773. Youngblood vol 1 #5 ...

[This is reviewed on 3rd Jan 2018]

So after 4, we see that something had happened to Badrock and he had for some unknown reason been switched over to the side of Darkthornn. What is really sad about this issue and generally the first run of Youngblood is not the heroes but the villains. While they may look cool, they do not really have much in the sense of danger and a plan. Like Darkthornn. He is coming back to capture Prophet to ensure that Prophet does not pose too much of a threat to his plans to conquer the world. If this was like 50 years ago, it would have been fine but when this came out in the 90s, it was kinda average. In addition, inspite of looking cool, and supposedly powerful, it came down to fists pounding each other. Even his robotic army was just like cannon fodder. Emerging from the crash tunnels to be easily shot down ... for a guy from the future and alternate dimension or some such stuff, he is certainly not bright

And for Youngblood to take him down with nothing more than fists and guns and arrows (let's not forget  Shaft) ... like we said the villains are a true letdown

Still what this book got going for it are some awesome artwork and we kid you not. Let people say whatever they want about Rob but when he is in the zone, his work is just plain awesome. I mean, look at that cover. Badrock is perfect right there!

And within, the team basically split to combat the threat of 'rock and Darkthorn vanquishing the villain but unfortunately not able to stop him. So he vanished into one of his crash tunnels to terrorize them once more. The Berzerkers left as well but with Kirby choosing to remain behind because for some reason, he had a feeling like he should be there with Prophet to guide or share his misadventures or whatever

We really enjoyed re-reading this book on the digital format reminding us of our youth and enjoyed many panels of the art!

Ratings: 7/10

772. Youngblood vol 1 #4 ...

[This is reviewed on 2nd Jan 2018]

This is the issue that started it all for us from way back when ... the first Youngblood issue we remembered reading off of a mate and subsequently went all out to find. And as for why? Just look at the cover. Great colouring, great grim n gritty pose, and that pose just exudes so much attitude. I mean we are at the age where slasher movies and horror movies are entertaining even the B grade stuff. So obviously this book hits the mark and generally speaking, the interior artwork especially the production values matched the covers. Sure there are a few splotchy pieces where Liefeld looks a wee bit rush but on the whole, this is one entertaining book

The only downside? It is not the final battle SPOILER ALERT

Basically we see the Youngblood team now together with Prophet and Kirby and Bezerkers kicking all kinds of ass from Darkthornn and his Disciples. And that's what this entire book is all about. That's it. Darkthornn is some sort of strong overlord from another dimension who came to our world to eliminate Prophet. He could potentially be from the future trying to ensure a scene like the Terminator movies while Prophet is supposedly a genetically enhanced human being designed to combat the threat of the Disciples but he is only one man and no matter how good he is, he has his limits. Thank goodness for Youngblood then eh?

The only disappointment is that the book ends here and will continue in another comicbook as a flip book in terms of this particular storyline's ending and then ... the book will return a few months later as an ongoing. Now during the original run, this was delightful news but for those reading it here and now there is no renumbering. So you can read until 4 here and then pick up 5 as it is labelled in the other comicbook before continuing with 6

Got it?

Good

Ratings: 7/10

771. Warlock 1972 #9 ... #Avengers ...

This is for us the start of the Thanos saga even though yes he made some earlier appearances elsewhere. Why do we say this? Because this is when he went cosmic with figures like Warlock and his other identities like Magus. And then there's Pip and Gamorra too!

And the artwork is by Starlin whose works even in these early days were chock full of lively energy and detailed facial expression ... though there are some splotchy stuff along the way but generally just plain awesome!

In this issue, we see Warlock finally encountering the Magus, the head of the Universal Church who is actually the evil side of him from the future and unfortunately whatever Warlock has planned in mind has already been anticipated by the Magus simply because the Magus has went through exactly the same thing in addition to having a scrying pool of sorts to view and monitor things. And the Magus calmly tells Warlock that everything has been orchestrated by himself to ensure that the past proceeds according to plan so that the Magus will come to be

So this is an issue of desperation

And the Magus is summoning the In-Betweener to absorb Warlock into his realm. This is to free Warlock's complete psyche to crash him until he emerged after centuries as the Magus

And on Warlock's side, there is the annoying Pip the Troll who serves no purpose whatsoever in this issue except be an ugly wallflower and his one attempt of rushing the Magus was easily brushed aside. Unfortunately for Gamorra even though she has plans and support from Thanos as the new element in Magus' games, it still wasn't enough because the Magus obviously detected her and waited for her to make her move and similar to Pip, swatted her aside. Pathetic, woman!

So how did the team ended this issue of about 19 pages? By letting Thanos finally enter the fray directly and leaving us readers hanging to wait for the next issue!

Ratings: 7/10

770. Black Panther vol 1 #14

Next year's Big Marvel movie is the Black Panther and to keep abreast of things, we go back to the first ongoing run of BP albeit a short one. But first, please do note that after his initial introductions in other comics, the Panther was finally launched and launched very strongly by Kirby who gave the Panther's adventure a real sense of adventure and sci-fi

However, that run lasted less than a year

By the time this issue came out, Kirby had moved on and sad to say, it seems like the energy he infused has as well because inspite of the cover, we see from the interiors a kinda average going nowhere story of the Panther still in USA being greeted by his fellow Avengers and what-not while in the Bronx somewhere, a chap who hates violence but is an electronics genius is being forced by a gang called Thunderbolts (yes the same name but this was before the famed super group) to jumpstart a weapon they found

So just as the guy got it going inspite of his objections, in came Panther and naturally the hoods activated the machine. However, within a few pages we see the sound had matured of its own and it is obvious that the user is somehow being controlled by Klaw, a baddie of the Panther who used his hand claw to generate sound of different intensity and who ended up being a person composed of solidified sound whatever that means

Here the image takes on an elephant and as the fight ensues, the elephant keeps mutating to keep up with the Panther until it surpasses that of the Panther. Everything would have been curtains if not for the timely intervention of Captain America (alone) who decided to go with his own gut instincts and tracked Panther down instead of leaving Panther to hunt his prey in solitary style.

And that's it - time for next issue to see the next part of the right. See? It's a long-ish kind of read but really not that exciting, sad to say

Ratings: 3/10

769. Stormwatch vol 1 #0 ... #ImageComics ... #JimLee ...

[This is reviewed on 16th Dec 2017]

There was a time when specials like zero issues had significance. Then came the 90s and from then on everyone and their sister's company will have 0 and 00 and -1 and 1/2 and whatever else you can think of

In the case of Stormwatch, back when there was a Wildstorm studios before Mr Lee sold it to DC and for some weird reason most of his characters never survived (sort of made you wonder why DC bother to buy the studio, eh?), Stormwatch was the next big group from his studio after his own WildCATS

In Stormwatch, they are an enforcement agency reporting to the United Nations. Hence the team is definitely more international in terms of racial identity and villains. Their so-called history is something called the seedling program where young men and women of potential were brought onto the program for the training and subsequently activation ie to make their innate abilities pop up, so to speak and here in this zero issue we get an origins of sorts but the writer tries too hard, mixes way too much to make this an enjoyable read

Anyway, basically we open with Sentinel duking it out with Fuji while others are breaking away from their prison and slaughtering those who rescue them as well. We learnt then that Sentinel was merely training Fuji and the real Stormwatch team at that time consists of others. So when trouble hits the fan, Sentinel goes off to catch the bad guys only to discover that this bad guy is involved in one of his earliest missions and cue flashback

So that's the vehicle they used to show us how Stormwatch formed and thanks to Sentinel's musing, we learnt of an event that destroyed a lot of good men and women while transforming others like his dad into powerful psychopaths that are hellbent on death and destruction and general stupidity

But the villain of this issue is just a regular chap with gun going to kill those he deemed responsible for his brother's death. Kinda ho-hum when you think of all the high-end super powered people arrayed against him and the UN's space station and what-not and he didn't even do that well except for the fact that the station had shitty surveillance systems

Sigh!

Ratings: 3/10

768. Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #7 ... #mutants ...

[This is posted on 16th Dec 2017]

When you read the original X-Men's run, while the characters are interesting, you just know, if published today, it wouldn't survive and be the success that it is now. Heck even back then it failed after a years becoming reprints for a while before relaunching with the new X-Men that survived until today

Why do we say that?

Well, mainly because of the villains. The premise is good enough. You have bald headed Prof X assembling a group of teens who have shown mutated abilities to train and use them against villains. However, the challenge is that the villains are always Magneto and his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Even when they feature others like earlier Namor or later Unus, it is always Magneto trying to recruit them to go against the X-Men almost to the point of boredom because back then most tales are told as one-shot and if within less than a year, the same villains keep coming back only to have their butts kicked, then where is the fun in the tale any more, right?

So in this the seventh issue, we not only see Magneto and the Brotherhood but the return of the Blob. See what we mean by limited variety of villains?

Anyway, after their first encounter, Prof X wiped the Blob and his carnival buddies' memories of the X-Men (yes Prof X was nasty then) ... however, thanks to Magneto trying to recruit the Blob, a freak physical slam made his memories come back and thus he temporarily agrees to be Magneto's allies to track down and face the X-Men as what the cover clearly indicates

What is of more importance is the fact that this issue sees Cyclops taking the leadership role as Prof X takes a sabbatical! And so we see Scott struggling to balance his sense of obligation, his duties and his growing love for Jean

Other than that, it is a ho-hum kind of issue for us

Ratings: 4/10

767. Avengers vol 1 #266 ... #Avengers ... #Marvel ... #Surfer

Well, well, well now that the Avengers trailer for Infinity War has dropped, we will be doing a fair bit more review of Marvel titles that have movies coming up ... why? Because we are that kind of people so suck it eh? Hahahahaha!

This issue is awesome because it doesn't focus on slambang action but rather the cleaning up after the end of Secret Wars 2 ... where we see the Molecule Man apparently hurt after he managed to hurl the Beyonder's awesome "death knell" energies into a wormhole and thereby to recreate the Big Bang effect that originally made our world

However, immediately after, many parts of our world down to the core are damaged and causing devastation. So we see the various Avengers scrambling around trying to help with even the Surfer coming onboard to assist since he has the power cosmic that can help alter stuff and what-not

But what is really cool about this issue for us is the ending when after everything has taken on a bit of sanity and Owen Reese aka the Molecule Man goes home to suburbia with his love ... only to reveal that actually he wasn't that injured to the point that he is powerless and that the Surfer knew but kept his lips sealed! Because all Owen wanted was a quiet family life with his love ... awwwwww ... how sweet right?

Ratings: 7/10

766. Bone #2 ... #Bone ... #Comics ...

Well, well, well after an excellent and very entertaining opening, we started this issue a few days/ weeks ahead as we see Fone Bone now settling into the life of living in the valley - village outskirts style kind of a hardy woodsman type

We open the tale with a scene of how the snow is still thick on the ground and Bone is out sourcing for his necessities when we see a Possum mom and kids coming by where the mom seems happily ignorant of anything beyond her daily life and routines. The kids are adorable. Active and fun and Bone ended up babysitting them

Hilarity ensues as he tries to figure out how to control them. The good thing is at this stage, even though we see the rat creatures and the dragon, the tale is generally lighthearted ...

And we get to see the kids being kids running out from Bone's wooden home ... encountering as usual the rat creatures ... from issue one who are as stupid as ever ... and we literally laughed at the scene where Bone ran and fell hopping onto a tiny branch thinking he would be safe because the branch is too tiny to support the weight of single rat creature and thus he was not expecting the rats to join him ... only to his utter shock both rats leapt onto the branch and ... SNAP ... hence the famous line of stupid, stupid rat creatures

Ending is a nice surprise when Bone finally met the person he was seeking ... Rose ... and the beautiful clean line work immediately changes in tone both obvious like heart shaped symbols and soft like the entire background changes .... so so so good!

Ratings: 8/10