Tag Archives: Short Stories

Seven Little Sons of the Dragon Review

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It’s time for a anthology. You know those can get a little dicey at times because it’s just hard to come up with a bunch of good short stories. Worst case you have a really good one and it ends too quickly and then you’re still mad about this being an anthology. So there are a lot of ways that this can go wrong but not a ton of ways that it can go right. That’s the real problem here when you really think about it. Fortunately this one was pretty good.

The first story introduces us to a world where a big dragon has been parked between two kingdoms for a very long time. They used to be bitter enemies who would murder each other but nobody can leave the kingdom or they are eaten. As a result everyone is slowly getting ready to die of hunger. Fortunately there is one guy who is able to freely cross between countries with small supplies. So he does his best to help get supplies from the other kingdom to his. What he learns is that the other kingdom isn’t evil, they’re really just like his people. Unfortunately the grudge between kingdoms has been going on for so long that nobody is really backing down.

So it’s a fun intro about how sometimes battles and grudges have been going on for so long that they’re basically pointless. Ultimately they are able to find peace once the dragon leaves and so this big trial was a blessing in disguise. It’s a fairly low key story that had a good ending. I was really worried that something would happen to the dragon at the end so I’m glad that he was okay.

The second story is also solid. Basically humans and mermaids are not supposed to interact. Mermaids may look totally human but officially they are classified as animals so you’re supposed to leave them alone. That’s hard for the main character to do though, especially when he sees one mermaid who is always having a lot of trouble. So they get close despite warnings from his friend and the mermaid nearly drowns him. So the lead realizes that he needs to learn a lot more about mermaids

I wasn’t expecting the mermaid to try and drown the guy but it was a good way to show that they really couldn’t understand each other at that point in time. No matter how much the kid thought they were friends on equal ground, it just hadn’t happened yet. The mermaid was just trying to be friendly and show him the sea but couldn’t understand that he couldn’t breath. It’s not likely that he will come up with a sci-fi gadget to make them understand each other but doing research to help bridge the gap between the two species definitely sounded like a good idea.

Next up was probably the most low key story of the batch. A little girl wants to do well on a test so she is hoping that one of the gods will help her. In this world, every kind of object has some kind of god watching over it or that embodies the object. So she raises a god in her fish tank and she eventually gets it to full strength only to find out that it can’t actually help her with tests. So the whole thing was futile and the story set this up well. There are gods for everything here so why would a fish god be able to help with studying?

It’s almost so basic that you have to do a double take because it makes a ton of sense in hindsight. So it’s a pleasant story but there isn’t really anything to ponder compared to the first two stories. Like it just ends and you move on to the next story. You don’t even really think about what just happened all that much. By no means does it make this a bad story or anything, it’s just not all that eventful and that happens sometimes.

After that we have a much more serious story. Basically in this world some people are born as werewolves and so when the full moon strikes, a separate personality shows up. This has often been seen as super dangerous and so the main guy’s mother was scared at first but did her best to learn about the condition. She is now the top expert in the world which is really impressive. Her son sometimes feels that she profits too much out of this though and wonders if she has his best interests at heart. That’s really where the drama comes in here and so I would say that it doesn’t reflect super well on him.

It would definitely be awful to not be in control of yourself any time a Moon comes up. Or to not even remember what you did at that point since the other soul has all of the memories. That said, he should have discussed the situation with his Mom rather than just holding it in and being sad the whole time. The moral of talking things out is a good one and I liked the premise. It’s fairly original.

After that was my least favorite story of the bunch though. So there’s this painter who is so good that anything he draws becomes alive. He’s sort of retired now but there is a fake knock off making drawings of his own. So the old guy has to get out there and settle this. Along the way he is protected by a rather sloppy counterfeit of one of his own paintings and a lot of other distorted ones.

There is naturally a twist on who is drawing these but it was hard to get all that invested this time. The whole drawing plot just wasn’t very interesting. The ending is certainly wholesome but also still pretty sad. Especially when you consider that the paintings basically do have feelings. In a way having the ability to make your paintings become real is probably not something you would want to have. It would make you really double guess every single thing that you draw.

After that we have one of the more fun ones with a mysterious lady offering to help a group of soldiers get across a mountain towards a vicious monster. What they don’t know is that she’s bumping them all off one by one. There’s definitely a bigger sense of danger here than in any of the other stories. The lady is really deadly and just overall scary the whole time. Clearly not someone that you ever want to mess with. I liked the premise here although I would have changed up the ending a bit.

I felt like the soldier got off a bit too easily. Now none of this is directly his fault so I’m cool with him surviving but I found the whole thing to be a little cheesy especially considering the resolve of the assassin. You probably could write an interesting dynamic there if you wanted this to be an ongoing but as a one shot it ends up feeling rather rushed. This finally goes to the potential issue anthologies run into where the story concept/premise is just too much for such a small window of time. I thought it was the most interesting of the bunch though.

However, the final story is my favorite. It’s about a family where everyone has different powers. The main character feels bad because she feels like her power is the worst. She can change your clothes into pajamas. Not much compared to mind reading, telekinesis, teleporting, etc. Well it might come in handy this time as a detective shows up and the house turns into an elaborate murder mystery.

The whole thing is a big tribute to Detective Conan and it works really well. The mystery is fun and you really see how all of the misunderstandings start to work. The ending’s a bit of an unbelievable gag and I felt like the author was trying really hard to make the pajamas power cool. It didn’t work….but I appreciate the effort. In general I just really liked the vibes the family had and the setup was good. This is definitely a story that could have been an ongoing.

The art is fairly decent here. I don’t think the artist is one of the higher tier ones in the business but this is still professional through and through. I definitely have no issues here. The volume is easy to read and so you’ll be blasting through. Most of the stories are pretty good as I mentioned earlier so you’ll have a fun time here.

Overall, The stories are pretty well balanced. They all bring something different to the table without being repetitive and I liked just about all of them. The author has good range as the stories really have a lot of variety. Even the painting one which is the worst one by default isn’t bad. I just found it to be borderline boring at times but still not one that I would flat out give the thumbs down to. I can definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a fun collection of stories. While none of them are great to the point where they will wow you, none of them are bad either. At the end of the day that makes for a good collection.

Overall 7/10

Beyond The Promised Neverland Review

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It’s time to look at an anthology that came out recently for the author of The Promised Neverland. It brings some stories I’ve already reviewed but some that I haven’t so lets look at this collection as a whole. Naturally I’m not the biggest fan of anthologies in general but I do think it’s great that you have a way to read these stories physically as opposed to having to try and find them online. That’s always a better outcome than the stories never being released at all so this is the best reason to have an anthology in general. Since the stories are all oneshots I would throw a spoiler warning right at the front here since I will talk about somethings that would be considered as a spoiler. So if you want to fully enjoy the oneshots you should read them before reading the review.

Okay first I’m going to put a link to the stories I already reviewed. One of them is DC3 and you may remember this one since I just reviewed it last year. I thought it was a fun story and gave it a positive write-up. It captures your attention well for a oneshot and has a good setup about it. A oneshot is supposed to grab you with the premise and then they flesh things out later on so on that level this film definitely succeeded and I can’t say that I had any big issues with it. I would go as far as to say it was the best story in the collection.

Then we also have the story about the Spirit Photographer. I was far less impressed with this one. The concept is interesting but the first story is rather dark out of the gate and if that’s any indication of how the series would go then I don’t think it would have really been for me. Of course it is early so the series could have ended up being amazing for all I know but the objective of the oneshot is to get you ready and this one didn’t succeed there. So for that reason this would end up being the weakest one in the collection.

I got the feeling that I had read the original premise chapter “We Were Born” for the Promised Neverland before but I don’t see a review for it so maybe I just saw some images back in the day. This is a pretty solid story. Basically it is The Promised Neverland but you can see how the idea changed over time. There are no monsters here and it’s more of a classic story about the humans being the true monsters all along. Basically there is an orphanage and the main girl does her best to live life as happily and perfect as possible. She’s done a rather good job of it and finally there is a foster home that will take her in. Her life is thrown upside down though when she finds out that this isn’t true and being “adopted” actually means that you are going to be an organ donor and will die. The head of the orphanage tells her to embrace this as her duty in God but she is unsure.

Meanwhile, the world at large has been put in a tough place. Wars are constant and almost everyone is dead so many people wonder what the point of life even is anymore. There is one guy who gets saved by the child and he wants revenge on a mobster who crossed him but also has time to help her out once he finds out about this. It makes for a good introduction and you figure the rest of the series would be about getting his revenge but along the way they get more and more hope about living in the now. It seems like the series would be a little more hopeful than The Promised Neverland because at least when you’re not dealing with monsters there is a chance. So I liked this story, it covered a lot and had potential.

Then we have Poppy’s Wish which is about a genius named Takashi who lives alone with an A.I. he created known as Poppy. Takashi is perfectly happy to live out his days without going outside but Poppy wants to experience the outside world and get a body of his own. Takashi gives in and makes Poppy a body but things get a little stressful when Poppy wants them to both go outside. The outside world isn’t so easy though. It turns out that they are on an alien planet and that’s part of why Takashi doesn’t want to go outside anymore. It’s just too tough and nobody likes humans. It was an effective way to go about the story and gives extra reason to why he wouldn’t want to go outside beyond just being timid.

After all now it’s more of a safety thing. In the end the story does have some hope that they can change things though. It’s not nearly as dark as almost any of the other stories and while it’ll be a tough journey for them, it doesn’t seem impossible. Being a super genius is also handy as you figure Takashi should be able to find some way to fit in on the sneak although it will always be tough to do this long term. Poppy is a reasonably solid A.I. even if I think he should have been more patient with Takashi. The guy did his best to give Poppy a good life and even made him a body so maybe give him time to go outside instead of immediately dashing off and jumping to conclusions. For an A.I. Poppy was very emotional here.

The story must have done well as we actually get a follow up to this one. It’s more of a quick excuse to get a lot of cameos as they warp from planet to planet and we get cameos from all of the other stories. That was fun and they see how each world is so different which gets them confident enough to try and succeed on the first planet. I’m not sure that a toast shop will be the most successful but they’re giving it a go and that’s the important thing. It’s got a fun ending and while I’m not sure there would be enough material for a long ongoing, you could absolutely make some kind of limited run series about this concept and execute it rather well.

Finally there’s the actual Beyond The Promised Neverland story. If that is what you are here for then you will probably be a little disappointed to be honest since it’s really short. It’s really just a few pages and Emma finally gets to live out the dreams that all of the kids had. It’s a little bittersweet since she still doesn’t have her memories intact but she tries to look on the bright side. It can’t be easy for any parties involved to know that Emma doesn’t truly remember what happened but they still get to have fun with her and that’s the important part. These memories are still things that she won’t forget. I’d have liked the story to have been longer even if it’s just about them having fun and experiencing different things though. After all the trials and hardships they went through, it would be really satisfying. I’ll take what I can get though, it was still a good story.

The artwork is solid here as you would expect. I feel like there is a very distinctive style here which is fairly detailed and works well. The characters always have a lot of emotion in their faces that’s for sure. It’s easy to read through the stories. It can get a little busy during some of the more action stories but when it’s a clear page the artist is really able to go all out. It may not be top tier but it gets the job done.

Overall, Beyond The Promised Neverland is a good book but the title is incredibly misleading. The Promised Neverland just plays such a small role that you feel like they only called it this to maximize sales. It may feel a little jaded to say that but that’s absolutely the vibe that you get from it. Still the other stories are mainly good, there are more hits than misses here and you should have a good time with this. See which stories you think could have been full ongoings and which ones you’re glad stayed as oneshots.

Overall 6/10

Tiger & Bunny Comic Anthology Review

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Tiger & Bunny have returned but this is definitely their weakest outing. It’s not too surprising though because when you think about it, Anthologies always put you in a tough spot. You either have a story that’s really good so you’re annoyed when it doesn’t get to continue or you get a bad story that you want to finish already. It means that win or lose you are always thinking about the next story and that’s not the right way to go. On the whole the Tiger & Bunny cast is hardly one of the strongest either so a series of comedic tales for them would have a tough time landing anyway.

The 4 volume series is basically just a bunch of little stories about the heroes during downtime. It’s like the events in between the usual action scenes that you would have during the main stories. So we see how they all interact and each of their personalities are dialed up to 11 for the comedic antics. In general the idea of seeing the everyday life of the characters is fun and I’d like to see a spinoff like that for a bunch of big Shonen Jump titles but the main Tiger & Bunny show already does that.

Between the big arcs you always have the smaller adventures where they just have fun the whole time. So this isn’t really novel in that sense. Then as far as the comedy goes, the writing isn’t amazing or anything like that. You’ll have some funny stories but most of them aren’t all that funny and it boils down to the characters not being funny enough on their own. The jokes with Origami, Fire Emblem, and Bison don’t really work right out of the gate and those are 3 fairly big characters.

Blue Rose’s stories mainly revolve around Tiger and there are only so many ways you can do that one. So they are good but after a while you will notice some repetition there. I like it when Tiger is oblivious as that really fits his character and doesn’t even come across as forced the way that some of the others are. Dragon Kid and the King of Heroes probably could have had some fun stories but surprisingly they are given the shaft most of the time. I like to see them though and focusing on these two would have been a good idea for the series.

The artwork also changes a whole lot depending on the story. As a whole I would put the art below average though. It doesn’t feel like this would be the best work for any of the artists as they’re going in to do a story but you don’t see a whole lot of detail outside of that. I suppose the chibi stories are distinctive but as a whole you won’t be impressed here either. At least you can always follow along with what’s happening but as a non action title it’s not like that’s super hard anyway.

It may seem like there’s not a whole lot positive to say about this one but that’s because aside from being a filler where you get to see some wacky adventures, there isn’t much of a purpose to the collection. In fact it would be hard for me to even go into long detail about the collection compared to most other titles because there isn’t a main story or anything. It’s a bunch of short stories but ones that are so short there isn’t much to dissect in them. So this is very much a collection that you read but by the end you’re just not impressed. I think they would have been better off doing one shot volumes for various characters as spinoffs to expand the universe. That could have been more fun.

Or if you want to do a fun slice of life adventure then go all the way. I’m talking about a serious heart to heart adventure series where you have the characters just talking about things and maybe having a small adventure along the way. Season 2 did that after all and while it wasn’t my favorite adventures, at least they gave it a real effort. So forget the small anthology format and just go about it with this. Tiger & Bunny have fun banter in the show and you could certainly replicate that here. Not as a gag or anything like that but as a serious emotional story. It could work really well I’d think and is at least worth a shot over this.

If you’re going to do a comedic gag type anthology like this then the writing has to be exceptional. Unfortunately that just doesn’t happen here and it’s a lot easier said than done. It’s incredibly hard to be consistently funny, especially when you are trying to be. It’s why a lot of the funnier scenes in media tend to come from titles that aren’t even comedies because you can take your time and think of a great joke instead of stuffing 50 in and calling it a day as you hope that a few of them will land. I wouldn’t say any of the jokes in the manga really land all that well, at least not to the point of laughing while the TV show will actually have some good gags thrown in there.

Overall, I’d say you’re better off watching the show, movie, or reading the main manga over this one. The appeal would really be to Tiger & Bunny fans but with everyone basically out of character half the time or just exaggerated it misses out on actually giving you the fun day to day experience you were hoping for. It misses the boat and so you could read this one but there isn’t much reason too. I would just say to give it a skip altogether and there is no shortage of T&B titles to check out anyway so you’re good to go there.

Overall 4/10

Dead of Night Review

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A horror anthology that’s actually good? Yes, this one was able to surpass its limits and actually turned out to be one of the better horror films that I’ve seen as of late. The stories were solid for the most part and the main plot that was keeping them together was also solid. Throw in a little mystery/intrigue and I was really sold on this one. Check this one out if you want a quality horror movie to watch.

The movie starts with Walter driving up to a house where he will was invited by the head to do an inspection. For some reason the place looks familiar and what’s worse is that he recognizes everyone who is at the house despite never meeting them before. Walter feels like he has gone through this already but his memories are mostly foggy. What he does remember for sure is that something evil is about to happen here and that’s enough to really scare him quite thoroughly. The rest of the guests don’t really believe him but then start to talk about supernatural stories of their own. Can Walter remember what is about to happen or will it all be too late?

Walter probably should have dashed out but it’s always rough when your own memories aren’t working properly. He’s an interesting main character though. Walter may not have the strongest will or be the most dynamic character but one thing’s for sure, he is super scared the whole time. That’s one aspect of his character that can always be annoying though. Like okay, we get that he is super scared and unsure of what to do but there comes time where he just needs to man up eventually. Instead by being on the defensive he is really ensuring that nobody is all that safe. At any time things can change and the evil that he senses will be upon them.

Well, lets go to the first story. So Hugh remembers a time where he saw this mysterious guy who asked if he wanted to get on a bus. Hugh was convinced that this was some kind of specter or personification of Death and that going with him would have been his doom. So Hugh decides not to get on board and the bus promptly crashes so everybody dies. Clearly it was good that he didn’t get on the bus but of course the others are doubtful or think that it could have been coincidence.

It was a quick story and one that was fairly low key but I thought it was pretty good. Sometimes a little atmospheric story like this can really get the message across quite nicely and doesn’t need a long run time. They accomplished everything that was needed here and it’s one of the better stories. Probably the second best one for me personally. The next story is a bit longer. So Sally was at an orphanage with a bunch of other kids and so they decided to play hide and seek. Sally found a really good spot but it actually led to a room where she got to meet a kid who was all by his lonesome.

Sally figured he got lost from the pack or just lived there but when she went back downstairs she found out that he had died a very long time ago. Had she been talking to a ghost? It’s one of those stories that is odd so of course she was worried but technically there wasn’t a lot of danger there or anything. So she was fairly safe either way. I thought this story maybe went on a little too long and one of the kids was annoying the whole time. Sally was good though and playing hide and seek in a big house definitely seems risky because it can be hard to find someone after a while. It’s definitely a game that’s easier to play in a small hut even if it’s less exciting.

Now we get to the most dangerous one. So one day Joan got a mirror and Peter thought it was okay at first but then he notices that the reflection is of a different room entirely. He can’t even see Joan there when she stands next to him. The more he looks into the mirror, the more he starts to get possessed by it. Peter’s willpower is easily overpowered by the mirror and it just seems like he doesn’t really stand a chance here. No matter what he does, he weakens and the mirror makes you relive the life of the original owner who ended up strangling the wife so that gets tricky for Joan. She just barely smashes it in time.

This story was actually a matter of life and death which separated it from some of the others. That said, I would say that it makes Paul look really bad since he was not able to escape its gaze. You’re basically telling me that he lost to a mirror. He should have broken that thing ages ago especially when he knew that Joan was leaving for a while and he could never beat it 1 on 1. She should have also broken it after the first few incidents even if Paul thought they would be okay. They got way too lax about the whole thing and it nearly cost them. It’s a bit weaker than some of the other stories but still decent.

Now we’re on the best story which involves golfing. So George and Larry are both madly in love with this one girl so they decide to settle everything with a game of golf. George wins so Larry drowns himself but later on Larry realizes that George cheated. Now Larry is determined to haunt George until he makes things right. George feels a bit guilty so he asks Larry what he can do but the demands are steep. Larry wants George to give up his wife and to never play Golf again. George isn’t gonna do that and so things continue to escalate.

This one may feel more comedic in nature compared to some of the other stores but I thought it worked out pretty well. I liked the whole idea of using golf to settle things and then Larry just casually appearing as a ghost was intense as well. That said, the heroine probably should have just picked one instead of letting herself be used as a prize. Usually you never want to just be the prize right? You want to be the one in control. It was a fun story with how absurd the whole thing was.

Finally we have the story with the dummy. So Maxwell has a dummy that he uses for the shows named Hugo but he seems to have a mind of his own. Hugo even keeps threatening to leave Maxwell for another performer. Maxwell gets mad at the other guy instead of Hugo which was my main issue with the whole thing. Just take Hugo out if he’s messing with you but why are you taking it out on the other guys? Maxwell is clearly unstable the whole time too so I can see why people wouldn’t suspect Hugo. The ending is definitely like something out of the Twilight Zone here and will get you thinking.

It’s a classic doll story. It’s not really trying to do anything too different but it doesn’t need to either. It’s just a fundamentally sound story from start to finish that hits enough of the high notes. This then takes us back to the main plot for the climax as we get to see what Walter could not remember. Things get really crazy in the climax but all I can say is that I was still blaming Walter the whole time. I thought the ending was also great and you can take it a few ways but I like to think of it as the loop is confirmed. That’s about as vague as I can keep things for now.

The writing is on point here and that’s a big reason as to why this succeeds. If the writing were not very good then this would have failed and if there were weak stories then it would be game over. Instead the stories themselves tend to be rather solid and I liked the main one that connected everything. The film was good with the atmospheric horror instead of trying to make this all too dark. It ends up being a very suspenseful movie that just works well and it never feels too long.

Overall, This is surprisingly a good movie. I can’t say that I had high hopes for it at all but at the end of the day it did surpass my expectations. This is a film that I could recommend to anyone, whether you are a horror fan or not. That’s when you know that a movie is good because it is very accessible. If more anthologies were like this then I may even appreciate that sub genre more but I’d assume this is more of an anomaly than a sign of things to come. I have another anthology coming up after all and that one wasn’t even close to being as good as this one was.

overall 7/10

Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas – Gaiden

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The Lost Canvas is still one of the best manga titles of all time so reading into one of the spinoffs definitely sounds like fun. It’s off to a good start to far with each Saint getting a volume to themselves. It’s going to be tough to keep giving them big fights without making them look too weak though since there should be few who can challenge them. I’ll have review for it once the series is over.

Overall 8/10

Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright Comic Anthology

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Fire Emblem definitely has a lot of manga titles. It’s pretty cool how the series is so big even if most of the various series aren’t all that great. This one is all right, but I’m not a huge fan of Anthologies. Perhaps one will feature a big action scene which will help it out a bit. I shall have a review for the series up when it finishes.

Overall 5/10

Sailor Moon Short Stories

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A spinoff series for short stories eh? Should be intriguing and I like the concept. It would be great for most series, but I’m not sure if it’ll work for Sailor Moon since the characters were never its strong suit. I’ll have a review for it when I finish the series though and it’s not particularly long so prepare yourself! If you’re a big fan of the franchise, then you should have a blast with it.

Overall 5/10

Batman Li’l Gotham Volume 2 Review

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Well, Batman’s back! I definitely didn’t care for the last volume all that much and I can’t say that things have improved here. It simply isn’t my style and the art certainly hurts its chances of ever joining the other DC elites. The series is over with this volume and its quick ending will likely tell you all that you need to know about this review. Still, at least I can add this series to my very short list of full comic series that I have read in their entirety. That list shall grow with the one shot Convergence titles as long as they all get separate trades!

There’s no plot of course as the volume is filled with various short stories. Each one sees a character try to do something only to find that they’re outclassed by Batman or that it is in their best interest to give up. One story that I remember vividly is about a carpenter who keeps getting calls from villains and it’s really bringing down morale. She finally gets Batman to give her a job by guilt tripping him. This story is certainly memorable because I had been reading it for three days before I was finally able to finish it. It is a short story, but it went on for quite a while. I think the problem with that one was that the gag gets old extremely quickly.

See, the joke is that she’s getting calls from villains and being very matter of fact about it. The problem is that you figure out this gag by the second call and then it continues and continues. There’s no real punchline moment at the end either so you’re really left hanging. That’s why my favorite stories are the ones where there is a lot of action and/or excitement. Like the team deciding that Alfred is evil and they have to stop him now! That’s the kind of story that I can certainly get behind and it was easily the best one of the batch. The ending is a little predictable, but there’s really nothing else that the writer could have done with the comic so we may as well end this way right?

Unfortunately, the art has not improved from the first volume. It’s still downright terrible at times and it’s the main area that holds the comic back. You can only get so far without good art after all. You can have the best writing in the world and an onslaught of cool characters, but if the art isn’t up to snuff…it’s game, set, and match! This style is simply too chaotic and undefined at times. I still believe that just about any teen who is into art could likely top this style or at least emulate it. I want streamlined epicness like X Sanction or Justice League. Upgrade this art into something like that and then we’ll talk!

As with the last volume, the other aspects of this comic are still good. The writing is on the level and we have a good cast of characters. It’s always fun to see the various Robins join in on the action. Jarvis is a likable supporting character as expected and Batman’s always a fun lead. The series certainly had some potential. Not a whole lot of course given its style, but with decent art I could see this matching up to the Tiny Titans. I wonder if this will ever get a sequel series. I really don’t see that happening, but you never know sometimes right? There’s always more time for Batman comedies.

I wonder how the series would have been if it had included more guest stars. I’m inclined to think that it would have at least helped the series out a little bit. Throwing in Superman and the rest of the Justice League for more than a few panels would have been fun. It may have distracted from the rest of the Bat Family, but it would also open the doors for a whole new array of jokes. That’s a lot of potential right there and Batman just didn’t tap into that power. This graphic novel was fairly short and without much of a plot to go on or characters to talk about, this review is fairly short as well. No worries, the next comic review is back to the norm of in depth comic reviewing! Get ready for Superman to return!

Overall, Batman Li’l Gotham is still not my cup of tea. If you’re looking for some light hearted Batman stories and don’t mind some pretty difficult art, then you should be okay. That being said, I really wouldn’t recommend it if you’re looking for a great Batman story. I actually haven’t read many good Batman comics, which is a little sad. I recommend Batman Chronicles or some Batman Archives, they collect stories from his golden years in the 40’s-60’s. If those are a little too old for you, then check out a volume in the Grant Morrison run of JLA. Batman definitely got his props there and Morrison gave him the correct balance of crazy and insanely brilliant.

Overall 5/10

Showcase Presents Strange Adventures Volume 2 Review

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It’s time for a Showcase that I just finished! This is basically the DC equivalent to the Marvel Essential series. Surprisingly enough, this collection doesn’t have any “real” comic book characters as it is really a collection of short stories that tend to revolve around aliens. It’s an interesting change of pace and naturally I tend to prefer action stories, but these issues hold up pretty well.

The collection brings around 20 comics and each issue brings about 3-5 stories within it. The stories tend to only be a few pages long so the climax ends up occuring near the beginning. It’s pretty fun at times since the main characters are extremely clever. They can solve just about any problem in an instant…I miss those good days. New Yorkers really seem to know their stuff in these comics.

One instant change that you’ll notice in this comic is the Government. By “change” I mean that they look a whole lot different here than they do in the modern comics. A lot of the situations force the main character to run to the government and warn them that the planet was about to be blown up. In a modern comic, they’d either A. Not believe him or B. Kidnap him because they already know about the aliens. In these comics, the government takes it in stride and they usually believe him without reservations.

There are essentially no criminals on the planet in this continuity so everyone on Earth is basically trusted completely. If someone tells the cops that they need to spray a new gas over the planet to save the world…they’ll drop everything and get right too it. The whole collection has a lot of friendship themes scattered around and teamwork is typically essential to success. It makes for pretty good reading.

The one problem with having so many stories (or the main problem anyway) is that a lot of them start looking pretty similar. The Earth is tricked into by evil aliens into lowering their guard at least 2-3 times. Aliens invade Earth and are only driven away by trickery a few more times. A heroic alien arrives on Earth to help the humans avert disaster a number of times as well. A handful of the intros are identical as we start with the main character explaining that he’s a science fiction writer, but he never could have written something as fantastic as the adventure that he experienced.

Now, the stories may be pretty similar sometimes, but maybe it’s for the best. After all, the alien stories are typically the best ones. The one subject that tends to really compete with the Alien comics are the time travel ones. One comic sees a man get to look at the future through a machine and he keeps avoiding death by plotting how he’ll escape while also getting rich. There’s a pretty big twist at the end and it’s basically a tragic ending, but the main character wasn’t a hero so it’s supposed to balance out. That was easily one of my favorite stories. After all, I would certainly dodge my death if I knew that it was coming. (I’d skip on the get rich part or do it in a harmless way…)

There aren’t a lot of fist fights in this collection, but I do remember one of them. A Martian invades the main character’s base and attacks another Martian. The main character gallantly jumps into the fray stating that he’ll hold him off, but he’s defeated in less than a panel. It’s sad for the human race, but I suppose that aliens are supposed to be pretty powerful. They tend to outfight the humans physically.

That being said…it’s a different story when you count the American’s Atomic Weapons. It differs from comic to comic on that angle. Some of the enemies do not fear our weapons because they can easily block our attacks or they have something even better. Others are completely defenseless against these powerful objects and that is why they attempt to win through trickery. The government was definitely pretty trigger happy in this era as we discuss the option of nuking the aliens in just about every comic. We actually use the nukes quite often, but they typically don’t work or we chase the aliens off with them.

It would be interesting if all of these stories took place in the same continuity. The Earth would have been invaded by Aliens every week. We even gave up in one comic and ended up selling the Earth for a little sand. Obviously, it was a trick on our part, but it was definitely a risky gambit. We can’t forget the issue from the cover. Those Snowmen aliens definitely meant business! The way that they were defeated was definitely a bit of a stretch for me, but it would be tough to stop them. They were invulnerable after all so we really can’t underestimate them. Get this….The Snowmen actually survived getting nuked by the government! That was easily one of the best moments in the entire collection because the stakes definitely increased at that moment. No more fun and games….things had just gotten deadly.

They were probably my favorite aliens if I had to pick a best villain. They were the best fighters and they nearly came through on their big threats. We had a few giant villains, but they weren’t typically fighters as they came in peace to help us misguided humans. Most of the aliens had a lot more tech than the humans, but we consistently proved throughout the comics that are intellect is second to none. We don’t have telepathy, but we can typically outsmart the villains by faking our thoughts and using witty puns. The Aliens never stood a chance!

The art for the collection is pretty good. All of the characters look pretty solid, but that’s one of my issues with the art. The main characters from the various stories tend to look similar. At least 10 or more comics had identical main characters. One of them even had a Clark Kent lookalike as the main lead. It’s not really the art’s fault per say since thinking up over 40-60 main characters would be difficult, but the designs are definitely reused a whole lot. It’s one of the few ways that modern comics have improved from the older ones. That being said, the art is still pretty good and all of the comics can clearly be understood even though they are in black and white. It also helps the giant insect stories to feel like retro kaiju films.

Finally, one issue also had a homage to Transformers. (Assuming this came out after Transformers…it may have preceded the immensely popular franchise!) Two of the aliens were able to transform into cars and then back into their humanoid forms. They kidnap the main character, but they didn’t count on his car toll expertise and he was able to get the police to stop them. The aliens weren’t very confrontational so they fled, but it was a pretty humorous comic since they looked just like Transformers.

Overall, This is a pretty fun collection of comics. It definitely has a lot of human empowerment messages as we overcome every obstacle from natural disasters to alien invasions. I don’t mind in this case because it works well. Each comic will leave you feeling pretty good about the human race and it was definitely a simpler time back then. I can’t imagine a world where everyone was a genius and there were no criminals. It definitely sounds like an intriguing place, but there isn’t a lot of individuality. The stories can be a little similar so you may not want to read it all in one shot. It is over 500 pages after all so even I had to take a few days to finish it. Some comics are simply better in batches than in one shot and why rush right? This collection should last you for a while and it’s a lot of content for such a great price. Plus, the tried and true formula of the alien invasion never gets old. It’s no Justice League or Avengers, but the stories are fun and that’s what counts. I would definitely recommend it to any comic reader looking for a little danger mixed with supernatural elements in a very lighthearted atmosphere. You’ll also get to see a lot of interesting designs for the various alien species present throughout the issues.

Overall 7/10