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.

Ozamataz's 2-Cent Reviews: Set to Love Music... Episode 3...

2 Cent Reviews: Marvel NOW!

This batch, I take a look at a few of the Marvel NOW books released for the last 2 weeks of November   Next, I'll do some DCnUs.  But for now, X-Factor 247, Captain America 1, Fantastic Four 1, FF 1, Thor God of Thunder 2, and Uncanny Avengers 2.

 X-Factor 247:  Mr. and Mrs. Madrox.  I like the ring of that.  X-Factor takes a rest with this issue as Layla and Jaime go on their honeymoon.  And of course, that means zombies and decapitation.

 Captain America #1:  Great insight to Captain America, his past, his personal life, everything.  Very interesting fact, Cap turns 90 in this issue.  Impressive.  Top that all of with my favourite obscure villain Arnim Zola and you've got yourself a pretty good first issue.

 Fantastic Four #1:  In this issue: Matt Fraction makes me not hate him.  He fits nicely with the traditional aspects of the Four.  Everyone plays their role perfectly.

 FF #1:  Basically, Future Foundation here correlates with Fantastic Four for a twice a month experience.  All by Fraction except the difference being; while the first is more traditional, this iteration is astoundingly original.  It's trying new things in the Baxter building.  From the cast (which includes a few of my favourites) to the always-amazing Michael Allred pencils, this one is the obvious winner.

 Thor God of Thunder #2:  The story keeps growing as an epic.  We are privy to witness Thor at 3 points in his life, his past, present and future as he fights against the God killer.  The art is great and the writing is wonderful.  Jason Aaron really knows how to tell a good story, no matter the character or property.

Uncanny Avengers #2:  I can already tell that this is going to be a quality book.  Red Skull's plans are revealed.  And they're dark as fuck.  Issue one had me unsure as to whether this title would live up to the hype, but after reading issue 2, I'm convinced.