703. Apocalypse vs Dracula #1

[This is reviewed on 17th Jan 2018. To those who are wondering on why the oddness in dates, basically it depends on when I am free to do a review. However, I am still trying to ensure we keep every two times a week a review. Hence a huge backlog. I read this comic yesterday. So hence the post]

Well, the movies may have tried to jumpstart the monsters carnival with the Mummy and Tom Cruise but just a few years ago, Marvel did a decent job on the Lord of Vampires when he was featured in various X-titles and having even one of their own, Jubilee becoming a Vampire

And in this book, we take time backwards to see how he came across Apocalypse who was also in one of the X-Men movies and in the comics, his origin is pretty much the same. A mutant who has lived for centuries ... whose powers seemed to be transforming his body into energy and mechanical parts(?!?!?!!) and stretching like Reed Richards (??!?!?!), Apocalypse at this juncture, it was revealed goes through periods of hibernation where he rejuvenates his body. During this time, a pale man who looks more like a statue would guard his body and this man is starting to get disappointed with his master

So in the intervening years, how does his people survive? Well, apparently, as we find out here, Apocalypse had something called Clan Akkaba where those who believe in him and his credo of survival of the fittest are given a small tattoo somewhere and then they are genetically enhanced to demonstrate some, not all, of Apocalypse's abilities. Naturally where such things happen, they tend to bicker and fight be it for position or otherwise

Our tale picks up when the local constabulary discovered more bodies with puncture wounds with blood drained dry. And while the police may not know what is going on, our Akkaba people for sure does as they encountered folks like Helsing who tell them that the lord of vampires is going after Akkaba simply because when he Dracula came to be, he was humiliated and cast aside like a piece of nothing by none other than Apocalypse. Now that he is a power unto his own with his own people, well, he is coming to hunt down the man who had "hurt" him

This issue naturally ends with chaos as the master is reawakened with some saying he should be brought up to date while others preferring to let him sleep and handle it themselves. But besides moles in the police force, are there those who harbor anything against the master and even themselves?

There is enough going on within to keep you coming back for issue 2 that's for sure and the artwork is of sufficient detail to make it an easy and entertaining read

Ratings: 6/10

702. Omega Flight vol 1 #1

[This is reviewed on 18th January 2018]

During the great American Civil War part 1 of the Marvel Universe where Iron Man and Cap were fighting over their ideals (a bit different from the movies), a few heroes and many villains decided to travel up north into Canada so as to get out of the US of A jurisdiction  and this series sorts of deal with this particular problem

And the problem actually starts from one of the issues in New Avengers where a strange being came to Earth exhibiting all sorts of powers and whoever stands in his way is decimated. Naturally he lands in Canada first. Therefore Alpha Flight was killed off panel (yup that's right one minute we see them and the next they are dead) before this dude went south to US of A thus giving the Americans time to see how awesome he is and plan ahead to defeat him (sigh!)

So there isn't much of a team left although we are told that Sasquatch survived and there is Talisman who now replaces her dead father, Shaman as the Indian's medicine man named (get ready for this) Shaman - great choice of name, eh?

What can the poor Canadians do then?

They get Sasquatch to sign up first and hope that by using him as a front, they can recruit the remainder of the team. By the end of this issue, all we get is Shaman saying no to him and people are proposing Spider Woman and USAgent as otherwise he would have no team. Unfortunately, even though the scenes were great, the Wrecking Crew came to Canada destroying and killing and Sasquatch thinks that he alone is a match for them! Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! And here in his normal guise he is supposed to the smart one ... a scientist of sorts ... so in the world did he think he could take on all four of the crew together when they have given Hulk and Thor tough times??

Ah well ... this is in the era of decompressed story telling so you know they have to prolong the story to minimum of five to six issues in order to fill out a TPB ...

The artwork by Scott Kolins generally works although some pages are better than others but the last panel on the final page? You will have to stop and study it to find out what the heck is going on as the lines are everywhere and very hard to follow

Ratings: 4/10

2.336 (701) New Mutants vol 1 #41 ... #Mutants ... #Death ... #X-Men ...

[Posted on 28th Nov 2017]

This issue can be read as a standalone even though it is continuing from the previous long arc in the sense that at this juncture, after the Mutants were brought back to life by the Beyonder (who murdered them in the first place), they were all mentally shut off to the rest of the world and a desperate Magneto had decided to ship all the kids off to Emma Frost for her to help cure

As Mirage aka Danielle Moonstar is the only one who recovered first, she decided to go home to her folks' ranch for a break while deciding on what to do with her future since Xavier's is temporarily empty of students and can no longer function as a school while at that time of the mutants' storyline, they were enemies with Frost who is still the Hellfire Club's villainous White Queen

While home and meeting her folks (whose involvement from NM 18 to 20 of which we will not go into) for the first time since 20, she didn't explain that she is now part Valkyrie and has the death sight. As the Valkyrie is supposed to welcome dying to warriors to a better world, we have to wonder why Moonstar never realizes this but instead wants to fight Death

Anyway while home blizzard comes in and her parents are kept busy on their farm leaving Dani to go to town and hanging out and being a sexy teenager ... unfortunately she encountered some bullies ... and we were shown that the head honcho was her buddy and his family took her in when she needed it and potentially have a crush on her. Everything turned sour when Dani's power first came into prominence and she lashed out at him ...

Being young, she ran away instead of sorting things out and that has festered until now

The cover image is basically as the storm comes she hears an emergency broadcast of someone in trouble and she went there to find her old friend who was driving drunk. Death comes to claim him and she tries to fight for him. I am sure you all now how this tale ends, right?

Sad

But she did learn a lesson ... and while the writer intends for her to grow and return to the mutants to which we did agree but honestly wasn't she partly responsible for the death of the young man? That is the only shortcoming in this tale ...

Ratings: 7/10

700. Incredible Hulk vol 1 #301 ... #hulk ... #nexus ... #Puffball ...

[This is reviewed and posted on 9th Feb 2018]

Our 700th review and we decided to go with this issue. Why? Because it features the Hulk at his worst point in his journey at that time. And this is the one that is similar to subsequent storyline World War Hulk and Planet Hulk because at this time, the Hulk reverted to savagery due to machinations of Nightmare and as the heroes see no way out to help him save potentially killing him and even then they are unsure of what will really kill him, they or rather Strange decided to cast him to a dimensional crossroads where the Hulk can try many worlds and see if any one of them will be pleasing to him. The only saving point for Strange is that he ensures all the worlds that are nearby will be able to withstand the Hulk's savagery at this point

See? This is a better decision than the latter one where Hulk is still not completely savage but they decided to shoot him to one world for him to live. And the craziest part is Strange was involved in the latter storyline too as if he didn't remember his own actions here. Ah well ...

So aside from an incredible cover, here we see the Hulk surprised at his new place and not understanding what is happening. However, after raging for a while, with the only other presence is a stream of shiny puffball that seemed to have telepathic abilities and a hive consciousness ... the Hulk decided to venture into the portals. In this issue we see him try a few but each time coming back because ultimately he was unhappy. And Strange's spell included a trigger back option

One very cool world was when the Hulk became like Gulliver's where he appeared as a small toy of a giant child, a child who though large is also strong so the Hulk's strength in the end posed no danger and even then the Hulk realizes that living in this world will never bring his animalish mind contentment

So with that closure ... they leave us wondering what the next issue and other worlds will bring ...

Ratings: 7/10

699. Guardians of the Galaxy vol 1 #1 ... #marvel ... #gotg ... #guardians ... #stark ... #marvel ...

[This is reviewed and posted on 11th Feb 2018]

With the success of the first two movies, we decided to delve into the longest running of an ongoing GOTG where this span more than five years or slightly more than 62 issues. For those who only know them for the movies, brace yourself. There are a lot of changes

First up, the members are Martinex (leader and brain of the group) who has control over heat and cold and his body is like a prism (he appears as a guest in movie 2). Then there is Vance, the 1000 year old man from the normal Marvel Universe who took a journey into space only to wake up like Rumpelstiltskin and has to live inside his protective suit (his abilities are telekinesis and an annoying self-righteous attitude). After that there is the couple - Charlier 27, super strong and Nikkie, fire hair and agility

Yondu is probably the biggest shocker of them all as he is seen here as a holy man of an ancient religion not the pirate as in the movie. And finally to round out the initial team at this point there is Starhawk - who is a combination of a man and woman (Stakar and Alita of whom Stakar was featured in movie 2) who takes turns at the role

In this issue, a great jumping on point is that the action starts on page 1 where we see the team coming to a world and immediately assaulted. Naturally they banded together to defeat the machinations and try to assist the locals even as Taserface (another villain from movie 2) strike them with ferocity but as he was alone and they are a team they managed to defeat him.

Taser face as we found out is part of a race called the Stark, a race of jungle breed with nasty disposition who came across Stark Tech that was shot off into space during the great war when Stark didn't want his tech to fall into the hands of the invading alien forces only to reach the Stark. From then, they took the tech and learnt from it and armed themselves and now go about the Universe conquering others. And that's where the issue ended with the bigger group of Starks coming to fight GOTG

Another plus point here is the flashback sequences were done well giving us newcomers the complete update on how each of the members encounter each other, their journey through time to meet the Marvel 616 and Avengers, the fight with a cosmic scale entity Michael the Enemy until how this issue opened up - so a great landing on point for anyone who wished to try

And one side note, this is also the issue where Jim Valentino, at this point, showed he could actually be a decent penciller before developing his own too signature style (sigh)

Ratings: 8/10

698. Impulse #3 ... #dc .... #flash ...

[This is reviewed and posted on 10th Feb 2018]

There was a time, long, long ago when an artist named Humberto Ramos was just coming into his own and this, to us, was the series that catapulted him into "stardom" and for us, this is also his best work to-date! Here he gave us not only his own style where there is the Asian influence of anime/ manga where characters come with giant eyes and comical expressions but also designed his version signature call it what you want of big feet and big hair!

In this issue, together with writer Mark Waid, they continue the adventures of Bart Allen aka Impulse and Max Mercury as both try to learn how to live a normal life! For those not in the know, Bart was raised in a virtual reality environment in the future. Hence he was matured very quickly with almost no ability to relate to real reality. That is the challenge for Max trying to encourage him to connect with humanity while living in Suburbia and this is a very fun issue indeed!

First there are a lot of visual gags especially with the thought balloons in pictorial form for Bart

And then we see that his challenge for this issue is to go to school, a regular school and make friends to which Bart doesn't really seem to give a damn. However, inspite of his irrelevant attitude, it seems like his brain is working overtime and we see him handling all sorts of school cliques including bullies and jocks and actually understanding them, orchestrating them until he made them end up going after each other instead of him while he chills out and watches with relaxed ease!

It is kind of hard to explain as the story is really that simple. But the joy in this comic is in watching it like a good sitcom on tv on a sunny afternoon with the whole family. It does bring a smile to our faces when we see this though

Ratings: 7/10

697. West Coast Avengers vol 1 Annual 2 ... #Avengers .. #wca ... #grandmaster ... #collector ... #death ... #silversurfer ...

[This is reviewed and posted on 6th Feb 2018]

The tradition that started with the first Annual between Avengers and West Coast Avengers' books last year continues with Annual 2 where the scene is once more baseball/ softball between the two teams except before the game can proceed more than a wee bit, there is a CRASH and out springs Silver Surfer blasting something into the sky sending the Avenger on the diamond (field) collapsing. When they got to their feet, the Surfer explained the oddities that he encountered in space ... and that was when he realized that not all the Avengers were on the diamond. So he failed to protect those in the dug-out and they were ... dead!

What is this about?

Well, they took a journey into space to meet the Collector who quickly explained about the madness going on between the Grandmaster (another elder of the universe and we have seen in the movies) who is playing one of his crazy games and is supposedly dead while his brother Elder, the Collector is trying to free him

Naturally our Avengers (as this is part 1) is quick to jump to the fray and journey to the realm of the Dead to fight against their fellow Avengers and each party believe themselves to be in the right and fighting for the survival of the other ...

In order to ensure there is a part 2, SPOILER ALERT, both teams were actually duped into the nonsense that is the Elders and their games because at the end, it was revealed (though not entirely) that the plan was to drag Death into the conflict but to what dastardly end? Well, you have to buy the other annual to get the full answer.

Ratings: 5/10

2.331 (696) Power Pack vol 1 #23 ... #Marvel ... @Marvelcomics

[This review is made on 23rd Nov 2017

SPOILER ALERT ... NOT!

The Snarks are back!

Yes, the villains from the Pack's origin arc is back and it is only to be expected and the reason is logical. They are lizard like aliens who depend on technology and weaponry to wage war and conquer lands/ planets/ other races. Along the way they met the horse aliens called Kymaellians. The horse aliens are gifted with super power but all these while the Snarks thought the gifts are part of the Ky's DNA

When in the first origin tale the powers transferred from one Ky to 4 humans and each inherit a different ability, the Snarks wanted to know if it can be transferred to them safely. Hence their current journey to planet Earth and as the cover clearly tells all, they mean business

So one fine day, from out of the skies came the aliens and the Pack was caught unawares of their return. There is a mad scramble but if you have ever read comics, you just know that this is a tale that will not end well, not at this stage of the series as it is 23 just 1 issue shy of the usual anniversary and 25th special. Hence this is a build up issue and for such an issue, there is certainly a lot going on with scenes of charming domesticity to the ambush by the Snark and some of the Pack's capture

So this is a good jumping on point as well for what is to come

For those not aware, the Power Pack are 4 earth children named Alex/ Julie/ Jack/ Katie Power (yes their surname hahahaha) And they obtained their special powers from aliens. Later on in this series we see baby Franklin joining them when his powers were in "dream" stages ... Franklin of the Fantastic Four, that is! Alex has power over gravity, Julie can fly fast, Jack can shift his body mass and Katie can power up into glow baby and shoot bolts of energy

Ratings: 6/10