Star Wars is easily one of the biggest franchises out there and I finally got around to watching the six live action films pretty recently. (Naturally I saw the animated one years ago) It was a pleasant surprise to see the main cast back in action and Dark (Darth may be his name, but I grew up calling him Dark Vader and the name stuck) Vader is impressive as you would expect from the original trilogy. This series is off to a solid start and I always like to see expansions from the main story.
There are several plots happening at the same time in this collection. Princess Leia is told that the rebels have been infiltrated by a spy and the heroes continue to be ambushed by the Federation. In response to this, Leia handpicks a small team of comrades that she can trust so that they can work securely in their task to find a new planet for the Rebels base. Unfortunately, her team isn’t the greatest and Luke definitely isn’t helping matters. The Rebels may be at the end of their rope!
Meanwhile, Han Solo and Chewy were trying to make a deal for the Rebels, but it turns out that the seller was a traitor! Han takes him out, but the two of them are badly outnumbered. Will they really be able to get through this in one piece or are they doomed!? Meanwhile, we also get to see Dark Vader be reassigned and his replacement may turn out to be a big threat!
Luke Skywalker does not look very good in this comic. He allows Prithi to distract him far too much and he abandons protocol. I’m all for abandoning protocol if needed, but he just did it so that he could disintegrate as a character. By association, I also do not like Prithi in this comic. Did she join to fight or flirt? Both of them were definitely irresponsible and it would have been nice if Leia had kicked them off the team. The trend of disliking Luke Skywalker whenever he appears continues…
Princess Leia is much better as she actually gets to fight and she never jeopardizes the mission. She is definitely a little on the shady side since she’s willing to do whatever it takes in order to secure the win against the Republic. She does manage to defeat an alien during a one on one battle, which was pretty cool. Unfortunately, her security protocols were not tight enough and the traitor continues to gain ground. She’s going to be out of the picture for a while and we’ll see how that affects volume 2!
Dark Vader is easily the best character in the comic. This is how he was meant to be portrayed! I would have liked for him to take out the Emperor, but the author can’t go that far since it would completely destroy the continuity. Aside from that inconvenience, Dark Vader definitely makes his presence known. Not only does he take out the opponent who tried to defy him, but he also gets an epic minicomic at the end that shows why he’s so great. Dark Vader is a villain that others to aspire to be like.
I give Han Solo credit for the fact that he’s always ready with a pun or a wisecrack. While I will never be able to seriously believe that someone will still be cracking jokes in the face of certain death; it’s still fun to see. Solo may forever regret that he couldn’t grab the wine, but at least he escaped. It’s easy to root for Han in this collection. Chewy obviously gets some great lines, but we’ll never know what they were. Chewy panics a lot more than Han Solo and he seems inexperienced in comparison, but he’s still a nice ally to have around. His appearances just aren’t the same without his trademark roar.
Colonel Bircher is one of the new villains for this collection and it seems like he will be a recurring villain in the series. I definitely don’t mind since he’s a pretty good opponent for the heroes. He may not wield The Force, but he is a master tactician. If his men had only listened to him, they may have made it through this situation in one piece. Bircher is a serious army veteran and he’s the type of character that you can root for in a fight. His armor is also pretty cool looking.
Wedge gets a lot of hype since he may be the best pilot that the Rebels have. Since I do not recognize the name, I’m definitely suspicious of his motives. If anyone’s the traitor…it would make sense that its him. He’s about as shady as a person can get, but that’s just because of the plot. Otherwise, he’s actually a pretty likable character. If he manages to stay as a hero, then he’s definitely up there with the high tier Star Wars characters. He can’t use the Force…but you can’t win them all.
The art is pretty good for the comic. I wouldn’t say that it’s amazing, but most of the character designs are spot on and the lightsabers still look really cool. Things may get a little dicey when the characters are in their spacesuits and I think that the artist may need to work on that. That’s my only gripe with the art and the rest is definitely solid enough to help make the collection fun.
Overall, this series is off to a great start. It’s pretty modern and volume two isn’t even out yet so this series may last until the film comes out. I can’t wait to see Bircher take down Luke Skywalker and I want to see if I’m right about Wedge being the traitor. None of the plots have ended yet and if they go the Transformers route, we’ll have even more subplots in the next volume. I recommend this to all Star Wars fans and even if you’ve never heard of the franchise (……it could happen) you would still enjoy this comic. It’s a fun space adventure and I’m hoping that Guardians of the Galaxy will use this style for the film.
Overall 7/10
I now have the Platinum trophy! It was tough, but it was worth it!
Robocop is a name that I’ve been familiar with for a long time, but I had never seen him in action. When I heard that he would be having a new film; I was largely indifferent. I was sure that it would be fun, but I figured that it could be years until I actually saw it. Instead, I ended up seeing it at the theater. It was essentially as good as I thought it would be, which can be seen as a good or a bad thing.
Alex is an ordinary cop and he’s one of the few policeman left who has not turned to the dark side. He’s on the case as per usual when an explosion basically takes him down for the count. To save his life, a medical group quickly puts him inside of a suit that will enable him to live. The main drawback being that the government (Ok, not really the government, but his handlers) can take direct control of him whenever they please. Alex doesn’t like this and he needs to make sure that nobody can stop him from enforcing the law. He’s going to have to use all of his abilities to pull this off!
Alex is a pretty good main character and he’s a hero through and through. Well, he does go all out in the ending which may make his hero status a little murky, but before that he was known as a heroic cop. He got the job done and villains could not mess with him. After he becomes Robocop, he’s still a good character, but he doesn’t really get his will back until the end. I can sympathize with how he doesn’t want anyone to see him in his new form. It’s pretty tough to look at and it could traumatize his kid. Alex was easily the best character in the film, but from here on…I shall call him Robocop!
I’ll admit that the beginning had me a little worried. It starts off in a small village with robots and humans working together in harmony. I didn’t mind the harmony part, but deserts, underwater, and places without a lot of buildings don’t make for great scenery. Luckily, we quickly move to the big city and the scene wasn’t that bad. I’m not sure what the point of the suicide bombers was, but I suppose that they give us a sense of dread and show how against drones America is. Which brings us to another point of the film….
America is actually pretty smart this time around. We decided that we didn’t want a bunch of droids infiltrating America so we put a stop to it. Patrick has a TV show where he tries to convince people to allow droids in America, but it’s tough to stop an American when it comes to politics. The show was one of the better subplots because I always like to see TV scenes. Patrick is a decent character, but his final line is unnecessary. Unfortunately, you know that it’s coming. You can seriously guess what he’s about to say before he even says it thanks to his actor. As with Wolverine, it’s somehow become a part of his character. Until then, Patrick kept his cool at least.
Meanwhile, I actually didn’t mind Alex’s kid that much. Usually I don’t really care the kids in a movie because they can be a little annoying or just add filler to the story. I could sympathize with this kid a lot more because he was actually supportive of Alex’s predicament. He taped all of the sport games and waited to watch them until Alex came home. Unfortunately, Alex wasn’t able to watch it with him and that’s where things got sad for David. (The son) He also has a tough time going to school because of Alex’s image being ruined on public TV. (Alex was forced to ignore him as well since he was hijacked)
Clara is a decent character and she makes the tough call to have Robocop be created since Alex wasn’t in a position to personally agree. The decision may not have been universally appreciated, but she did have to make a choice and the scientists probably would have went along with the process anyway. It’s good that Clara made things hard on the villains for a while, but she does end up underestimating them at the end.
Rick is one of the big antagonists and I can’t say that he’s a likable character. He’s basically there for us to dislike him and he’s also pretty weak. Robocop would have taken him out instantly if not for all of the protocols. Rick talks tough, but he’s one of the many characters who cannot back it up with action.
Dennett is the main scientist and it’s hard to root for him as well. He helps the villains for a while and he definitely doesn’t make it easy for Robocop. At the end he realizes that things may have gone too far, but things went too far a long time ago! Either way I would have been surprised if I had liked the scientist, they usually aren’t my favorite characters.
Raymond is the mastermind behind the whole operation and his power is only matched by his terrible planning skills. He does make sure to have a lot of backups for his plan, but it was doomed to fail. I’m sure that the American citizens were going to realize that something was up. Raymond is the type of guy who will take a hostage, but he won’t fight Robocop one on one. If not for Robocop’s limitations, the final battle would have been a lot quicker. Raymond just wasn’t an interesting villain.
Jack is Robocop’s partner and he’s a pretty tough guy. He may not have looked very good during the detective work at the beginning, but his reflexes were just a little off. He still had his gun at the ready and he did pretty good. Considering how corrupt the police is, it’s good to know that we’ve got another cop on the side of the law. Once Robocop is fully operational, Jack doesn’t really get to appear much. He’s going to need an upgrade for the sequel!
The soundtrack wasn’t really memorable. It may appear that this is the case a lot recently, but it’s not just in recent films. Many films suffer from having a very unmemorable or just downright generic set of themes. This one may not have been very generic, but I just can’t recall any of the themes. This was definitely no Man of Steel or Avengers in that regard!
The battle scenes were fun when they happened, but we didn’t get enough of them. Robocop is great with a gun and they could have stylized the fights like the Terminator films. The best fight scene is probably when Robocop has a test battle against the droids and the trainer. We get some action in the climax, but the robots were very big so it wasn’t a real fight scene. Robocop would shoot them and keep on shooting them until they were down for the count. We need another humanoid in order to make this a fair fight. I’m confident that a sequel would have more fighting.
Overall, this was a good movie. I wouldn’t say that it was great, but it was a decent starting point. I would have liked some more action and I think that Robocop should have snapped away from the mind control a little sooner, but those aren’t huge errors. I would definitely be interested in watching a sequel and the franchise has a lot of potential in it. I recommend this film if you enjoyed the original Iron Man or if you like a good robot story. It’s light on action so you’ll want to be watching it for the emotional values…maybe. Just watch it if you want to see what life could be like in the future with droids all over the place.
Overall 6/10
Seeing as how this is year is Batman’s 75th Anniversary; it makes sense to check out an old Batman comic. The Brave and the Bold concept is pretty great and I’m always up for a good team up. Batman’s had several of these series over the years and they’ve all been pretty good. There are six comics in the collection and it’s time to see if they were all winners!
The first comic was easily the best one of the batch and that’s definitely a nice way to start the collection. The Phantom Stranger has brought all of the Robins together so that they can save Batman. Batman has been shot and the injury appears to be fatal. Can the Robins find a way to put aside their differences and save the Caped Crusader before all is lost!?
This comic was very fun since all of the Robins got to interact. Who wouldn’t want to see these guys take a swing at each other? Unfortunately they don’t get to fight, but we do get to see them team up. I’m not a huge fan of Nightwing’s costume in this one, but the character was portrayed correctly. Tim Drake and Jason Todd were my favorite Robins in this adventure. Todd even got some free foreshadowing about what would happen to him, but luckily he didn’t piece it together. The plot isn’t very convincing since the Phantom Stranger could have summoned anyone to help, but maybe he just wanted to teach the Robins some teamwork. We get some cameos from a few other heroes at the end, which could have made for a nice adventure as well. The comic also gets some extra points for giving Batman a nice amount of willpower when the going got tough.
The second comic had a Christmas theme and it involved the Ragman. There weren’t any big criminals in this comic, but the Ragman isn’t very happy. In his neighborhood, the people have fallen into tough times and everyone is pretty poor. He can stop the hoodlums from causing trouble, but he can’t give them any money. He lets Batman know about his troubles, but then they realize that the hoodlums may have a boss. It could be time for Batman to show why he’s one of the legendary heroes!
This comic was decently good. It’s supposed to be an emotional comic and emotional stories aren’t as fun as action packed ones. That being said, the Ragman is a better character than I would have thought. He’s basically a second rate Batman, but he’s still a fun hero to root for. He is definitely not that optimistic, but by the end of the comic he remembers why its good to be cheerful. Batman made the right call at the end of the issue and it’s something that you would expect from the Caped Crusader.
The third comic featured Mr Miracle as he becomes trapped along with Batman. They don’t know how they’ve been trapped, but they need to get out as fast as they can. There are numerous traps and they will not only test how physically capable the heroes are, but it will also test how long their minds can hold out against the strain!
I liked the twist at the end of the comic and it was cool to see the heroes try to dodge all of the traps. They squeeze in a pretty big villain at the end of the issue, which makes for a pretty unbelievable ending. However, Mr Miracle is around and he does have that name for a reason. They give him a lot of hype and while I believe that Batman is even better at escaping traps; Mr Miracle can be a decent character as well. He has a little too much fun through the danger parts and that’s something that I can never really find believable, but it’s good to know that he enjoys his job. Batman is naturally the one who suspects that something is up and we also get to see how durable he is.
Every comic collection needs to have one comic that drags down the rest and this is what the fourth comic does. Batmite decides that he needs to have someone that’s more important than a friend to him, but Batman isn’t sure that this is a wise idea. Will Batmite learn that romance is not quite as intense as it appears or will Batman have to take him down!?
There’s not much to say about this comic. Batmite was as unlikable as ever and the comic just wasn’t funny. Romance doesn’t make for a great plot in a comedy adventure like this one and Batman didn’t look so good. He let Batmite verbally defeat him in each of their battles. If only Batmite would learn once and for all that Batman is a great hero who does not need any help. You may just want to skip this comic.
The fifth comic had the biggest guest star. Wally West is in town and he’s determined to prove to Batman that he’s a capable hero. He even takes a shot at the Teen Titans, but Batman lets it slide. When there’s a robbery in the city, Flash decides to challenge Batman to a contest. The winner will find the culprit, stop him, and recover the jewels first. Batman never resists a good challenge so the fight is on!
The plot for the comic was pretty good and I’m always up for a race. Wally may have been a little desperate to beat Batman, but it’s okay since this isn’t Barry Allen. With Flash’s super speed it could even be a little believable that he could find the culprit before Batman. It’s a best of three battle, but I can assure you that we don’t get the usual cop out. They don’t tie in the final round and that would have been sad. We do get a big twist at the end of the comic, but it actually helped the ending and everything suddenly made a lot of sense. Batman is definitely a team player and this comic reminds us of that.
The final comic shows how tough a week can be for someone like Batman. He’s needed by many other superheroes and he’ll be facing some of the toughest villains around. Can Batman really match up against this onslaught of villains? Well, Batman definitely has the last laugh when the comic ends and this is also one of the better ones in the collection.
This issue was basically a montage as we get 2 pages for every day of Batman’s week. One day he’s fighting Mongul and the next he’s dealing with Jonah Hex in the past. Batman’s a busy guy so I’m sure that you’re not surprised to see him taking on all of these threats. As fun as the comic was, the ending is what really made it stand out. One guy asks Batman if he really needs everyone’s help all of the time and Batman quickly clears things up. “They need my help!” is basically Batman’s response and it does ring true. Whenever a situation arises, the heroes tend to run to Batman for help. Who else could they trust to save the world?
Batman appears in each of the comics and they do a good job of making him into a likable character. Batman has several different personalities as you go through the eras and this one focuses on his happy personality from the old days. I love this take on Batman since we don’t get it so often. Seeing Batman crack a few puns can get you a little more interested in who he’s actually fighting. Batman looked incredible in all of the good comics in this batch so I really don’t have any complaints about how he was handled. He’s Batman…and that’s all that needs to be said.
The art is pretty good and it’s easy to read. The artist definitely styled it after the TV show and it works for these comics. I wouldn’t say that the art is very high tier, but it’s good enough to be called a very good piece of art. In a way, it may remind you of the art from the 80’s or 70’s and that was a solid era.
Overall, this is a pretty fun collection of comics. It is pretty short so you don’t want to pay a high price for this trade paperback, but it’s worth a standard price. From the 6 comics, all of them were pretty good except for the Batmite one. The comics have a nice mix of action and comedy with Batman getting all of the best punchlines. I’ve always loved Batman’s portrayal in these stories and it’s easy to see why he’s so popular. If you haven’t already read these comics…..I recommend changing that now!
Overall 7/10
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