#6: 18th June 2014

I promised to post at least one more post this week. And here it is, containing two reviews of incredibly good issues. It's not frequent that you get two series this good in one New Comic Book Day.
And get ready for this week's reviews with long-awaited, at least by me, Robert Kirkman's and Paul Azaceta's Outcast #1!

Thor: God of Thunder #23

A week with this series must be good. I was so excited to read at last the finale of The Last Days of Midgard arc. Previous issue ended promising. I love the link between this story arc and epic The God Butcher Saga. Jason Aaron serves us another smashing issue full of action and moments, after which Thor fans will seat paralyzed of excitement on their sofas, or any other place, where they will read #23.

Undoubtedly, Thor: God of Thunder is currently the best ongoing series. Creating these books, Aaron wanted to show Thor from another perspective. Thor isn't Mighty nowadays. He's a god, who is with his people and wants to help them by spending time with them and showing protection, whenever needed.

Aaron also made another genius maneuver. He introduced us three Thors, the early one, than, Thor the Avenger and finally Thor the All-Father from the future. All these plots take place in the same exact time. They have always something in common, and could be, in my opinion, standalone stories.

In issue 23 Thor the All-Father continues his outstanding fight with Galactus. Its epicness is undescribable. It was written perfectly, kept me nervous and interested through all 22 pages. Simultaneusly, Thor the Avenger fights with Dario Agger, aka The Minotaur and Roxxon Energy corporation to save Broxton in Oklahoma and its inhabitants. And I must write, it isn't worse. We get thunders, punches and gunshots. Everything was drawn by amazing Esad Ribic. Oh my, this artwork was sooo good. Jason Aaron and Ribic are a dream team. I cant think of any better comic duet at the moment.

Newest issue of God of Thunder unfortunately has one con. It's only 22 pages long. I wish it had an infinite amount of pages. If you like awesome comic books, pick up this Thor title. There's nothing better currently. Thor rocks.

Punisher #7

I have no idea how Punisher made it, but he's still alive. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised (after all, all heroes are 'immortal'), but last issue's events went for him terribly. And here we are, at the beginning of the all-new story arc - El Diablito. First 6 books were really good, so I expected the same from #7.

The story was written by acclaimed Nathan Edmondson with Kevin Maurer's help. Also the artwork changed a little bit. Carmen Carnero took Mitch Gerad's postion and that's quite unfortunate. New artwork is extremly good, but I loved Gerad's style. Carnero has a similar one, but introduced slightly more details to the comic. Usually I am keen on seeing this kind of maneuvers from artists, but this lack of details perfectly fitted Edmondson's writing (same situation in Black Widow series). But, overall, artwork is extraordinary. It was a pleasure to look at all panels.

#6 finished in... saying without any spoilers, intense moment. #7 starts some time later with Punisher, having escaped, trying to spot some safe shelter. Preferably with a person with medical skills. Later his doctor sells him and Frank ends in the hands of deadly Mr. Ortiz aka El Diablito. Latter events lead to a potential escape, an appearance of Crossbones and a special team-up.

Maybe at first I was a little bit confused about Frank's situation, but later everything started to create an interesting beginning to a story. I'm sure, Nathan Edmondson has done an extraordinary job on next issues. Till this moment, his run has been really good, maybe even better than Warren Ellis' one.

This volume of The Punisher is an easy and fun read for everyone. It's new reader friendly and definietly worth mentioning, while talking about best current ongoing series.

Other issues:

'Very good' pile:

- Daredevil #4

'Good' pile:

- Sex Criminals #6
- Uncanny X-Men #22

'Meh' pile:
- Darth Maul: Son of Dathomir #2

#5: 11th June 2014

Here we go, on Monday I got new issues from 11th and 18th June. Today I finally post a first set of reviews. The next one and the one from 25th June should be on the blog this week (or at least I hope so).

11th June's week wasn't special. Three outstanding issues, that I read and some other, which were rather boring. But let's move to reviews.

All-New X-Men #28

Oh. My. God. Is this series good! Brian Michael Bendis serves us another fantastic issue. When Marvel released #1, I was worried about the whole idea of bringing X-Men's classic team from their early ages to the present. This kind of time travel would literally destroy actual reality and, oh boy, it happened. There's such a mess nowadays in Marvel universe I have no idea what is and what isn't canonical (but I suppose it doesn't really matter now). Dead Watcher, almost dead Logan without healing factor, space invasions, Age of Ultron, X-Men from the past and... future... Last months has been intense and almost everything is only getting better and better.

Issue 28 of All-New continues the fight between our-reality-characters and future-Xavier's team. Charles was and probably still is my favourite comic book hero and I can't find words, which could describe my excitement while seeing his "legacy" on the panels. BMB knows how to write action-packed books. When you start reading #28, it's impossible to put it down. His writing is so clever and intelligent.

Moreover, in #28 we saw a plot background to probably next maaany issues - Xavier planning an attack from the future to the present. I'm sure that when it finally happens, we all will be stunned. Can't wait to read it.

All-New X-Men is awesome and if anyone is saying something else, he's wrong. Trust me here and buy a bunch of trades, which are probably now a little bit cheaper than before. Single issues also recommended.

Savage Wolverine #20

Three days ago I was still stuck on he fourth issue of Savage Logan. I heard loads of good stuff about this series, so decided to pick up the rest of issues and keep reading till he new #20. It was one of the best choices I made recently. Being a fan of long ongoing and one-writer&artist-series, I surprisingly enjoyed very much these frequent changes of creative teams after each arc. Last two issues were quite bad, I admit it, but #20 is a terrific come back of greatness to Savage Wolverine.

This standalone story is about Valentine's Day, love, rather unsuccesful, faith, revenge and anger. This mixture is stunning, you will read this issue without a pause from the first to the last page.

What I love about this title? Wolverine being savage. Yes, savage. This character needs to be showed that way, with claws snikted out and anger all over his face. But the special thing about this series is that Logan never does it without reason. He's such a great person with ideals - a killer loving animals, an animal loving woman, a men helping his friend, a friend having revenge. Wolverine FINALLY is not banal. He's intelligent and cares for other people. All Wolverine Vol. Blahblah series recently were boring, Logan was shallow, but now it changed. Thanks to Marvel Now.

We can not forget about gorgeous artwork made done by Felix Ruiz. It's so original and breathtaking,  I could print this issue in larger format and hang all panels on my room's walls. This guy's amazing.

To sum up, Savage Wolverine is a must read for all comic book fans. After two rather dull issues, #20 is a special piece of art. Plot is quite deep, it touches some themes, that aren't common in Wolverine stories. This series is savagely good. And savagely in this case means awesomely.

The Walking Dead #128

It's the only Image title this week I picked up. Robert Kirkman proves again to be one of the greatest long story writers of all time. It's amazing how for over 10 years he has been leading Rick Grimes to new obstacles, calamities, deaths and opportunities. Each issue feels like it's a part of something big, I can feel all other events that took place before newest book.

In #128 Alexandria is prospering, everything seams to be perfect, new bread, loads  of food, new people joining survivor's community. But here is always Negan. An imprisoned badass trying to manipulate Carl, but young Grimes looks to be also playing with Glenn's murderer.

During the whole issue I had a strange feeling. A feeling of something enormous coming. Peace can not last long in this reality. Roamers, or walkers, if you prefer, are there, waiting to kill all living beings. Kirkman builds a background to a new epic story arc. Action soon will start to get intense and I feel it that Negan will always be somewhere there, waiting for a perfect moment to push a knife into Rick's throat. But that's only my speculation.

One thing in Walking Dead hasn't changed. Beutiful black&white artwork by Charlie Adlard (not counting first 6 issues by Tony Moore). I love his minimalistic touches to character's facial expressions. They look so real. A lack of colours even helps this book. We can enjoy Adlard's work in its pure form - without colorful distractions.

If you want to read Walking Dead, buy first 2 Compendiums containing almost 100 issues. This series isn't that much new reader friendly, if you do not read from #1. You should read the whole run to fully enjoy newest issues. Overall, it's a solid series, one of the best from Image, if not the best in the history of this publisher.

Wolverine #8

I noticed I write only reviews about those good books. Decided to change it a little bit and from time to time you will see my opinions on worse books. This time our "star" is the newest issue of the main Wolverine series. It's so dull and mediocre. I read it only because of this whole 3 Months to Die stuff and latter Death of Wolverine miniseries, which I recently preordered.

The only positive thing about this issue is an appearance of Iron Fist and Shang-Chi. I love these characters, but even they couldn't save this issue. I have no idea what was the motivation and idea of Paul Cornell, while writing Wolverine. His previous series was terrible. Marvel renumbered it and it may be even worse now.

Plot focuses on two main strands: Wolverine's going with Daniel Rand and Shang-Chi to the Temple of Death on Holiday (at the beginning I found it interesting, but than, thanks to crappy dialogues, it was just another Cornell's failure) and Sabretooth's negotiating with Offer (yesterday evening I have almost fallen asleep reading it and I think it perfectly describes this part of plot).

Artwork isn't better, but there were some nice panels (one above). Overall, everything looks unrealistic in this book, crooked faces, unbalanced proportions and colours, which look extremly unnatural.

Summing up, I read this book only to know what's going on i Logan's world, when Death of the Wolverine begins. After #4 of that miniseries, I will drop this title from my pull list. Not recommended.

#4: Organising reading list

This week at school was terrible, but all final marks are now successfully in register. Being overloaded I had no time for reading comic books. I planned to read all Wednesday's issues today and post a bunch of reviews, but my retailer failed in sending me them. So no reviews today and I have no idea when comic books will arrive. Hopefully, soon.

When I was cleaning up my computer room, I came on a nice idea - "cleaning up" a mess in series that I pick up and read. Using both paper and digital versions of comic books, I often pick issues I normally wouldn't. So I created a new comic book policy. I flicked through August solicits of all publishers and chose all series I'm interested in and divided them into two groups:

1) Series I'll read month-by-month or issue-by-issue in the release week.

2) Series I'll read in tradeish style - a "marathon" after 5 up to 12 issues (so one series would be read once or twice a year).

So maybe let's see what I decided to do:

Group 1

• All-New X-Men
• Amazing Spider-Man
• Avengers
• Avengers World
• Daredevil
• Hawkeye
• Magneto
• Moon Knight
• New Avengers
• Original Sin
• Punisher
• Savage Wolverine
• Spider-Man 2099
• Superior Spider-Man
• Thor: God of Thunder
• Uncanny X-Men 
• Uncanny Avengers
• Wolverine
• Invincible
• Outcast
• The Walking Dead
• all Star Wars series
• Batman

Group 2

• Miracleman
• All-New Ghost Rider
• All-New Invaders
• Amazing X-Men
• Black Widow
• Captain America
• Cyclops
• Deadpool
• Death of Wolverine
• Elektra
• Fantastic Four
• Guardians of the Galaxy
• Iron Fist: The Living Weapon
• Iron Man
• Legendary Star Lord
• Ms Marvel
• Nightcrawler
• Rocket Racoon
• Secret Avengers
• Silver Surfer
• Storm
• Chew
• East of West
• Fade Out
• Fatale
• Velvet
• Trees
• Sex Criminals
• Deadly Class
• Batman Eternal

Aaaand that's it! Lot's of awesome stuff. Can't wait to see what will happen of these series' panels!

Next time I hope to post all reviews according to schedule. </transmission ended>

#3: 4th June 2014

Meh, this week wasn't as good as I hoped. Nothing from Dark Horse, one book from DC (Batman Eternal #9), Nailbiter #2 from Image and a bunch of books from Marvel. Today I'll focus on this last publisher, which, in my opinion, serves us now the best series available.

Before reviews I'd like to remind about my fanpage of this blog. You can like and visit it here. But let's move to comic books.

Magneto #5 (Marvel)

Oh boy, is this series good! Cullen Bunn knows how to write Magneto in a dark, mysterious and fascinating way. I love numerous references to events from Avengers vs X-Men, which affected Magneto's powers and backflashes to his past.

But it's not everything, what we find on the pages of the fifth issue. Magneto meets a girl, that claims to have been spying on him. Of course it's true and Eric doesn't like it. He wants answers who she is and what she's doing. And here begins the most interesting part. Briar Raleigh, cause that is women's name, has some information, which could help in Magneto's crusade against enemies of mutant race. Of course Eric will be eager to use it.

Artwork was done by Gabriel Hernandez Walta and I have mixed feelings anout it. Everything looks nice. Everything but Magneto's face. That's a shame. Gabriel's style is strange and not everyone will enjoy it. Dark colours perfectly suit plot's atmosphere and I'm not sure if I'd enjoy this style in, for example, Amazing Spider-Man. But overall, dynamism and paneling was done really well.

Magneto is now in... hmm... top 10 of best ongoing series? Something like that. It's written so clever that I could read it voraciously without the end. I'm a fan of X-titles, I'll admit it, and near All-New X-Men this is the best one. Pick it up, you won't regret it.

Punisher #6 (Marvel)

When I was reading DCD catalogue for this week I felt disappointed about the number of good new issues. When I got to Magneto, it started to be better. After this there was Punisher and momentally the whole week was good. Very good. For this single series I could do much. It's such a entertaining book, Frank Castle is badass and mixing it with gorgeous artwork - mind blown. Probably one of the 5 best current series.

Issue 5 finished at the beginning of a battle between Castle and Elektro. Issue 6 continues it and later introduces a new group of bad guys. Who are they? I won't spoil it.

The plot of first 6 issues focuses on the Dos Soles gang organisation, which joined forces with AIM to free some kind of toxic gas into the air of LA. It won't be a surprise if I write that they didn't succeed, but the way, in which it happend is intrguing and mysterious.

But the best thing in Punisher is its artwork. I adore looking at these panels. It's a world class. Now do not waste time and pick up this series, or wait for trade, which should be soon available.

Other worth mentioning issues:

Nailbiter #2 (Image)
Black Widow #7 (Marvel)
Iron Man #27 (Marvel)
Original Sin #3 (Marvel)

#2: 28th May 2014

Here we go, new week, new comic books. It was a solid Wednesday, lots of great stuff. I reviewed three best, for me, issues, surprisingly none of which was published by Marvel.

Before we skip to comic books, thank you for your feedback on Facebook, my fanpage there is growing having now 92 likes! That's an awesome results and please, if only you enjoy this blog, like, share, comment :) Here is a link to FB fanpage:

https://www.facebook.com/stuffandthingsandcomicsblog

Trees #1 (Image)

On Tuesday I even didn't know that a series like Trees exists, but looking at DCD catalogue, under "Image Comics" I saw an information about this new Warren Ellis's series, so I decided to check it out. And I'm glad I did it.

Image is getting stronger and stronger and so do its series. Trees #1 is a some kind of apocalyptic and alien themed comic book. It happens ten years after the arrival of... guess what, alien trees. But are these really trees? I'm not sure, they arrived and stayed still for these ten years till now. For ten years because an event in Rio occured. Some kind of acid? fluid? got out of the Tree followed by terrible consequences - numerous civilian casualties.

Later we are introduced to some other characters on the whole planet, but we don't know much about them.

Artwork is quite good, sometimes Trees looks like it was drawn by Romita Jr. Overall, this dynamic style fits book's atmosphere and doesn't disturb the reader.

Was issue 1 good? Yes, it was a solid book, which has a potential for future.

Legacy #15 (Dark Horse)

From the very first issue Bechko's and Hardman's Legacy series has been a great, enjoyable read. But recently it started to get better and better. I love reading Ania's adventures and, maybe even more, looking at Gabriel's artwork. In my opinion current Star Wars: Legacy run is the best series on the market from graphical point of view. Its artistic panels look stunning and all backgrounds give a special depth to the series. Every single time, having read the whole issue, I flick through all the pages at least once just for the artwork.

But tremendous artwork isn't everything that we are offered with Legacy. A fun adventure plot increases the ease of reading. Characters are easy to like and make us care about them. There is everything in here: hilarious jokes, action, melancholic atmosphere, politics and surprising twists.

Unfortunately Legacy has one drawback. There are only 3 issues left and one thing is certain,  I'll miss Ania and her team. Pick up this book, highly recommended.

Batman #31 (DC)

Zero Year continues and despite the poor start, issue 31 of bestselling Batman flagship series is a masterpiece. I know some people complain about current arc that it's borimg and plot is advancing slowly, but for me Snyder's Batman is one of not many series that we need to really think during reading.

Issue 31 focuses on a mind combat between Bats and mysterious The Riddler, who has taken control of Gotham City and terrorises gothamites. People are scared, thirsty, hungry and exhausted. And The Riddler gives them an opportunity to live back their normal lives. All they need to do is answer one, small riddle. But one who fails in answering it, dies eaten by wild animals. And here comes Darede... Batman (of course!), trying to defeat The Riddler with Jim Gordon and Mr Fox.

Greg Capullo has a unique style in drawing literally everything. He pays a great attention to details, which perfectly suit Batman.

From the Owl arc, through Death of the Family and to Zero Year, Batman has been one of the best ongoing series. It's dark, intelligent and fascinating. It's not a coincidence that Batman's almost each month the series with the highest amout of issues sold.



Other worth mentioning issues:

- Deadly Class #5 (Image)
- Iron Man #26 (Marvel)
- Ms Marvel #4 (Marvel)