not amused, but he didn’t realize what was happening until the school turned against him. Suddenly, everyone wanted to destroy him and by throwing objects at him, they realized that the principal had to be a vampire. Luckily, the kid calls off the prank by throwing some glitter on the Principal. This naturally makes him a good vampire and the blame shifts to a guy who seems to be a werewolf. He admits that he has fleas at any rate and quickly runs away. The ending was great with the way that the “Werewolf” ran away and his final lines. Yes, the humor was actually fairly solid this time around.

The art was consistent for these stories as well. The Simpsons is still a franchise that looks pretty sad on the whole and I definitely don’t support it, but even a bad apple can have a good bite or two in it right? The Simpsons flexed its creative muscles and actually got us a winner this time so that was most impressive. We’re getting even closer to the end of the Free Comic Book Day issues now folks. Just around 5 left, but we’ve gone through most (If not all) of the big titles so prepare yourself for stories that hopefully still manage to be good…but I have my doubts.

Overall 7/10

FCBD 2016 Bob’s Burgers Review

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It’s time for some Bob’s Burgers adventures. Ironically enough, Bob doesn’t really get to do anything this time. The main story is about one of the girls deciding to clone herself because the dancing club needed more members and she couldn’t fill in for a whole team on her own. That’s where the clones came in and it works very for her until all of the clones want to date the same person. The original has to tell them “No” so they head off to scour the world and become experts in different fields. In the end the cloning experiment was a complete success. It’s a fun little story and having clones has always been an intriguing thought. If they were perfect clones, then there would be many uses for them.

The next story is not the clickbait cover I’m afraid. (That one never happens by the way) It’s about one of the kids deciding to explore a basement so he heads on down and discovers that some guys are testing out a car down there. The kids spoiled his chance at a new record so he is a little upset. The story was pretty boring though and the kids can’t carry their own comic. I could have told you that though, it is rare for kids to be entertaining in these kind of things. The final comic is about another kid. By night he is a musician and then he becomes himself again just in time to use the bathroom. Yeah….I don’t think that’s a very engaging story either. It’s cool that he can fly I guess, but you can’t make that a whole plot without sacrificing the epic factor.

Bob’s Burgers was tasteful at least and the humor never got iffy, but the last two stories certainly hold it back a little. I want to see more of Bob since he is probably the highlight of the show. It is his burgers that make the whole show after all right? I could go for a Cheeseburger right about now, but I had one recently so I’ll survive. The art was decently good for the three issues though so that’s good. This issue’s basically middle of the road so pick it up…or don’t, this comic doesn’t owe you a thing!

Overall 5/10

FCBD 2016 Doctor Who Review

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I have to say that the Doctor Who series doesn’t seem to have a lot of stakes. Every comic that I’ve read with him has typically resulted in a blowout as Doctor Who completely outclasses all of the villains. None of them even make him break a sweat. This must not be the case in the show right? You can only carry on the “Doctor is the greatest” gimmick for so long before it starts to get repetitive right? I mean, it is a lot of fun to see him wreck everyone and it makes sense since he is so experienced and smart, but I’d like to see someone give him a close fight someday. That doesn’t happen here, but as a result The Doctor continues to be a great lead. I have liked just about all of his forms to date as they are all typically overconfident or just very eager to fight.

There are four stories here. The first one has the cynical old version of the Doctor at the ready and he is mad that the humans have messed around with his toys once again. He manages to take down the enemy robot rather easily while bashing everyone the whole time. I’m glad that his new “assistant” quickly confirmed that she wouldn’t be his assistant before he even asked. That’s definitely a pretty new response to this whole predicament. This Doctor is also one of my favorite incarnations of the character. It’s good to see him so jaded. We got a nice action scene and the art was solid which helped make this the best story in the collection.

The second story had weak art and probably my least favorite Doctor of the group so it wasn’t nearly as good. One guy on the crew is having a tough time coping with his wife’s permanent frozen status so he keeps on threatening the other characters and The Doctor mentions that he reminds him of himself. You have to choose an impossible goal or you’ll be swallowed by grief. An interesting theory, but the whole thing is basically just The Doctor talking while the other guy takes a stroll. In the end, the guy realizes that his mission was too easy and pretends that he did not accomplish it. I think that the issue was trying way too hard to be deep so it ended up backfiring. The traveling guy just felt hollow and his act of “I’ll destroy you all someday…kappa” will probably get old really quick.

Next up was the most annoying Doctor. This time he has two passengers aboard the ship and one of them is actually very experienced so she is used to all of the shenanigans. The other isn’t though and she wants to know why a ghost is running around the Tardis. The Doctor scoffs at this since ghosts can’t be real and the assistant verifies his story. That’s when they run into a Tornado Ghost made from The Doctor’s tech mistakes. The art wasn’t great and the new assistant was the main character which wasn’t that good since it was an excuse for a lot of panicking the entire time. This Doctor wasn’t very sympathetic to her plight and the whole thing ended up being his fault in the end. Not his greatest moment. The art’s a little sketchy here, but passable I suppose.

In the final story, we had The Doctor and two rangers(?) walking around when they meet up with a high tech alien with a mask that lets him do just about anything. He rewrites planets just for fun. This alien’s big mistake was trying to peek inside The Doctor’s mind though which quickly shatters him. The Doctor reminds everyone that his mind is basically invincible so it is not in their best interest to try and test him. I’ll admit that I couldn’t figure out who The Doctor was for a while though since the two guys acted very similarly. It was a good story and I’m glad that The Doctor got some more hype once again. The art was fairly good as well.

This was definitely one of those collections where the quality varied. The first and last story were good, but 2 and 3 were really lacking. This cost Doctor Who its seven star grade and demoted it to a cautious 6. The franchise is still a lot of fun to read, but it seems like your enjoyment will heavily depend on which Doctor is taking center stage at the time. There are so many of them after all, but luckily most of them are likable.

Overall 6/10

FCBD 2016 Spectrum Review

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Looks like the aliens have returned! Essentially, the human race was nearly wiped out by aliens when they first arrived, but we beat them back. The second wave was obliterated with ease since we had amassed a lot of knowledge and then the aliens left towers which we plundered for tech. Unfortunately, we were not ready for the third wave, which came out swinging with everything that they had. The government is forced to call in the retired pro, Raaker. Raaker hops on a military transport, but the driver is destroyed by an alien laser and as Raaker is knocked out, he sees a hologram of a mysterious lady. She wants Raaker to help eliminate the alien threat. Meanwhile, she is on the run from a few different alien hunters, but uses her powers of forced peace and emotions to knock them out and mind controls the leader. Before she is knocked out from the strain, she orders him to find the main lead.

The story certainly has a bit of a Star Wars vibe to it with the heroine plot, but the main one is more like a Skyline or Independence Day story. The humans seem a little outgunned as per usual, but I’m sure that they’ll think of something. Never underestimate human ingenuity when it counts. We are a tough species to keep down. The art is visually pretty interesting. The first half looks rather standard, but in the Star Wars esque part the colors are a lot different. Dark and light colors mix and merge to make the interesting visuals.

Right now, I think the heroine is a little too overpowered. If she can bring anyone under her sway just by looking at them, it will be tough to defeat her. Having power over emotions has always been a tough ability to counter. As for the main character, I’m assuming that he’ll need to get a space blaster or a cool energy sword if he wants to stay relevant when the tougher villains start to show up on Earth. The series definitely has a lot of promise and who doesn’t like the concept of an alien invasion right? I’m assuming that the two plots will meet up sooner rather than later and the comic is definitely aiming to make this some kind of large expansive universe so it’ll be interesting to see how long it goes on.

Overall 7/10