Ghost Rider #21-23

GHOST RIDER #20-22

Writer: Jason Aaron

Artist: Ronald Boschi

Marvel Comics

'Hell-Bent & Heaven-Bound' part 1-3. One basic background fact about your humble reviewer: I don't know bikes. I don't like bikes. I can't ride bikes. Heck, I can't even ride a bicycle.

Yet here I am, reading Ghost Rider, all because Jason Aaron has signed up as the new regular writer.

More background facts:

My first J.A. title was 'the Other Side' from Vertigo; I was impressed with his writing in his next project 'Scalped', most probably Vertigo best current ongoing series (after Y's ending); I fell in love with him when he started writing the best 'Wolverine' stories in decades; and now that he's made me read Ghost Rider -and worse, made me enjoy love Ghost Rider- now I want the man's babies! ;)

So, Ghost Rider. Mortal possessed by a devil, flaming head, leathers, chains, flaming Harley from Hell. Yawn. But-wait! The Devil didn't make him? There's a renegade archangel who plans to overthrow God? Ghost Rider is key? And he must now find a way to break into Heaven and talk to God about all this?


There's more? He's found a way in, but he has to escape from a team of Super-Nurses with Machine Guns? Run through a highway paved over the bodies of 77 cannibals and haunted by their ghosts? Machine Gun Nurses? Ghost Cannibals?

This is Ghost Rider (finally) as the vehicle for the biggest baddest and most violent Grindhouse Action Movie of the Year.

Go. Buy.

8.5/10



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Marvel Capsule Reviews Week 14 2008

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #555

(Zeb Wells / Chris Bachalo)

I'm digging Brand New Day! (I'll keep writing this every week to let it sink in). I'm looking past the chain of events that got us here, and enjoying what is clearly a return to greatness. This is the Spidey I remember loving to read each week growing up (we had weekly pocket-size Spidey reprints in pink and black ink). A vast supporting cast, fresh new villains each month, tragedy and woes mixed with joy and bad one-liners, amazing writers, spectacular artists, self-contained stories and arcs, fun fights, interesting challenges. Did we really need MJ out of the way to tell these great stories? Emphatically no. Did we need a deal with the devil, and Harry back from the dead? Hell no. But we're looking past that, looking past, looking past... damn! Thought that was working.

The start of a three-part story of Spidey fighting ancient ice spirits in a snowed-down NY, with a helpful guest-appearance by Wolverine and Doc Strange, all drawn by Chris -drool- Bachalo who seems to be on a coherent phase of his career, giving us a Spidey that's both reminiscent and yet so much cooler than the famous McFarlane rendition. Excelsior!

7/10

CABLE #2

(Duane Swierczynski / Ariel Olivetti)

'War Baby' part 2. Cable's ran to the future (2043AD to be exact) to protect the new Mutant baby girl, and the mutants' only hope for survival. Bishop is in hot pursuit, sporting a cybernetic arm, a time-hopping doo-hickey and a personality purge. I was never a big fan of Bishop, and only an occasional reader of Cable (the Robinson-Casey run and Lobdell/Ha's telling of his origins are fantastic); the two characters represent to me the part of the 90s X-Men lore that should remain dead and buried: time-travelling mutants who have been kept around long after the end of the storylines they came back to avert, and kept them relative. Writers and editors have tried to pigeonhole them in all sorts of scenarios since then, but whether it's alternate realities, war-torn countries, small island dictatorships, they never quite fit. This time they're both shoehorned into a future we still know next to nothing about, and spend their time punching and firing at each other with their huge arms and huger guns. Ariel Olivetti has been allowed to return to his painted art style from a few years back; Cable look amazingly realistic, but bishop and any other costumed X-Men feel out of place in such a detailed setting. And boy, do I wish that baby would stop changing sizes between panels!

4/10


KICK-ASS #2

(Mark Millar / John Romita Jr)

Kick-Ass? Oh boy, it sure does! Just when I was beginning to lose my faith in Millar, he pulls me back in. This is the story of a real life kid who decides to emulate his comicbook super-heroes, put on a costume and take to their streets to fight crime. Dumb, right? At the ending of last issue he (supposedly) learned a hard lesson, barely surviving his first mission and ending spending a whole year in hospital, surgeries and physiotherapy. Millar is taking the story throuh some unexpected turns, and I couldn't decide to pity the boy, cheer for him or slap him into his senses (well, scratch tat, it hardly worked the first time around). A big part of the success of the book is John Romita pulling no punches (heh) in portraying the awful, big, bloody violence in the book; not Frank Miller over-the-top action movie violence, no: real this-could-happen-to-you violence that sends shivers down your spine as you turn the page. Bravo!

8/10

MARVEL ADVENTURES SPIDER-MAN #38

(Chris Kipiniak / David Nakayama)

SWARM! They're a flock of beez.

SWARM! They look like a man!

SWARM! They wear a purple cape.

SWARM! They talk with a lizzzzzzp!

SWARM! They're horny for a Queen Bee!

SWARM! They're feeding her teenagerzzz!

But what of Spider-Man? He's bullied by the aforementioned teenagers, melting in the heat-wave and those bullies just stole his last clean uniform. Excellent little Swarm adventure, I've been itching to see my favourite Amazing Friends villain in Brand New Day, but MA is here to sate my honey-craze for now :) (Oh and check out that Skottie Young cover! Guy's a genius!)

7/10

YOUNG AVENGERS PRESENTS #3

(Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa / Alina Urusov)

Wiccan & Speed are the Scarlet Witch's kids, mysteriously returned to life as feisty teenagers. In this short feature tale, they're going on a road trip to find their missing mum. The journey takes them to the ruins of Genosha, the magical Wundagore and the New Jersey old home of Wanda & Vision where they stumble into my favourite forgotten West Coast Avengers (I was a major fanboy growing up) villain: Master Pandemonium! Ah, the memories! This is an amusing done-in-one that follows the same directive as the previous issues, and tells a fun story that leaves the characters completely unchanged - since Heinberg has dibs on their stories when he does return with vol. 2 of the regular series. Major points to Sacasa for the 'aw, cute' honest portrayal of Hulkling and Wiccan's relationship, it's always a treat to see the prominent Marvel gay super-couple on the page.

7/10





YOUNG X-MEN #1

(Mark Guggenheim / Yanick Paquette)

Here we go AGAIN! Another new generation of new mutants, another new writer, another tedious chain of sequences with Cyclops/Dani/Prof X recruiting them one by one, and of course, another first battle against Donald Pierce. Do the X-Men hire him out for training every time a new team is formed?

DING DING!

It's the History Lesson bell! Gather round. When New Mutants v. 2-3 was launched by Weir/DeFillippo a few years back, it was a train-wreck. A hand-picked few mutants who didn't hold any interest and were sleepwalking through romantic subplots and outside attacks and dragged back by the constant presence of the original New Mutants in the cast as their tutors... It was eventually relaunched into New X-Men: Academy X (mainly to cash in on the backwash of Morrison's recently completed run) but that solved none of the problems, just increased the cast with young mutants who looked hopeful but weren't realising any of their potential, trapped in a loop of childish ghost stories, alternate realities and visiting relatives. Time for another change: X-Men Evolution's Craig Kyle and Chris Yost took over and immediately made their mark by killing off the majority of the school's students and placing the rest in the cross-lines of Stryker's Purifiers; suddenly there was action, the boring main cast was weeded out, the remaining kids were developing as characters and maturing into X-Men; after two years there was a captivating group of students who had captured the hearts of the new generation of fans--

--and then Marvel cancels the book and relaunches with a new cast and creative team. Mark Guggenheim is a cringe-worthy writer at best from what little of his work I've read so far (including his abysmal Wolverine saga), but he seems a favourite of the current editorial administration. The team he has hand-picked is... uninteresting. Whedon's Blindfold and surprise fan-fave Rockslide are the returning members, Wolfcub (a previous student popularised by Chuck Austen of all people, in a storyline mysteriously referenced heavily this issue, with the only purpose to confuse new readers) and... some new characters we don't learn much about. I just don't care at this point, and I desperately want my New X-Men cast back. Please?

4.5/10






GHOST RIDER #20-22

(Jason Aaron / Ronald Boschi)

'Hell-Bent & Heaven-Bound' part 1-3.

One basic background fact about your humble reviewer: I don't know bikes. I don't like bikes. I can't ride bikes. Heck, I can't even ride a bicycle.

Yet here I am, reading Ghost Rider, all because Jason Aaron has signed up as the new regular writer.

[FULL REVIEW HERE]



8.5/10





LOGAN #2

(Brian K. Vaughan / Eduardo Risso)

Remember the amazing cliffhanger last issue? A tale from Logan's past as a soldier in the WWII, fighting and falling in love... in Hiroshima.

Vaughan always has an amazing way with cliffhangers; this issue he takes the event that the reader now clearly expects to see and spins it into a startling moment of cruelty and realisation. I wasn't too impressed with the first issue, as I felt it was padded out to push the reveal into the cliffhanger; this story makes up for it a thousandfold, words and art merging into the poetic telling of a love affair and a gruesome apocalyptic battle. Risso is an overlooked talent, and his art takes on a different dimension here; Risso's inks are most often coloured with moody flats, but now Dean White uses a watercolour effect and a yellow pallette to transport the reader to mid-War Japan.

Marvel has also released a B&W version of the book, but I wouldn't recommend it, other than for simple curiosity, as the colours are crucial to the book and the art here.

8.5/10

NEW EXILES #4

(Chris Claremont / Tom Grummett)

I'll just let Claremont himself -through his darling Psylocke- sum up my feelings on the New Exiles:
Their new mission ends with more tedious battles, reveals, silly coincidences and 'oh look who that is in this reality' moments that make little sense and serve no purpose. Why can't Claremont take a look back at his huge volume of work, or even the more recent X-Treme X-Men issues that did work (I personally enjoyed most of #20-35 and Mekanix), compare it with what he's currently putting out and get a wake-up call!

3/10
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DC Capsule Reviews Week 14 2008

Got a tad carried away this week, so two of the capsule reviews will actually be appearing as full reviews here and on the Nexus. Links within!

Still catching up, two weeks to go, and these are DC Comics for the first week of March 2008


COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS #4

(Paul Dini & Sean McKeever / Jamal Igle)

I was so happy to finally see some progress in the character arcs during the past month, after spending a whole month stuck in the same lame status quo. Boy, did I rush my turn to speak.

This issue, everyone gets back to Earth-1, Jason Todd ditches the Red Robin identity (after what, an issue and a half? What's the point of teasing about it in posters since before the story started?), Mary Marvel becomes evil again (after a whole big fuss of the Gods re-granting her powers. Again, that lasted an issue and a half), Harley and Holly return to normal lives (after 5 panels of having powers). I could stomach most of that, but Mary Marvel's turning into an amoral power-bitch without an external evil spirit manipulating just spits in the face of the character and her history, especially since there's hardly any actual character growth to support the new switch. Jamal Igle does a remarkable job on the pencils, but I just feel sad that Sean McKeever's name is attached to this drivel.

4/10


ACTION COMICS #863

(Geoff Johns / Gary Frank / Jon Sibal)

Superman & The Legion of Super-heroes Finale. Aw, look at those Legion kids, all grown up! Geoff Johns checks back on the original Legion of Super-Heroes, years after the first reboot of the series. Johns has crafted an impressive tale, taking into account every facet of the original Legion: the heroes, the villains, the rejects and the substitutes. I'm not familiar with any of the characters showing up here, but it didn't encumber my enjoyment of the story, as I could feel -even without knowing- the rich history that he was drawing from. Johns is riding an amazing creative high, giving the most classic Action Comics run of recent decades; each storyline is carefully chosen to explore a different facet of Super-man, take him to a whole different world, and always be something that feels... important.

The story of course flows into Final Crisis in the form of an upcoming 'Legion of Three Worlds' promoted as a crossover between the three different Legions (after the franchise's two complete reboots), but described by the writer as simply 'Superman & the (original) Legion of Super-Heroes vs Superboy Prime (w00t) & the Legion of Super-Villains', with probably a few other Legion variations thrown in for marketing. I'm still confused why DC would keep the ongoing Legion title (which was rebooted on the strength of Waid's vision for the title) alive after Waid left, with Jim Shooter on board as the writer (Shooter being the writer who popularised the original Legion), while at the same time only featuring the original Legion in the company's major titles (JLA, Action Comics, Countdown and soon Final Crisis). Why keep the new Legion title around, if you're only going to be acknowledging the original everywhere else. -sigh-

8/10



DETECTIVE COMICS #843

(Paul Dini / Dustin Nguyen)

Batman and fresh love interest Zatanna (really?) face off against Scarface (the gun-totting gangster dummy) and the new and improved (well improved curves) Ventriloquist. Bruce Wayne & Zatanna=euch, not buying it, as the two have nothing connecting them other than being Dini's faves. Bring Selina in, man! Dini's puppy love for Zatanna poses other problems in his storytelling as well; Zatanna is not meant to be a permanent fixture of Gotham City, as she's a gazillion power levels above Batman's Rogues gallery (consisting mainly of psychotic humans with fancy get-ups and guns); her showdown with the Ventriloquist just looks pathetic and insulting to the reader's intelligence. Why not spin her off into her own ongoing? The only thing making this a worthwhile story is the new Ventriloquist, a blonde bombshell from Bruce's past who could prove a more memorable figure to fill the V role.

6/10


INFINITY INC. #8

(Pete Milligan / Pete Woods)

The Bogeyman part 1. DC is making amends for condemning the launch of Infinity Inc with the choice of untested rookie Max Fiumara on art, paired with an even more incompatible colorist. DCU readers might be open to a Vertigo-esque (ugh, I already hate that term as I type it) take on their superheroes, but it needs to come in an attractive package for it to work. Think X-Force/X-Statix. Think All-Star Superman.

[FULL REVIEW HERE]

7/10

NIGHTWING #143

(Peter J. Tomasi / Rags Morales)

'Freefall' part 4. An uneven finale to what started as a promising storyline. Nightwing and Robin have been investigating a string of zombie super-villains running amok, the trail leading them to Talia and the League of Assassins. This issue is a basic James Bond routine: planes turning into subs, scuba-diving to the island, surveillance, infiltration through secret lake entrances, big angel cloning labs, maniacal doctors, death traps (with Robin tied up on an honest-to-God conveyor belt of broken Angels being dropped off into Hell) and rocket escapes. It has an element of insane fun to it, but it's anti-climactic (if this is indeed the last part of the storyline) as the generic old doctor villain is still unnamed and the trail leading to Talia left dangling. Nightwing and Robin work great as a tag team, I hope the kid sticks around.

7/10



THE NEW DYNAMIX #2

(Allen Warner / JJ Kirby & Oliver Nome)

I honestly tried to care about this title, but I can't find any solid footing, despite some interesting characters. The plot follows Love Rocket (superhero / radio DJ) urging blaxploitation superman Black Halo out of retirement to investigate the disappearance of the world's superheroes, their first stop being the dubious/murderous/vacuous corporate super-hero The Invincible Sword. As much as the Sword makes fun reading in a Guy Gardner sort of way, the first two issues haven't done enough to keep me interest; I doubt I'll be reading the next issue.

5/10




RAVEN #2

(Marv Wolfman / Damion Scott)

If I can manage to overlook the ill-suited graffiti art, Wolfman actually has a decent story to tell here; Raven is taking advantage of her rebirth to try living as a normal teenager for the first time, go to high school and make friends. Her social awkwardness and complete disconnection from any form of pop culture make for some amusing gags, although the fun gets too cheesy when it's time for her cheerleader try-outs and her first game of bowling. Leave the poor 'emo' (as per the first issue's cover blurb, not my fault) girl alone! What keeps me coming back is the inclusion of the Psycho Pirate mask in the equation, now linked to a mass broadcasting device and used by a team of scientists not shy on experimenting on a school of teenagers.

5.5/10



SUPERGIRL #28

(Kelley Puckett / Drew Johnson)

'Way of the World' part 1. Finally a Supergirl story I can cheer for! Puckett wisely ditches the conventional super-fight routines and goes for a story that touches at the very heart of Supergirl: a 16-year old idealistic teenage superhero. Supergirl has just promised a dying 5-year old kid that she will cure cancer for him, and no matter what Superman or Wonder Woman or any grown up have to say about the matter she won't keep trying.

[READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE]

8/10



ALL-NEW ATOM #22

(Rick Remender / Pat Olliffe)

'Inside Out' part 2. Last issue, the Atom went exploring inside his own blood sample, recovering a monster which he then enlarged to study. Dumb! Now the giant monster is running rampant in the city, killing his best friend, his potential hot girlfriend of a new neighbour and more! Dumb! Still, he makes a conscious decision to NOT call in the cavalry/JLA but try to tackle this problem alone. DUMB! As for the issue itself, it offers nothing more than mindless shoot-outs against a giant man-eating germ; it's quirky but not quirky enough to drag out through an entire issue. Better to skip straight to the next chapter.

5/10


BATMAN & THE OUTSIDERS #5

(Chuck Dixon / Julian Lopez)

This has fast grown into one of my fave super-team books. Batman's hand-picked team of covert operatives, sort of his take on Oracle's Birds of Prey. Dixon surprises pleasantly with a comeback noone saw coming, and surprisingly noone at DC thought to promote:

the Dibnys have joined the Outsiders! Ralph (Elongated Man) Dibny and his wife Sue have been long-time fan-favourites, from the stint in Giffen's Justice League, and turned into martyrs when Sue was unceremoniously raped and murdered in Identity Crisis and Ralph died trying to resurrect her and save the world from the devil in 52. The end of 52 teased their reunion as a pair of Ghost Detectives, and this looks like the title where we'll be seeing the next chapter of their story.

7.5/10


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Supergirl #28 Review

SUPERGIRL #28

Writer: Kelley Puckett

Artist: Drew Johnson

DC Comics


'Way of the World' part 1.

Finally a Supergirl story I can cheer for! Puckett wisely ditches the conventional super-fight routines and goes for a story that touches at the very heart of Supergirl: a 16-year old idealistic teenage superhero. Supergirl has just promised a dying 5-year old kid that she will cure cancer for him, and no matter what Superman or Wonder Woman or any grown up have to say about the matter she won't keep trying.

Her first plan of action involves the return of a long-forgotten DC hero (and Nexus fave), the Resurrection Man; don't worry if you don't know him, Puckett has included a very blatantly Wiki info-dump on the guy in-between narrations; I can think of more tasteful ways to sneak that info in, but that's only a minor quibble. Supergirl's grand plan is this:


...and I love every bit of it. It screams of teen naivete and finally injects some much-needed personality into the girl. We certainly had to wait long enough for it. Everything in the issue, from the resolution of the above plan, to Superman's involvement, Wonder Woman's heart to heart with the girl, and the return of the Purple healing Ray, just clicks perfectly. On top of all that, the story's complimented by a decent fit artist who has a modest design of Kara, shying away from Paris Hilton or jail bait extremes. Could this be the miracle cure for the book every fan has been hoping for?

(Shame about that cover though)

8/10
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Infinity Inc #8 Review

INFINITY INC. #8

Writer: Pete Milligan

Artist: Pete Woods

DC Comics

The Bogeyman part 1.

DC is making amends for condemning the launch of Infinity Inc with the choice of untested rookie Max Fiumara on art, paired with an even more incompatible colorist. DCU readers might be open to a Vertigo-esque (ugh, I already hate that term as I type it) take on their superheroes, but it needs to come in an attractive package for it to work. Think X-Force/X-Statix. Think All-Star Superman.

This is take two. Take the disoriented kids from 52's Everyman project, slap shiny garish spandex (well, probably more 90s generic than anything else) and silly codenames on them and attach a semi-established artist in Pete Woods, and you're to go with round 2! I hope readers are still willing to give it a go. This is Milligan going back to his X-Force roots: corny code names, extreme personalities based on disturbed psychological profiles, off-beat powers, and a non-team concept on a team book. It started off awkwardly (partly due to the art, and also Milligan taking too much of a slow pace), but things are starting to click.


Jerome / Double Trouble (the narcissistic fratboy who can conjure more of him to hang out with) and Erik / Amazing Woman (the stuttering coward boy who can turn into a super-endowed power woman) are easy favourites, with Lucia / Empathy (the desperate-to-please self-cutter who cuts both ways) warming up to me slowly; it's odd that Woods hasn't managed to differentiate her from the other girls on the team, leading to a forced hair colour change to tell the three apart. Natasha/Vaporlock (ditch that name please! The self-appointed group leader who fades/vaporises into the background) and Steel (Steel-plated black Superman) are still tedious and boring to read, while the newest addition of Mercy/Vanilla (Lex Luthor's former bodyguard, maybe an amazon) makes me scratch my head in confusion. I hope she realises her hidden potential as the Emma Frost Queen B**ch of the group soon!

7/10


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LYSAD wishes you a Happy Greek Easter!

Red Egg Madness!

(FACT: yes, we Greeks occasionally celebrate Easter a few weeks apart from the other Christians)
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Nunchuck Nuns

NRAMA: Last time I interviewed you about Ghost Rider, you gave us a good tease about the nurses with guns. Anything you can tease about what's coming up in future issues?

Jason Aaron: How about nuns with nunchucks? Nunchuck nuns. We'll see that at some point.

Jason Aaron talking to Newsarama during NYCC
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Herculean Homages

Is it a swipe if you're homaging yourself, in a way -and character- someone has already homaged you earlier that year?

Meet mr Jim Steranko. He is an unquestionable talented creator and a comics, famous for his bold compositions, his striking covers and creating a standard that artists have adhered to and often homaged for decades even to this day!

Exhibit A:

King Size Hulk Special #1/v.1 Annual #1 (October 1968, Marvel Comics)

Cover artist: Jim Steranko. The original cover that set the trend. Hulk dominating the cover from edge to edge, straining to hold the weight of his own name/logo like a monstrous Atlas. The massive feat is accentuated by the cracking of the ground/letters that Hulk is standing on. The title is made of solid rock, crumbling away as Hulk with his enormous strength clasps at it with his arms. A very claustrophobic cover that has stood the test of time, very evident by the amount of homages to it even in the last decade:



Exhibit B:

The Incredible Hulk v.2 #34 (November 2001, Marvel Comics)

Cover Artist: Kaare Andrews. Kicking off the then celebrated run by writer Bruce Jones, Kaare makes a tribute to the Steranko original, keeping the same composition but using a painted/computer illustrated technique.



Exhibit C:

Incredible Hulk Herc(ules) #113 (February 2008, Marvel Comics)

Cover Artist: Arthur Adams. With the closing of World War Hulk, Bruce Banner is in custody, there's a new monthly (adjectiveless) Hulk title launching, and the Incredible Hulk title is passed over to classic Marvel hero Hercules. To commemorate the first issue of the name switch, Arthur Adams cleverly homages Hercules (a Greek demi-god like Atlas himself) bulking under the weight of the Hulk's title which he has now inherited, with his own name sprayed on top of it.


Exhibit D:

Hercules #2 (announced June 2008, Radical Comics)

Cover Artist: Jim Steranko. Coming full circle, Steranko returns to comics and cover artwork with the new ongoing Hercules series from Radical Comics, following the adventures of Hercules - now a warlord leader of a mercenary team- in Ancient Greece after the completion of the Twelve Tasks. Steranko replaces the hulk of his classic cover with the new Radical Hercules.


Any more homages to the original that I've missed? Reply below :)
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