Adam Graham's Blog: Christians and Superheroes, page 31

Book Review: Spider-Man: Hobgoblin Lives

Spider-Man: Hobgoblin Lives by Roger Stern

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This books collects the Hobgoblin Lives mini-series written by Roger Stern and Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-man #259-261 with plot by Roger Stern and written by Gleen Greenberg .

In the mini-series, Peter Parker's long-time friend Ned Leeds was revealed to be the Hobgoblin, but is he really? Spidey teams up with Mary Jane, Flash Thompson, and Betty Leads to find out the truth. This is a fine mystery plot by Stern that gives us a lot of suspects and a good reveal.

The Spectacular Spider-man story is set with Norman Osborne back from the dead and a partner in the Daily Bugle. However, the imprisoned Hobgoblin claims that some of his journals have survived in containing truths about the Green Goblin. This story brings together Norman Osborn, the Hobgoblin, and the Green Goblin and is pretty fun, although not as good as the mini-series.



View all my reviews

Book Review: Luke Cage, Hero For Hire Marvel Masterworks Vol. 1

Luke Cage, Hero For Hire Marvel Masterworks Vol. 1 (Luke Cage, Hero For Hire by Archie Goodwin

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This volume collects the first sixteen issues of Luke Cage, Heroes for Hire.

The book starts out with a solid origin story written by Archie Goodwin for Luke Cage befitting of the blacksploitation wave Marvel was playing into. Lucas is a man imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit, chosen for prison experiment which goes wrong thanks to a sadistic guard and gives Lucas skin that' not hurt by bullets. He then escapes prison, takes the name of Luke Cage and becomes a hero for hire.

From Issue 3-13, the book is fun (Steve Engelhart took over for Goodwin with Issue 5), although a bit sillier than you'd expect a Marvel comic at the dawn of the Bronze age to be. Cage battles Gabriel Mace, a man whose hand is a mace. He sleuths out a couple mysteries in Scooby Doo style. He's hired by Doctor Doom to fight robots who are disguised as Black men, and faces a Christmas plot to wipe out the human race.

During these issues, the action is good, even though the attempts to give Luke Cage a supervillain rogue's gallery mostly fizzle. Black Mariah is the classic. Engelhart decided to take the typical nickname for a paddy wagon and give it to a large Black supervillain whose entire gig is running out phony ambulances to take dead bodies and roll them.

Luke Cage has a great style of dialogue fitting the times. However, his catchphrase, "Sweet Christmas!" isn't uttered in this book as it wouldn't be used until Issue 27 although we get a few, "Sweet Sister!" and "Christmas!" exclamations

The book takes a turn for the awesome with the three issue story, "Retribution" which also featured a shift from Engelhart to Tony Isabella with artist Billy Graham helping plot it. Several plot threads from previous issues are brought together as sadistic guard responsible for Cage's powers has retired to the city, two prison buddies of Cage break out to hunt down the guard, a gossip columnist has gained a journal from the Doctor Who was experimentin on Cage and wants to blackmail, and the woman he loves finds herself a murder supect. It's a high flying conclusion and easily the best issues of the book.



View all my reviews

Book Review: Superman Vol. 5: Hopes and Fears

Superman Vol. 5: Hopes and Fears by Peter J. Tomasi

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Issue 27-32 features three two-part Superman stories that examine the Man of Steel.

Issues 27 and 28 find Lois, Clark, and Jon on a patriotic road trip across America. This is heartfelt and really patriotic with some beautiful and moving art. It can also seem a bit talky and preachy, but I think it does a good job of showing how Lois and Clark would raise Jon and the values they taught them. Plus, we could use a bit non-partisan patriotism feels, so I like this one.

Issues 29 and 30 is by a guest creative team and finds Superman looking for lost children who are being taken by an incredibly scary looking alien creature. This one is...fine. It turns out to involve a villain most commonly associated with another character. The plot is less interesting than the simple character insights into Superman.

Issues 31 and 32 is by yet another guest team and finds Lois getting into danger while doing her job and settling for an interview with Deathstroke killed the person she was sent to interview. Then Deathstroke is hired to go after her. This one is good for the character insights and has an interesting idea about what even those morally gray characters want of Superman.

Overall, all the stories in this book are good enough. None are great, but they're all enjoyable. What works is that they do show an understanding of Superman's character and so often, writers just don't get Superman and I think every writer on this book did. So, that's enough for me. Well done.



View all my reviews

Book Review: Atomic Robo: The Hell and Lightning Collection

Atomic Robo: The Hell and Lightning Collection by Brian Clevinger

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Everyone's favorite robot tech. tycoon and adventurer extraordinaire is back in three Atomic Robo stories in this collection. My thoughts on each of the three stories:


The Flying She-Devils of the Pacific: While flying an experimental plane in the early 1950s Atomic Robo encounters women who've continued to live and fight in the Pacific and live on their own island. They'll need to team up to fight a die-hard mad scientist determined to restore the glory of Japan. This story is fine. It works on its awesome high concept ideas, but it's probably the least funny of any Robo story and the characters outside of Robo are very generic. The "Strong Independent Woman" archetype has rarely been used so often. Still, the coolness of the plots makes it a decent read even if it's the weakest in the volume.

The Savage Sword of Dr. Dinosaur: Doctor Dinosaur is back and he has a plan to use his army of rockmen and atom bombs to restore dinosaurs to ruling the Earth. To be honest, I was nervous about this one because Dr. Dinosaur is a great villain, but it could be really hard for him to carry a whole story. No worries. He doesn't have to. We have a seperate plot of a government siege of Tesladyne while Robo's away. While this is more often than not, just an "okay" B-plot, it does avoid Doctor Dinosaur overload. This story has some great humor with Doctor Dinosaur stealing every scene he's and superb action.

The Knights of the Golden Circle: Picking up where the last book ended (believe it or not), this story finds Robo in the Old West as he fights an outlaw badman whose actually working for a nobleman bent on world domination. To stop them, Robo teams up with Doc Holiday and the awesome Bass Reeves (who is not enough fiction.) There's some great Steampunk elements in this, but more than anything I appreciated how Clevinger managed to capture the spirit of the Old Westerns in Robo who is facing the end of his life. A very fun read.

The book also includes the three Free Comic Book day offerings for 2013-2015. The 2013 is pretty good and has a nice twist that does set the stage for later events. 2014's is okay. 2015 features Doctor Dinosaur and while not as good as the previous Doctor Dinosaur FCBD offering, this is still pretty fun.

Overall, a solid enjoyable collection of Atomic Robo stories.




View all my reviews

Book Review: Silk, Vol. 2: The Negative

Silk, Vol. 2: The Negative by Robbie Thompson

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


The Negative struggles a lot as Silk doesn't come across as particularly likable. There's a fine line between a hard luck hero/heroine and one that's whiny and navel gazing. Unfortunatley, Silk falls into that patterns. While she understandably and realistically has issues after what's happened to her, Thompson doesn't do a good job helping us to see as strong or admire her. See Sam Humphries characterization of Jessica Cruz in Green Lanterns to see how this is done right.

In addition, there are some plot twists that are weird and out of nowhere for the type of book this has been. Overall, can't say I'd recommend this one.



View all my reviews

Book Review: The Seven Soldiers of Victory Archives, Vol. 2

The Seven Soldiers of Victory Archives, Vol. 2 by Mort Weisinger

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book collects Issues 5-8 of Leading Comics, featuring the Golden Age mostly non-superpowered Seven Soldiers of Victory with Green Arrow and Speedy, Crimson Avenger and Wing, Star Spangled Kid and Stripesy, Vigilante, and Shining Knight. Like the JSA, they came together to fight whatever problem of the quarter had come up.

Issue 5: A wealthy man known as the Skull rescues convicted murderers from prison and asks in return that they track down gifts that money can't buy. The team splits up and fights the murderers, many of whom die in ironic ways. The story is about average for a typical JSA/Seven Soldiers crossover of the era. Grade: B-

Issue 6: "The Treasure that Time Forgot." This is a bit different as the Seven Soldiers go after some lost treasure to get it to the government. However, this is really different from any big team up like this I've read as bad guys try to turn them against each other through impersonation, we have misunderstandings, hero battles and hero team-ups. Usually these stories read like five adventures with a framing device. This reads as one whole story and does a lot with its concept. Really fun. Grade: A

Issue 7: "The Wizards of Wisstark:" The Seven Soldiers are whisked off to a fantasy land where the rightful wizards are being overwhelmed by false wizards. Once again, you have a more continuous story and a break from the traditional format with heroes working together. Grade: A-

Issue 8: "Exiles in Time": A tiny mob boss known as the dummy disperses the Seven Soldiers throughout time to rid himself of them and they have to get back. This is a more traditional format. Still, it's a lot of fun as we see our heroes in different historic eras. One of my favorite parts is the team up between Green Arrow and Speedy and the Three Musketeers. Overall, a lot of fun. Grade: B+

Overall, while the first story is kind of bog standard, none of the stories of the bad and the middle two present a more interesting approach to storytelling than most team up books of the era. Well worth reading



View all my reviews

Book Review: dventures of Superboy Vol. 1

Adventures of Superboy Vol. 1 by Don Cameron

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book collects Superboy's earliest comic appearances from 1945-47 in 8-11 page stories in More Fun Comics 101-107 and then Adventure Comics 103-121.

The comics are fun stories, most of which are less about crimefighting and more about Superboy's efforts to help others, in particular kids. Superboy is very much a selfless role model In one story, he ensures no one will show up for Clark Kent's birthday by ensuring a big party is thrown for a girl at school whose dad's been subject to nasty rumor. In another story, Superboy helps a blind boy avoid being chiseled by a couple crooked toymakers.

The stories also teach morals, one teaches kids about the pitfalls of games of chance, another features a man who denies the wisdom of old proverbs and pays the price for it.

There are some things you can complain about. The book often messes with continuity. It has Superboy being raised in Metropolis. In one story, it's acknowledged to be set in the post-World War II even though Superboy should be about 20 years in the past, and the one story where Superboy helps out a know it all kid is a bit too silly even for this book.

Still, I think it works. It's not meant to be earth-shaking stuff. It was a comic to capture kid's imaginations, have fun, and teach some good morals. Superboy does that in these early stories and only regret that DC hasn't published more of them.



View all my reviews

Book Review: Secret Wars (2015)

Secret Wars by Jonathan Hickman

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The book can be summed up simply: great art, underwhelming story. The plot is supposed to be about the birth of a new Marvel Universe and features the declared end of both the Marvel and Ultimate universes. What we get at the end is weak, and more cosmetic changes to fill company goals rather than Crisis on Infinite Earths style reboot.

More importantly, the story we're given has some cool concepts but is often lifeless and illogical. It wasn't unpleasant or a chore to read, but at the end of the day, it was disappointing.







View all my reviews

Book Review: The Incredibles: City of Incredibles

The Incredibles: City of Incredibles by Mark Waid

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


City of the Incredibles collects the first of the Incredibles story arc in their ongoing series. In light of Incredibles 2, all the comics have to be considered non-canon but that doesn't make them unenjoyable.

In Issue 0 we get to see a pre-movie Parr family awaiting the birth of Jack-Jack and heading to a Doctor who specializes in helping supers only to find bad guys in need of foiling, so Helen can get in and have the baby. In Issues 1-3, we meet some of the world's supervillains who are staging a comeback and hope to take advantage of Jack-Jack getting a virus that transmits superpowers.

Overall, this is a fun book. It feels very Silver Age with its villains and plot. It's not very deep at all, and it's more geared towards kids than the all ages feel of the movie. Still, for a fun read of non-canonical adventures with the Parrs, this is worth a read.





View all my reviews

Book Review: Silver Surfer: Requiem

Silver Surfer: Requiem by J. Michael Straczynski

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


In this What If Story, the Silver Surfer learns he's dying and sets about to say goodbye to his friends, the world he adopted, and then journey home across the stars.

This story is a great graphic novel, showing the heights the genre can hit when JMS' poetic text and Esad Ribic's astoundingly beautiful art. The book follows the Silver Surfer as he meets the Fantastic Four and then Spider-man before a surprise appearance by an old friend prior to the long journey through space.

It's a thought provoking book that is sad , but is also as a celebration of an often under-appreciated character and all he represents. Grab a box of tissues and prepare to experience one of the best graphic novels I've ever read.



View all my reviews