Adam Graham's Blog: Christians and Superheroes, page 7

Book Review: Iron Man: Legacy of Doom

Iron Man: Legacy Of Doom by David Michelinie

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This is a sequel to two previous stories involving Doctor Doom and Camelot. The book opens with Doom calling Iron Man to Latveria on the pretext of needing his help, but only to sell him out to Mephisto as part of a plot to obtain something Morgan Le Fay.

The story is not bad, but it seethes it's unnecessaryness and disposableness. As a one-off, it doesn't effect future continuity and it doesn't tell some profound or can't miss story. It has some good scenes, some okay characterization, and art that's a bit better than the story deserves. Overall, it was fine, but nothing to write home about.



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Book Review: "Luke Cage: Second Chances Vol. 2

Luke Cage: Second Chances Vol. 2 by Marc McLaurin

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


This book collects Issues 13-20 of Cage as well as crossover issues with Terror Inc. and Silver Sable and the Wild Pack

The book starts off decently enough with the first two issues taking care of some loose ends from Cage's first book, bring across a big final confrontation and resolving some issues with his family.

Then we get into the six issue crossover including two issues of Terror, Inc. and Silver Sable. Terror is one of the more repulsive characters I've seen. The characters are awful, the storyline is uninteresting, the dialogue is terrible, and the artwork is awful. The best thing that can be said for the story is that the art on Luke Cage looked better than the art on the other two books.

The final four issues of Luke Cage features Cage overreacting to negative PR, then a three-part story featuring evil possession and requiring half the Fantastic Four including the Thing wearing a wrestling mask for...reasons to save the day.

Overall, this was disappointing book. It didn't exactly start strong. It did start okay and set up some good storylines for Cage, but we never got to tsee any of it as the book goes out with a whimper with an awful crossover and some meh final stories in Chicago.



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Book Review: Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge: The Twenty-Four Carat Moon

Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge: The Twenty-Four Carat Moon by Carl Barks

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book collects a large helping of Uncle Scrooge stories by Carl Barks. While not as good as some of his earlier works in terms of the writing, they still are quite enjoyable with a mix of full length stories, six-page shorts, and half-to-one page jokes, bolstered by superb art. This book features Scrooge's rematch with Flintheart Glomgold and the Twenty-Four Carat moon story is great. My favorite is, "The Magic Ink" which is just a delicious bit of comedy.

Included in the collection are some Gyro Gearloose-led stories which are decent, though not as good as the Uncle Scrooge tales. The book also features some well-done and insightful commentary on each story in the collection.

A very solid and engaing read.



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Book Review: Marvel Masterworks: The Uncanny X-Men, Vol. 2

Marvel Masterworks: The Uncanny X-Men, Vol. 2 by Chris Claremont

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book collects Issues 101-110 of the Uncanny X-Men following the big events of X-Men #100. In these ten issues, they face off against many villains including the team of Black Tom and the Juggernaut, as well as Magneto, and dealt with alien enemied and met Lillandra. The first issue also sees Jean Gray's transformation into Phoenix.

In many ways, as a 10-issue slice of action from the 1970s X-Men, it felt like a lot of issues were only setting the stage for greater battles ahead, so reading these ten in isolation is a bit of frustration.

On the other, some of the stories we get later, paticularly regarding Lillandra and the Starjammers are ideas that would be key to the 1990's X-men Animated and would essentially be adapted word for word. That series is acclaimed and it's probably time to recognize that one reason for its success is the plots and characters Claremont created here.

One thing that deserves praise is just how balanced the team book is in terms of how its handled. I think its fair to say Jean Grey, Wolverine, and Professor X get more focus than the other characters, but no one's forgotten. You do feel like you know the other characters and they do have their moments. One thing that's particularly impressive is that this volume manages to have all these characters without character-stuff turning the book into a soap opera. There's just enough to make the characters real and then we just get on with the story. This might be helped by the comics being about 18 pages in length and therefore, soap operas are hard to fit in with all the action.

Overall, not as good as the first, but still a strong volume.



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Book Review: Batgirl, Joker War

Batgirl (2016-), Vol. 8: The Joker War by Cecil Castellucci

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


This brings us to the end of Barbara Gordon's Batgirl series.

We start with an unengaging mystery and a Batwoman appearance, a tie-in to Joker War that calls back to the classic Killing Joke comic while being over the top, hammy, and ridiculous. Then a somewhat more interesting mystery about someone killing red heads and dressing them up as Batgirl, and then a big oversized Issue 50 where she's doing stuff and showing attitude to a lot of people. We get some back-up stories. One that's somewhat bleh, and another that's decent with the apparent message that girsl should play DnD.

And that's it. Fifty issues of Batgirl come to a close. There were multiple creative teams, some good story arcs, some bad story arcs, but never really a consistent direction. The book seems to have existed mainly because someone thought there should be a Barbara Gordon Batgirl comic, and there should be, but she deserves better than she got, particularly in this sputtering conclusion to her book.



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Book Review: Spider-Gwen, Vol. 4: Predators

Spider-Gwen, Vol. 4: Predators by Jason Latour

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


After having been in league with Matt Murdoch, the kingpin of crime of her universe, things finally come to a head for Gwen Stacy and she and her friend Harry Osborne find themselves hunted by all sides including SHIELD and the Hand.

After a lackluster second volume, and a dull and stagnant third volume, this book really does start to move along at a good pace again with a lot of twists and developments. The big problem is that essentially, we're brought the first four issues of the story arc and then things come into a hault, effectively to be continued in the next book.

The fifth isssue is a Gwen-less issue focusing on this universe's Mary Jane (and to a lesser extent the bad). It's a good character piece and we get an introduction to a different take on the watchers. It's a charming one-shot, but ill-placed as it interrupts a story.

Overall, this is the best Spider-Gwen in several volumes and i lef interested in what happens next.



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Book Review: Justice League of America's Vibe, Vol. 1: Breach"

Justice League of America's Vibe, Vol. 1: Breach by Geoff Johns

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I got this Volume because of my interest in the Flash TV series as it features Cisco Ramon as Vibe. This book collects the ten issue series as it follows young Cisco as he acquired latent powers in his incident that apparently killed his brother. After a few years, he's recruited for ARGUS for Amanda Waller's new Justice League of America and to keep the world safe from interdimensional beings which Cisco can detect.

This is a pretty decent story. It follows the standard superhero formula of characters like Jaime Reyes and Anya Corozon, decent teenagers who find themselves suddenly with amazing powers and having to cope as best they can to do the right thing while having a great sense of fun. I think there's also some intracicies to the plot and some things we don't typically see in these books.

This isn't to say the book was perfect. I particularly didn't like that the last issue was told through a flashback after an opening scene when it wasn't really necessary and would have been better told straightforward.Still, it's a fun teen hero book and I'd give it a 3.5 out of 5.



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Book Review: Joker War Saga

The Joker War Saga (Batman by James Tynion IV

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The Joker has taken over the Wayne Foundation and Gotham City as a whole and Batman is penniless, his allies traumatized and in a disarray.

The main Joker War mini-series is a bit of a mixed bag om in Batman. It finishes really strong with the 100th issue of its run with Batman. It just kind of meanders and limps it's way there, with Batman unconcscious and attempts to be supershocking which are part of the mythos of Batman comics, but are becoming increasingly hard to do without going Mature reader.

However, at the same time, Joker War and all the tie-in issues collected here, establishes a new order for Batman and opens up multiple opportunities for Batman and his supporting cast. Most of the tie-in stories are really quite good, though there are a few stinkers.

So, while I wasn't blown away much of Joker Wars, I did find myself at least cautiously optomistic about where it could lead.



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Book Review: Spider-Man: The Mutant Agenda

Spider-Man: The Mutant Agenda by Steven Grant

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The Mutant Agenda features the comic book version of the 1990s Spidey mini-series in which Peter Parkers is attending a lecture from the Brand Corporation on mutants. This ties into the work Hank McCoy did at Brand before his transformation to his more beastial form back in the 1970s. Hobgoblin also becomes involved.

It's simple story but it's got some decent ideas. The biggest fault with it is that there's really nothing special about it. It's a simple story that could have been run in any Spidey magazine for three issues, maybe as few as two. A mini-series should have something special about it and this doesn't. I also feel the art is a bit weak towards the end. The most interesting thing about it is that it was adapted into an episode of Spider-man: The Animated Series that crossed over with the X-men and that's by far, a better way to experience this story.

It also includes the comic strip adaptation. While I have a lot of affection for the comic strip, this story doesn't work well in that context as we get the same story as in the comics but it doesn't work as well and seems padded.

Finally, we get an issue of Marvel Team-up featuring Spider-man and Beast that's not bad at all, but not classic.

Overall, this is not bad Spider-man, but flawed. It's nothing upsetting or that annoying, but it's mediocre Spidey from an era where the character was over-exposed as a profit grab.



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Book Review: Essential Thor, Volume 5

Essential Thor, Vol. 5 by Gerry Conway

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book collects 25 months of Thor written by George Conway with art chores mostly by John Buscema. This itself is a bit interesting because of many of Marvel's 1970's Titles were constantly changing up creative teams, but this has a firm sense of continuity.

The stories mostly occur in Asgard, other mystical lands, and outer space. Even when he's on Earth, he's not really too much into traditional superhero fare. The closest he comes is the Absorbing Man who has some strong mystical powers at this point.

Also, unlike during most of the Stan Lee era, Thor is not alone. He's accompanied by an entourage including the Warriors Three, and at times Balder, and also Lady Sif, and later in the book he's joined by Odin once Odin gets over the issue that led him to (again) exile Thor over some disagreement.

If your like big epic mythic cosmic space opera, this collection is for you. It's goofy and out there, but a pretty fun run of Thor stories for the most part.



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