Vengeance of the Moon Knight #1 Review

Writer: Greg Hurwitz
Artist: Jerome Opeña
Publisher: Marvel Comics

Would you like to read a comic where the Hero crash lands in the middle of New York in a strange completely enclosed, flying Machine? Where the Hero bursts out on a souped up and armoured Motorcycle, capturing the bad guys with non lethal gun weaponry?

How about a comic where the hero propels himself from a Ladder extending from a aircraft, using his momentum to knock the bad guys cornering 4x4 onto it's side and surfing on the 4x4's side down a main city street?

How about a comic where a the Hero gets rid of the miniature manifestation of his literal "inner demon" by flicking him out of his taxi?

How about a comic which has one of the most complimentary Writer / Artist teams in recent memory. One where the writers script leaves the artist space to make some incredibly draw dropping panels, while creating an incredible re-introduction to the Hero?

You really should see what Gregg Hurwitz and Jerome Opeña have done with the Vengeance of Moon Knight #1 you know.

Read more

Vampirella: The Second Coming #1 Review

Writer: Phil Hester
Artist: Daniel Sampere
Publisher: Harris Comics

Firstly, I have to admit I know nothing of Vampirella's history or longevity in the comic world. I may well have intentionally avoided it for the overtly sexual costume and covers, having failed to notice the list of top writers who have written the character.

Well the $1.99 on the cover was enough for me to sit up and take notice this time. Harris comics (like Aspen with their $2.50 title Dellec) are trying to counter the consistent price rises to $3.99 at other companies by putting affordable comics on the shelves, and its something people who want to pay less should take notice of.

In The Second Coming, Vampirella is "a myth, a cartoon character, some sort of viral image". In Fact, the marketing has made Vampirella a brand as popular as "Hello Kitty". Well this is the Vampirella that Kelly Robinson-Witten knows. A viral e-mail awakens a seeming memory in her, and suddenly she starts noticing a blood red V tag all around her city. This draws her from her job at Trinidad Women's Resource Action Center to a mysterious encounter at the local library.

Meanwhile Kelly's Husband, workaholic Frank Witten, meets his new project manager over dinner at the underground transit system. The location is as good as any for a gateway to hell, and the dinner laced to turn Frank into a pawn for he who resides below.

Vampirella was a decent little introduction for me, I wasn't overloaded with information about the Vampirella that came before, there was a nice little hook of familial conflict being enhanced to quite a degree and there was nothing more overtly sexual than you'll see in some of Marvels T+ books.

The artwork by Sampere impressed, in fact it's clarity, linework and shading reminded me a lot of Mahmud Asrar's Dynamo 5 work, and he certainly looks like a name to be watched in the industry.

I wasn't expecting anything from Vampirella, I got an interesting title that looks like it will pique my interest without hitting my pocket. Bonus.

Read more

Magog #1 Review

Writer: Keith Giffen
Artist: Howard Porter
Publisher: DC Comics

He's a marine who was critically injured, repaired by a pseudo-god and enhanced in the process. He became a member of the Justice Society, but not a popular one. Thing is he's military trained, not 'Hero must not kill' trained. This sets up collisions with not only his team-mates, but the baddest bads in the DC Universe, in theatres of war across the globe, and closer to home.

With the huge number of characters featured in JSA, Magog has not had much of a chance to be fleshed out. Things are started to be resolved on that front here, and Giffen begins to show us what rules Magog lives by. He brutally takes out young soldiers guiding the living dead of a massacred Sudanese village through the jungle, and, closer to home, trains up a friend to protect herself from her violent partner.

Aided and abetted by his former military colleague, Magog has so many wrongs he feels are going unchecked by his super-powered peers, he even goes as far as using an iPod based random mission selector to choose his next destination.

Giffen weaves into the tale details of a hi-tech arms dealer (a perfect military based story) who matches Magog's brutality, but with less discrimination.

Magog is off to a good start, and it's nice to see DC willing to attempt to vary their line-up by having a character at the "Punisher" end of the Good-guy scale, rather than so many of their characters having similar moralities. I'm looking forward to future issues.

Read more