Adam Graham's Blog: Christians and Superheroes, page 9

Book Review: Spider-man: Miles Morales, Vol. 3

Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Vol. 3 by Brian Michael Bendis

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book collects seven issues of Miles Morales' Spider-man. The first half of the book features Miles' mother learning about his secret identity. I thought his mom's reaction to this was very realistic and had a nice human element to the story. This also leads into a teen hero facing off against Hammerhead and then Miles coming after him. Bendis put some thought into Hammerhead and the complexity of organized crime fighting heroes in the Marvel universe. All the other supporting characters are very well-written and characterized.

Then the book takes an odd swing with Miles going off to Japan in an effort to find himself. The story is interesting for what it does, sets up a big battle as well as a potential future for Miles that I'm not necessarily thrilled with. Still, this is a solid collection.



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Book Review: Batman: Detective Comics, Vol. 4: Cold Vengeance

Batman: Detective Comics, Vol. 4: Cold Vengeance by Peter J. Tomasi

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book collects eight issues of Detective Comics by Peter Tomasi:

This starts out with the titular story, "Cold Vengeance" which ties into Lex Luthor messing around with things and giving villains gifts. In this case, Mr. Freeze is given a chance to cure his wife Nora. This doesn't go quite as planned and there are a number of good turns along the way. This story was definitely entertaining.

Then we get the one shot story, "Orphan" guest written by Tom Taylor that deals with problem at an orphonage named for Bruce Wayne's mother. This one packs an emotional twist and Robin (Damian Wayne) is involved and gives another dimension to that relationship. It's simple and heartfelt.

Finally, we have the two-parter, "Dead of Winter" which involves someone strange pagan rituals around Christmastime. It's a good seasonal tale that while not great, is still a fun read.

Overall, this is another solid book in a good run for Detective comics.



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Book Review: Marvel Masterworks: The X-Men, Vol. 6

Marvel Masterworks: The X-Men, Vol. 6 by Roy Thomas

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This is a decent enough collection of X-Men comics, collecting the final 13 issues (#54-66) from the late 60s and early 70s prior to the X-Men becoming a reprint title until Giant X-Men #1.

The book features the Introduction of the Living Pharaoh and of Scott Summers' (Cyclops) brother Alex (aka Havok), the return of the Sentinels, a trip to the Savage Land, staving off an alien invasion, and meeting the Hulk.

The book is uneven. I enjoyed the Sentinel story and I thought there were some clever twitsts in the Savage Land story that made it interesting. The constraints of the book being divided between telling Angel's origin story in the Living Pharaoh issues does slow that down and it's not as interesting. The surprise return of a deceased character is clumsily handled and I don't know what was trying to be accomplished with the Hulk story.

The art helps with Neal Adams and Don Heck being among the artist featured. So overall, this book is okay, but not really great.



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Book Review: Superman, Vol. 3: The Truth Revealed

Superman, Vol. 3: The Truth Revealed by Brian Michael Bendis

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The Truth Revealed collects four Issues of Superman and two special issues.

The first issue has a reunion between Jon and Damian as the later considers an offer to join the Legion of Superheroes.

The rest of the book centers on Clark's decision to reveal his secret identity. The topic is one suited to Bendis' style as he loves to do stories with a lot of character conversations and talks from even the man on the street and this is a topic where that fits. So while the entire book is a bit pro forma in setting up the new status quo for Superman, it's still an engaging.

My only complaint is the presence of the infected Supergirl in the villains issue. That was rather pointless and a reminder of how DC so badly mishandled this character.

Other than that, it's a solid read.



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Book Review: Avengers: West Coast Avengers: Sins of the Past

Avengers: West Coast Avengers: Sins of the Past by Steve Englehart

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This collection of West Coast Avengers comics (the second volume of the ongoing series) actually works pretty well. While the Thing's disappearance from LA ast the start of the book is a bit abrupt, the story moves along with a lot of decent villain battles including Master Pandemonium and the return of Graviton. We also get a goofy West-East Avengers baseball game that's interruppted by the entire team being arrested for treason based on information provided by a traitor. In this case, it's not a big suprise to me who the traitor was.

Of course,, team books are made up of the personal stuff going on with the team. I actually thought Steve Engelhart handled this cleverly. While the books have a few issues like Hank Pym adjusting to being a non-hero support of the Avengers and Hawkeye's struggle to establish leadership, the big through line in all these issues is Tigra who's cat powers leave her vulnerable to suggestion and to falling for every man who shows any interest in her. It creates some real dilemmas that also also tie into the stories on several occassions.

Overall, this wasn't great but was still pretty good, with some decent humor, some good battles, and solid key personal arc that goes through all these issues.



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Book Review: Shazam and the Seven Magic Lands

Shazam and the Seven Magic Lands by Geoff Johns

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


In the Seven Magic Lands , Billy Batson and his foster siblings return to the Rock of Eternity where their whisked into the seven magic lands and find they've unleashed many dangers on the world that they have to protect the Earth from. Meanwhile, Billy has to deal with teh sudden re-emergence of his father.

This book is epic. Essentially, it collects an entire year...all of Geoff Johns run on the 2018 series and it tells one unified story. It includes visits to Magic Lands, introduces Tawny Tiger, as well as featuring Shazam's biggest bads, while sprinkling in a lot of family drama.

It manages to have fun, provide wacky situations, and have enough action and heart to keep the book engaging. It's rare that I get this entertained by a modern ongoing series, but this oen rings the bell. I heartily reccomend.



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Book Review: Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III

Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III by James Tynion IV

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


For James Tynion's Third outing of Batman and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, we arrive in a strange world where Bruce Wayne has been raised by Splinter along with the Turtles and they fight the Smile Clan which includes Harley Quinn and is led by a ninja version of the Turtles.

Krang is behind this and the Turtles and Batman have to figure out what's going on and how to stop it.

This is the third time that Tynion's returned to this pairing and the result is still pleasing. The plot plays into basic DC Multiverse Crisis stories while also having a bit of a nod to the decades long history of the Ninja Turtles.

These books don't tend to deliver mindblowing plots, but they suceed by making characters from these two different universes connect and delivering fan-pleasing moments and making them work nicely in a narrative rather than just being pointless fan service. This book does that and if you have any affinity for these franchises and want a fun read, this is another winner that's well worth your time.



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Book Review: Champions, Volume 1: Change the World

Champions, Volume 1: Change the World by Mark Waid

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


In the aftermath of Civil War II, Ms. Marvel, Spider-man (Miles Morales), Nova, etc. are disillusioned by the Avengers and adult heroes, so decided to establish their own team.

Coming in, I wasn't sure how I'd feel about this book. It could be a very super preachy and self-righteous screed that it takes itself way too seriously? My answer is no. In many ways, this reminded me of the First Season of the Supergirl TV series. While there were political undertones to that series, it was still fun to watch because they found ways to make the lead character likable and someone you'd actually care about.

The Champions does that. Waid does a nice job establishing this team and give them motivation to join the Champions. Who in comicdom isn't disappointed in the adult heroes. That's a good motivator right there. The stories also are fun and have them deal with real world problems, sometimes controversially. And still managing to balance that with fun.

The weirdest thing in this book is that apparently Cyclops had turned evil but a kid version was here in the present and joined the Champions. They also did that with Jean Grey. That's striking me as exceedingly lazy, but I don't know whether bringing him back was a Waid decision or not. He does seem to be a bit of a contrivance at this point.

While I don't know if it will continue to work, this volume does shine through and while I don't agree with all of Mark Waid's politics, he's a darn good writer and that helps him turn this into something that's actually interesting.





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Book Review: Marvel Superheroes Contest of Champions

Marvel Super Hero Contest of Champions by Mark Gruenwald

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Contest of Champions has a lot of interesting backstory. In fact, I found myself a bit more interested to read Tom DeFalco's explanation of how the story came to be than the story itself.

Contest of Champions is really the first big superhero crossover event bringing together a massive number of Marvel's heroes.

Yet, the book is weird. Despite bringing so many heroes together, the two cosmic beings battling it out only choose twenty-four, so the rest of the characters are only there as spectators.

And the way the Challenge works, it's heroes battling heroes but there's no reason to cheer for one side, and everyone (except Wolverine who tries to kill Black Panther) takes this as a bit of a game. This feels very much like the Spring Training of Superhero events. It all ends up in a bit of an embarassing mix up because Marvel lost track of who was on what teams in what events, and given that there were only four events, this is a big error. Also, their attempts to feature international heroes leads to some awkward moments.

That said, this is not a bad book. It's fun to see these characters together and there are some fight scenes that are fun to reading and some interesting ways powers are used. I also did love the Thing telling Wolverine to not murder T'Challa.

Overall, this is okay, it's short, and if you want to read what can rightly be labeled as the first comic event, this is worth checking out for that reason alone.



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Book Review: Supergirl, Vol. 3: Infectious

Supergirl Vol. 3: Infectious by Jody Houser

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


This one is...all over the place. This one goes very hurriedly into some dark stuff happening in Supergirl's world to her being infected by the Batman Who Laughs and going on a bit of a edgy rampage in stories like, "I'm the Bad Guy."

It's really not fun reading and it's a hot mess with most of it "character insights" coming off as a bit weak and nonsensical. Given that they had their choice of who would become "infected," it seems that someone didn't really have a plan of what was going to happen with Kara in this book.

The reason it's not 1-star is because of Krypto. He's seriously given some good characterization. It's all very subtle, but we manage to get his reaction and involvement to Kara's change in a way that's believable for a dog and actually made me care about what was going on. It's a shame that such great characterization for Krypto would be in such an otherwise dreadful book. It shouldn't happen to a dog.



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