Throwback Thursday 2/6/14

    Over the past few weeks I have not been doing a whole lot of comic reading that would fall into the “Throwback Thursday” mold. It has been a lot of recent books. I have been catching up on some series like, The Unwritten, Mind MGMT, and Lobster Johnson. Or reading current books like Umbral, Sex Criminals and All New X-Factor. But I decided that even if I haven't been reading older material I could still write something up. Today I present to you some of the recent trades I have picked up that are older material. I will give a brief explanation on why I picked them up and hopefully in the near future you can look forward to me disusing them.

    First on the list of books is “The Creature Commandos”, which collects a ton of stories from “Weird War Stories”. If you don't know who the Creature Commandos are, they were an elite fighting force created by the Allies to take down the Axis Powers in World War II. Each member of the team resembled and took on the characteristics of a monster. There was a Frankenstein monster who was the leader, a werewolf, a vampire, a Medusa, and later G.I. Robot joined on a few missions. I have read a few of these stories before and they are a ton of fun. And with the later half of this trade being written by Bob Kanigher it should be a blast.

    Next up is “Green Lantern Sector 2814”. This collects the last Green Lantern stories before and during “Crisis On Infinite Earths”. I've been told it is a fairly sprawling epic that focuses mainly on John Stewart. I've been a GL fan for many years and always enjoy looking back on older stories as they are collected. Just flipping through the pages of these trades and seeing all the Lanterns that are involved with the story makes me giddy. This is one I really hope does not disappoint.

    Marvel has recently started publishing a trade line called “The Epic Collection”. These trades are a big chunk of issues of a series that has been so far uncollected or uncollected as a whole. I recent;y picked up “Fantastic Four: All In the Family” which picks up right after John Byrne's legendary run. I am not really too familiar with this time on the FF. I did see that Johnny and Alicia get married, or do they? The trade also includes that wonderful “Fantastic Four vs The X-Men”. FF VS X-Men, is something that already had a release but I assume it folds into the story of this group of issues.

    The last book I want to bring up is “Swamp Thing, by Brian K. Vaughn”, it's no surprise why DC/Vertigo released this trade, with Saga being the hit that it is. Right now BKV is a hot commodity, so why not reprint a book that no one read in the early 2000s. I don't remember hearing much fanfare about the book when it came out. But I was also did not have much interest in Swamp Thing at the time. Sampy has since become one of my favorite characters. And while I did hear from someone in another group that the story was a bit boring. I still have hopes that it will at least be entertaining and engrossing.

    There you have it. Four books I am looking forward to reading and hopefully reviewing in the near future. I have stacks and stacks of other books I am ready to read for this column. But these are just some of the newest books to throw on the pile. So here's to looking gleefully toward the future and reading some older comics that I love or missed over the years.

Oz's 2-Cent Reviews for November part 2

Welcome to another installation of our 2 cent reviews.  This batch will primarily be none big 2 books specifically Saga #7, Archer & Armstrong #3-4, Storm Dogs #1, The Hypernaturalls #5, and Danger Club volume 1: Death.  I still have a giant pile to go through so look for the next segments real soon.

 Saga 7:  A sure sign of an awesome comic is when it goes by too fast.  That goes double for this issue.  If you're not getting Saga already, what are you waiting for?  This issue: giant scrotum

 Archer & Armstrong 3-4:  Everything awesome in Incredible Hercules is transferred to this book.  I'm entertained each issue and it has that Van Lente humour I love.  I'm glad I stumbled upon this series, it's been well worth it.

 Storm Dogs 1:  I'm not really sure if this book lived up to the hype I saw from everyone but that doesn't mean it wasn't interesting.   I can't really give an opinion before I reread at least once however it's worth mentioning Doug Braithwaite on pencils.

 Hypernaturals 5:  Hypernaturals is building into something special.  Lots of back story and focus on the two most interesting members Inkwell and Clone-45.

Danger Club Volume 1- Death:  This was GREAT.  Fresh spins on old ideas with simple clean art and vibrant colours. It's also VERY fast paced.  The last issue of the trade had me speechless countless times.  I enjoyed the style of storytelling the author chose, it's fun piecing things together yourself.  I appreciated how un-wordy it was, the art said everything.  The one down side is I typically hate 4 issue-only tpb but for 9.99, I let it slip.

Review: Saga #4

Tim's Review:
Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples continue to bring awesomeness to the table with Saga – this issue in a disturbing way that is decidedly not for the faint of heart. In issue 4, Alana and Marco discuss ‘Gwendolyn’, the last page A-bomb from issue three. Meanwhile, The Will visits a place called ‘Sextillion’, which is just as graphic and disturbing as it sounds.

Talking Trades: Buffy Season 8 Library Edition Vol. 1

What happens to Buffy, Willow, Xander, Giles and the rest of the scoobies after the events that unfolded in the finale of “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” television series?

The show was important to a lot of people, and made a pretty influential change and impact on the way television is made and stories told so ater the Hellmouth caves in and Sunnydale is gone where does that put our quippy slayer and her crew?

Review: Saga #3

What can I say? Three issues in and I have already fallen in love with this comic. Already living up to it’s epic name, the scale of the story is evident with each word spoken and each action taken by the characters.

And speaking of characters, I have been aware of Fiona Staples for some time now, having followed her work with North 40 and Mystery Society.

Review: Saga #2

BKV lights-up the last page and it’s Runaways-style. I CANNOT WAIT FOR ISSUE #3. The decadence in parenthood here is pretty profound as he paints star-crossed lovers entwined and properly entangled in murky, unfamiliar territory. It’s a mangled wreck to see our protagonists on the run in a Star Wars/Trekkie fashion as they try to survive and protect their daughter. BKV’s dialogue is modern and a contemporary galactic thrill. The cosmic feel here is hyped and well-heightened with the superb Fonografiks design, complemented by Fiona Staples’ art. It’s an illustrious title with a lusty plot.

Review: Saga #1

You only need one reason to by this comic. I’ll give you bunch, but you only need one. Brian K. Vaughan. Remember Y-The Last Man? Ex Machina? The freakin’ Runaways? BKV is one of the greatest storytellers in the business, so you know you’re going to get an awesome story. Asides from the writer's name, Saga #1 begins an epic sc-fi fantasy, one part Star Wars, one part Willow and all parts amazing.

Right from the outset, you know Saga is something special.

Talking Trades: The Runaways

Every teenager thinks their parents are villains, but what if you found out they were really super villains? thus goes the premise of Runaways, created by Brian K Vaughan and Adrian Alphona for Marvel. Back in 2003, Marvel released a bunch of new series under the label ‘tsunami’ designed to attract new readers, especially from the manga scene. They all fizzled, except for Runaways, which had started to garner critical success. 8 years and 62 issues later, Runaways is widely considered one of the freshest ideas in mainstream comics.

5-Page Preview of BKV's Saga!

No words from me - onto the preview!

Because We Love You, BKV

iFanboy discuss Brian K Vaughan’s career, and I owe him an apology. Buy everything he's ever written.