Free returns with a bag full of news. The team’s best and worst comics focus on falling cities, mutant stealth squads and blue birds.
It all ends with monologue!
You know something, Marvel seem to be following a trend at the moment. With the success of Matt Fraction and David Aja’s Hawkeye/Hawkguy/PizzaDog book and its fresh take on the world of superheroes and what they do in their “downtime”, someone, somewhere in the echelons of Marvel’s office has said “You know something, this sells! We need more books where superheroes aren’t doing superhero things!”
Imagine Indiana Jones on the high seas, with a twist of Treasure Island, a dash of King Kong and a sprinkle of the dirty dozen and you get Image Comic’s latest number #1 The Mecenary Sea. It reminds me of the classic pulp tales which my dad has laying around my parents house! However, does it get the golden idol or does it fall foul of the huge boulder bearing down on it?
Now I don’t recognise Spinebender, so I don’t know if he’s a new or an existing foe but I really liked how he utilised his power over people from Dick’s past instead of going all Clayface and just smashing things with mace arms. I thought the banter between the two made the fight interesting and also added some lighter elements to the issue.
The way I read Justice League 3000 and The Punisher is they’re both basically action films from the 80’s or 90’s in a twenty page format. I mean the action is there, but what really brightens my mood when I read the comics is the banter between the characters. I love this self-centred Superman; he’s a guy who doesn’t remember what being Superman is like, but knows that it means he’s a total badass.
Advertised on the front cover it does say that this is a “Secret Glimpse into Batman Eternal”, but I expected something along the lines of what Detective Comics #27 gave us for Gothtopia. Instead it gave us the bulk of the issue as a context-less sample of Eternal and then a ‘trailer’ for American Vampire.
The Freeless Defenders team up with The Superior Sean and head off to tackle the Justice league, news, rumours and the best/worst comics of the week.
Hold onto your hats as it all ends on a dramatic high!
The opener of this issue shows Jim Gordan acting as the last bastion of sanity and hope in a city ravaged by inter-dimensional aliens and madmen. Amidst all the chaos Jim Gordon acts as the man we know from No Man’s Land and the Killing Joke; he will play by the rules and do the right thing in the face of any terror and adversity.
As anyone who’s been reading the series knows, Earth 2 is in a bad place right now. The World Army has been destroyed, and an evil version of Superman has claimed the planet for Darkseid. All that stands against him is a ragtag fugitive band of “wonders” hiding in the Batcave.
Kamala Khan is a sixteen-year-old girl from New Jersey, and she is also a Muslim. Both facts are important, but in the new Ms. Marvel book neither overshadows the other. In fact, the most important quality Kamala may have is that she’s an unabashed superhero fangirl, and Captain Marvel’s biggest fan.
The fuse #1 from Anthony Johnston and Justin Greenwood, of course published by Image comics, definitely falls into the “do not miss this book” category of the recent wave of image titles. It has sci-fi, cops, death, and intrigue. Anthony Johnston writes a brilliant, futuristic, cop murder mystery, set on an “Elysium” style spaceport. He clearly shows a lot of sci-fi influences from his own life, and he obviously enjoys creating vast universes, while keeping this particular issue confined to a few key areas.
Instead of going over what the plot of the issue and the ongoing mini-series is I want to talk about how well written the characters are in this issue, purely because I feel Geoff Johns has done such a brilliant job at giving each member a believable voice and a solid reason to be part of the book.
This week DC readers were treated to not one but two titles with the Scarecrow in a leading role; here in Detective Comics and also in Arkham War. This is the first full Detective Comics issue dedicated to Gothtopia, but we did get an introduction in Detective Comics #27 and it looked very promising.
The team decides to look on the bright side and recommend some of the better comics of the week. Ninja Turtles, X-Men and 52 are all mentioned. However in the dark reaches of space the Mad Titan Thanos has gotten his hands on the Infinity Gauntlet and it is up to The Freeless Defenders to analyse the situation!!!
As someone who successfully introduced his daughter to comics, I was naturally interested when I heard Marvel and Disney were working together to produce a new line of comics for kids. Seekers of the Weird is the first book in this line, and it follows a fairly common Disney setup – squabbling brother and sister, family with a supernatural secret. It’s not a new concept, but it’s been used successfully many times before.