Comic Reviews by Walt

April 3rd was a decent-sized week of new comics. Not too huge, not tiny. Several #1s, a couple second (for me, at least) issues, and so on.

I decided to give Major X a try, after some well-timed "hype" on it and such. Liefeld prompts a certain sort of nostalgia for me, and I was truly curious about the time-travel/meeting with 1991 characters aspect. Can’t say I’m overly impressed with the first issue, though, so it’s a crapshoot on whether I’ll "bother" with #2…probably depends on it being a slow week or not.

Sorta hard to believe we’re "already" at Young Justice #4. Ditto at already being to #9 for Adventures of the Super Sons. This is a series I’ll probably kick myself for…I wasn’t going to want to hunt it down later, but I am ridiculously/embarassingly far behind on reading anything with the title…AND with the Bendis stuff in "present" continuity…this seems something better left for the collected edition for me. …Except I think there’s either already or about to be a "vol. 1" for this series. But it’s a FINITE 12-issue series, so to me, there’s NO REASON only HALF the finite-series should be collected. It should be collected into a single full-story volume at its end. It’s that "collect everything regardless of length of run or PLANNED length of run" that (to me) can really turn folks off to getting single issues, even for something like this.

I’m giving Immortal Hulk another issue due to my curiosity…and wondering about a certain character. Figured I’d try Section Zero #1…I can’t quite put my finger on it, but something with it seems rather familiar to me, and I might be crossing it over mentally with something else from years ago, but I opted to pick it up "in case" so I can check it for myself.

Seems that IDW is again a "major factor" of my week with 3 of the week’s comics coming from them! I’m trying to give these Marvel Action: ______ titles a chance, and support them…especially as it seems like they do NOT have a TON of VARIANTS. And they’re likely far more self-contained than most of Marvel‘s own books, so strike me as being more "fun" and accessible without being involved in this week/month/quarter’s latest umpteen crossover event invasion secret whatevers.

GI Joe: A Real American Hero is–at #260 (or #105/106 from IDW itself) THE core GI Joe book to me at this point. Written by Larry Hama and having continued from the original Marvel series, it is at this point THE absolute longest-running Joe book I’m aware of, period, 2nd longest run for any publisher, where I think IDW itself may be on its 3rd-boot of stuff.

Finally, despite it being rather late, or perhaps because of it, I opted to snag Chandra #2. I’m not overly keen on this depiction of the character and such. But I’m VERY MUCH a fan of Magic: The Gathering in terms of its "lore" and with just a handful of books left to acquire to have the entirety of the in-print editions of the lore, I might as well get this as well.

It’s cool to see Usagi Yojimbo get the cover of Comic Shop News for this week. AT LEAST with a "new publisher" in the title going to IDW, a "renumbering" is actually WARRANTED. It’s also likely a good jumping-on point for the character. I was highly put-off last year when I tried to jump onto the title and within a couple issues it switched to a new #1 with "legacy-style numbering" included to be a "mini-series" or such. I do NOT look forward to the umpteen variants on every single issue that IDW is surely going to pump out…but I’ll likely be giving it a chance anyway, being at the same publisher now as TMNT, and maybe I’ll "fold it in" with TMNT given the titles’ association through the years.

And there’s an Avengers Endgame previews to presumably push various collected volumes and such related or expected to be related to the film. I for one certainly appreciate these comic-sized ones for being comic-sized…as well as being a stand-alone thing instead of choking or bloating individual Marvel issues. And since I snagged the Captain Marvel one recently, figued I’d snag this as well.

I also finally "pulled the trigger" on getting these Mortal Kombat figures from Funko. I’d seen them awhile back, and been "curious" about them more recently. I had NOT actually consciously realized they were Mortal Kombat X rather than "just" Mortal Kombat, but there you go. That three of my (if not my three, period) favorite characters are here made ’em a no-brainer.

I’d gotten Raiden, which OF COURSE then triggered my OCD and led to me hunting down the other two. I was able to get Scorpion and Sub-Zero at a Gamestop far off my usual area…but NOT far from where I was meeting a friend for Shazam which made things work out quite well!

And speaking OF Shazam, saw it on Friday the 5th.

I rather enjoyed it, though I’ve pretty much decided that I personally hold Wonder Woman (as #1) and Aquaman (as #2) above it in terms of my favorites of the "modern" crop of DC films (definitely over Suicide Squad, Batman v Superman, and Justice League…though I’ve yet to decide exactly where I hold Man of Steel in there, as I’d originally thought that and taken that one as a standalone property…as well as someone I’d seen it with sparking certain feelings).

I did not care for how New 52-heavy Shazam felt, but overall it was a fun film with plenty of light, humor, and so on; and even though toys had more than spoiled one thing (to say nothing of assumption and expectation from the comics doing so), I actually had had no idea what to expect of the film’s villain, and really dug the portrayal here. While I hope we’ll get Black Adam in a sequel, I’d prefer that before the "return" of this film’s villain. There was even a cameo I rather enjoyed that paid off through the film.

Filed under: 2019 Non-Review posts, 2019 posts, NON-REVIEW CONTENT, The Weekly Haul | Tagged: #NCBD, A Real American Hero, Adventures of the Super Sons, ARAH, Black Panther, Chandra, comics, DC Comics, Funko, G.I. Joe, IDW, Image, Immortal Hulk, magic: the gathering, Major X, MARVEL, Marvel Action, Marvel Action Black Panther, Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat X, New Comic Book Day, new comics, Raiden, Scorpion, Section Zero, Shazam, Sub-Zero, Super Sons, Wonder Comics, Young Justice | 1 Comment »