Cover To Cover: GREEN LANTERN NEW GUARDIANS #21

GREEN LANTERN NEW GUARDIANS #21
Writer: Justin Jordan
Art: Brad Walker, Andrew Hennessy & Wil Quintana
DC $2.99

Stewart R: My review of Green Lantern #21, the first new chapter in the post-Geoff Johns era of Lantern books was not a particularly positive one in respect of the new start and fresh direction. Having completed my read throughs and analysis I had some concerns that I may struggle to find a Lantern title in the new collection that would latch hooks into my attention and hold strong. Well good readers, I can tell you right this minute that with Green Lantern New Guardians #21 I believe we have a bona fide expert angler in comic book form as this has hooked, landed, cooked and served me with the opening chapter.

On The Pull 19/06/2013

New comics are due to hit the shelves on Wednesday so here’s a look ahead at some of the books we’ll be picking up this week. To see what’s available at Paradox this week, click here.

Matt C: I seem to have found myself in a position I’d rather not be in with regards to my pull-list. I’ve let myself get a bit behind on my reading and consequently I’ve got a pile of recent comics building up, and they're all just sitting there, unread. I don’t seem to be catching up on myself either, and that pile is getting bigger and bigger, so I would truly thank the maker for a quiet week, one where my pull-list is in single digits and I could get on top of things before they get completely out of control. Doesn’t look like that’ll be happening this week though! Age Of Ultron #10 is likely to be the one I go to first to see if Bendis can pull things back on track for the finale after a rather rickety ride (I’m not betting on it, though), but the one I’m looking forward to most is Wild Blue Yonder #1 from IDW. This was originally a Kickstarter project, one I narrowly missed out on, and it made me realise that I really needed to start paying attention to what’s going on in the comics section of Kickstarter. An – oh yes! – post-apocalyptic tale where man has taken to the skies above a ravaged Earth, the preview art looks great and it’s co-written by Mike Raicht of Stuff Of Legend fame, so that’s kind of what’s swaying me towards it in a big way.

There are a handful of other books from a several different publishers (including a trio of Avengers books, again!) and from Dark Horse I’m keen to pick up not only Dream Thief #2 (Justin from Thirteen Minutes turned me on to the brilliance of issue #1) but also the pulp heroics of Captain Midnight #0, which is penned by Masks And Mobsters scribe Joshua Williamson. I do note a new issue of Sixth Gun (alongside the latest chapter of the spin-off miniseries, Sons Of The Gun) is incoming from Oni Press, and as I’ve got the previous two instalments sitting in the aforementioned ‘unread’ pile, I really need to get my act together on that front!

Mini Reviews 16/06/2013

We may not have time to review every book on our pull-lists but we do aim to provide a snapshot of what's been released over the past week, encompassing the good, the bad, and those that lie somewhere in between.

Also this week, Matt C's New Mutants Project continues.

SUPERMAN UNCHAINED #1
Writer: Scott Snyder
Art: Jim Lee & Alex Sinclair
DC $4.99

James R: In his excellent Cover To Cover piece on this book earlier in the week, my colleague Stewart wondered if anyone would remove the pull-out pages from this book. Dear reader, I must admit, I am one of those fools. When I get my weekly stash home, I'll give each issue a cursory flip before reading them properly. On coming across the fold out page here, I pulled gently on the page, not expecting it to be held in place with what I believe publishers call 'snot', and... damn, guess I don't know my own strength! Personal catastrophe aside, I felt this was a fine comic without being too stellar. In a week where many of us are focused on Superman (and rightfully so in my opinion - I'm still on a high from Man Of Steel!) I've been reminded of just how great the character can be. Superman Unchained plays to a lot of Scott Snyder's strengths - he sets up a a character who might be a match for Superman while doing the perfunctory introductions to the people in Clark Kent's world. I do have to add my voice to those who have raised a concern with the price of the book. I am a massive fan of creators that stretch the medium (Chris Ware's recent magnum opus Building Stories shows just how much creators can alter the form of comics to make something unique and remarkable), but the fold out here felt superfluous. I think it would have worked better as two double-page spreads. All told, this immediately establishes itself as the best Super-book DC are publishing, but sadly this speaks volumes about it's competition - and I hope Snyder has a few more tricks up his sleeve for the title. A solid start rather than a super one. 7/10

Screen Time: MAN OF STEEL

MAN OF STEEL

Cast: Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Ayelet Zurer

Director: Zack Snyder

Runtime: 143 minutes

Certificate: 12A

Release Date: 14th June 2013 (UK), 13th June 2013 (US)

James R: What you think of Zack Snyder's epic Man of Steel will ultimately depend on how you view Superman. Those who still hold up Richard Donner's 1979 movie as a perfect embodiment of Superman might come away disappointed, while others who like to see Superman as representative of all that's good and right - the ultimate champion of justice - may also feel let down. However, if you're willing to see this as a new iteration of Superman in the same way that producer Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight movies were an interpretation of Batman rather than a definitive Batman, then like me, you'll love this movie.

Ten Forward: August 2013

Every month we spend an evening scouring the pages of the latest issue of Previews and pick the ten titles we are looking forward to the most. This month it's the June issue which includes comics scheduled to ship in August 2013.

INFINITY #1

Writer: Jonathan Hickman

Art: Jim Cheung

Marvel $4.99

Stewart R: Marvel’s Free Comic Book Day effort for 2013 was a satisfactory affair and provided us with a tease of what Jonathan Hickman and Jim Cheung would be bringing us later on in the summer in Infinity #1. Thanos is of course getting a hefty share of the villainous limelight following Marvel’s live action success in 2012 and Hickman has been working at his creative loom over on his Avengers title, bringing us new antagonists and threats dating back to the creation of the universe in the form of The Builders. In this six-part Infinity series (and all of the associated and inevitable Avengers crossovers) Hickman is going to be bringing all of these ingredients together to provide Earth’s Mightiest Heroes with one of their most deadly predicaments yet as their home comes under attack while they’re off dealing with dangers that threaten the entire cosmos. Hickman is on a scorching hot streak at the moment and these grand scale stories are where he truly does excel himself. Jim Cheung is a natural fit for such epic vision and with Dustin Weaver and Jerome Opeña to follow him this will certainly be one heck of a beautiful blockbuster event. While it’s a bit of a shame to have that aforementioned FCBD work wrapped up in the page count here, this weighs in at 56 pages for the $4.99 price tag and that’s not bad value.

Cover To Cover: SUPERMAN UNCHAINED #1

SUPERMAN UNCHAINED #1
Writer: Scott Snyder
Art: Jim Lee, Scott Williams, Alex Sinclair, Dustin Nguyen & John Kalisz
DC $4.99

Stewart R: Nearly two years on from the launch of DC’s New 52, and approaching the eve of Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel hitting screens around the globe, the publisher has made the decision to take the writer of Batman and the premier artist from the first arc of Justice League - the two best performing books of the relaunch - and charge them with creating Superman Unchained, a new ongoing series. Can Scott Snyder’s rich vein of storytelling, encompassing a love for history of the 20th century and a fine grip on intimate dialogue, coupled with Jim Lee’s blockbuster pencil style, combine to bring Kal-El’s battle against evil and menacing threats to a wider audience?

On The Pull 12/06/2013

New comics are due to hit the shelves on Wednesday so here’s a look ahead at some of the books we’ll be picking up this week. To see what’s available at Paradox this week, click here.

Stewart R: So many shiny new things! Ooooh, look at those comics sparkle! Which ones to buy? What's that, all of them?? Oh, okay then...

Something has clearly gone crazy this week as the number of debuts and one-shots reaches giddy proportions alongside a reasonable pull-list of ongoing titles. The biggest issue #1 - in terms of buzz - clearly has to be Scott Snyder and Jim Lee's Superman Unchained #1 from DC which the publisher has neatly slotted into the delivery week when Man Of Steel hits cinema screens around the world. I've actually managed to miss much of the publicity surrounding this book and will therefore be trusting the talented and reliable Mr Snyder to deliver a Superman book that is heaped high with character, excitement and drama alongside the 'faster than a speeding bullet' action. I know the elevated price point - $4.99 for a debut would be quite the surprise in any other week when a blockbuster film wasn't launching - may irk a few, but I'll wait to count the pages before sniffing too much at that. Not least because Mr Snyder's other new work of the week for Vertigo comes in a few dollars higher than his DC effort. American Vampire: The Long Road to Hell #1 is a $6.99 one shot focusing on Travis Kidd, the cocky young vampire hunter who turned up in the ongoing series arc, 'Death Race', and who has quickly become a fan favourite. It's been a good few months since our last dose of AV and an oversized one-shot - it's weighing in at delightful 64 pages - will tide us over nicely until the ongoing American Vampire efforts of Messrs Snyder and Albuquerque return closer to the Autumn.

Mini Reviews 09/06/2013

We may not have time to review every book on our pull-lists but we do aim to provide a snapshot of what's been released over the past week, encompassing the good, the bad, and those that lie somewhere in between.

Also this week, Matt C's New Mutants Project continues.

AGE OF ULTRON #9

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis

Art: Brandon Peterson, Carlos Pacheco, Roger Bonet, Paul Mounts & Jose Villarrubia

Marvel $3.99

Matt C: Is this the moment where the narrative becomes unmoored and drifts into a sea of implausibility? There have been a few bumps along the way up to this point, but generally I've been far more impressed with this series than expected. Unfortunately Bendis seems to have written himself into a situation where no amount of momentum-slowing exposition can help him out. This is the penultimate issue but reads like it should have been at the end of the second act at the latest, and it's not made any better by the number of time-travelling paradoxes that present themselves only to be swiftly ignored. I guess it will all come down to how Bendis resolves things in the final instalment, but while I had been quite optimistic up until now, that’s not so much the case anymore. 6/10

Caught In The Web: Roundup 07/06/2013

In Caught In The Web, we set aside the printed funny books temporarily to delve into the world of digital and web comics. Here we 'roundup' a selection of releases that have been launched into cyberspace over the past few weeks.

MASKS AND MOBSTERS #7

Writer: Joshua Williamson

Art: Mike Henderson

Monkeybrain Comics $0.99

Matt C: Monkeybrain Comics are at the forefront of the digital comics market at the moment, offering a wide and varied selection of titles, and for me this is the one that really stands out from the pack. Rather than a singular narrative, Masks And Mobsters offers a series of interconnected stories centring around a city in the 1930s where costumed heroes are emerging for the first time and the local gangsters are realising how bad for business this is. This issue concerns a heated discussion between a mob boss and the hoodlum who set off an escalation of superhero activities by offing one of them in cold blood. But, even though that’s the meat of the story, it all takes place in the background, mostly in silhouette. The foreground focuses on a young couple having a picnic, an innocent, pleasant activity that isn't actually what it initially seems. The action in the foreground cleverly reflects and inverts the tone of dialogue in the background at various stages and it's a testament to both the script and the artwork that it all flows seamlessly. There's a hardcover due out soon from Image that collects the first few issues of this series, and if you've not 'gone digital' as yet, seek it out as it's absolutely worthy of the PCG seal of approval! 9/10

Cover To Cover: GREEN LANTERN #21

GREEN LANTERN #21

Writer: Robert Venditti

Art: Billy Tan, Richard Friend, Alex Sinclair & Tony Avina

DC $2.99

Stewart R: With the old Guardians now gone, the First Lantern defeated, Sinestro off the board for the time being and Geoff Johns looking elsewhere within DC’s catalogue for his next project, a new era begins for the Green Lantern Corps and Hal Jordan and with it a terrific opportunity for DC to do something new with one of its most promising and creatively diverse properties. Robert Venditti is in the writing duty hot seat and Billy Tan picks up his pencil to lead the artistic charge into this new day and the adventures beyond.

Unfortunately, on the basis of this opening chapter of Venditti’s run, he’s not too inclined to throw us into anything new or deliver any fresh ideas straight off the bat and this comes across like a practise run to convince the ongoing audience that he can handle many of the elements that Johns (and the likes of Peter Tomasi) crafted for us over the past decade. While the opening sequence suggests a perilous time somewhere up the road, what follows just seems to be leading us through the latest copy of ‘How To Write A Hal Jordan: Green Lantern Issue In 5 Easy Steps’ and it’s a little disappointing as a result.