This ultimately short chapter book retells the story of how Hal Jordan became a Green Lantern. The origin has been adapted many times, but it’s the first time that I’ve come across it in book format. Hal Jordan uses a lot of the ring’s abilities by chance and it makes you wonder how he instinctively knew to use them all.
While the ring does seem extremely easy to use, it’s still a pretty useful tool to have in battle. Hal Jordan is a decent main character, but his personality is never fully explored. He handled the plane situation decently, but he definitely gave Abin Sur a hard time. Even if he doesn’t believe in aliens, he could still humor the old fellow.
Sinestro gets a small appearance and he looks alright. He gives Hal a decent fight and proves that the ring is more dangerous than we had thought! Hal suspects that something isn’t right, but he plays along anyway. The book takes about 10 minutes to read, which is why this review is pretty short. If you like DC comic stories or just like looking at cool art, I’d recommend this book.
Overall 6/10
There have been many Pokemon films over the years. There are usually one volume manga that go along with each movie. They are basically written adaptions of the films that they cover. This manga retells the events of the latest Pokemon film, but I will still be judging it as if it were an original story.
The manga starts off with Keldeo challenging the mighty Kyurem. Things don’t end well and the legendary Swords of Justice are forced to intervene. Later on, Ash and friends have fun buying boxed lunches and having a grand time. Pikachu is the only one quick enough to notice a damaged Keldeo on the train, but Ash and friends are quick to come to his aid. Things get dangerous when Kyurem follows them and starts a battle. Will Keldeo prove himself worthy and defeat Kyurem?
First off, let’s talk about Ash Ketchum, the legendary trainer from Pallet Town. He’s battled many powerful enemies in the past and his Pikachu should be one of the strongest beings on the planet at this point. Unfortunately Ash never shows this as he spends the entire volume getting beaten up. Ash and Pikachu don’t provide any threat to Kyurem and actually perform worse than Keldeo. Ash also doesn’t act brave in this volume and seems to be scared of Kyurem. Kyurem is tough, but Ash has dealt with Mewtwo and Gary, so he should be prepared at this point. When it’s all on the line for Ash to free some pokemon, he is unable to rise to the occasion. Ash is definitely not a really likable character in this volume and I’d recommend checking out other titles if you’re just reading the volume to see how cool he is.
His friends, Cilan and Iris are alright at best. Cilan seems to always be thinking about food and he doesn’t really take the situation seriously. I don’t think he would be my first choice if I needed a partner to go fight a legendary pokemon with. Iris knows a lot about Dragon pokemon, but she can’t seem to make up her mind. At first she claims that Kyurem is the strongest dragon type pokemon on earth! Later on she says that he is one of the strongest dragon type pokemon. That’s a pretty key difference, but aside from that she was alright. She took things a little more seriously, but she never got to take on Kyurem. Actually, compared to his friends I’d say that Ash was a pretty good character in this story.
Keldeo is arguably the main character of this adventure. He quickly learns that to truly become a Sword of Justice, he’ll need strength of character and the guts to accept defeat. He has a pretty climatic battle with Kyurem and I’d say that he was an alright character. I’m not a huge fan of the design (It wrecked some of his serious moments) but when the going got tough, Keldeo stepped up to the plate.
There was no Team Rocket in this story, but Kyurem took their place as the main villain. He definitely stole the show in this manga and all of his lines were pretty intense. He effortlessly takes down fighter after fighter and it seemed like nobody could stand up to him. The Swords of Justice couldn’t endure his power, Ash was frightened by his strength, and Keldeo lacked the experience needed to take him out. I’m glad that Kyurem could talk in human language, proving that he is one of the smarter pokemon. He has two different combat forms and both of them are definitely cool. Seeing as how he can fire off giant energy blasts, fly at super speeds, and freeze everything that he comes near; he’s definitely one of the toughest pokemon that Ash and friends have come up against.
This was definitely one of the better movie tie-ins to the Pokemon franchise. The art was pretty solid and while the comic relief could be a little off putting, the fight scenes came out strong. It is a fun Pokemon adventure and I’d definitely recommend it to Pokemon fans everywhere. Non pokemon fans will still get a kick out of it as well.
Overall 7/10
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
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