Patrick Larose 10/7/16 Patrick Larose 10/7/16

Review: Justice League #6

By Patrick Larose

Dear Justice League #6,

It’s been quite the trip, huh?

When I found you, it was my first week writing at Comic Bastards. I was at a pretty bad place in my life then. I wasn’t happy or secure in my day job, I was feeling creatively exhausted and drained. I’d been living in Philadelphia for a year and felt as if I hadn’t moved a step from when I came.

Dustin Cabeal 10/6/16 Dustin Cabeal 10/6/16

Review: X-Men: Apocalypse

By Dustin Cabeal

I’ve never called out someone else’s review in one of my reviews before. It’s tacky and pointless, but when you’re the only quote on the movie box, and you’ve dubbed this movie, “One of the coolest superhero movies of the decade”; I have to wonder what fucking movie you watched. To quickly sum up what you can expect from this film: everything Bryan Singer has ever done in an X-Men movie. The buildup is the same, the pacing the same. The really bad attempts at comedy… sadly still there.

Wilson Taylor 10/6/16 Wilson Taylor 10/6/16

Review: Croak #2

By Wilson Taylor

I've actually been kind of dreading this review. Out of nowhere the Croak #1 review became my most viewed review on Comic Bastards and perhaps technically my most well-known piece of super-obscure writing. The moment I realized it was getting attention, I began internally begging writer Corey Sousa to knock the rest of the issues out of the park because what I had praised in Croak #1 was its promise of intrigue and I had specifically noted that it was building a particularly fragile house of cards. So how does #2 stand up?

Robert Larson 10/6/16 Robert Larson 10/6/16

Review: Autumnlands #13

By Robert Larson

In keeping with the revelations from the last issue, we learn a lot from Autumnlands #13, enough to change our perception of this world. Last issue was about the creators of the Autumnlands, who were really nothing more than irresponsible party boys who used the planet as a kind of pleasure resort. The frat bros made a mess, and now somebody’s been sent to clean it up. But for the residents of the Autumnlands, particularly Dusty and Aelbert, a clean-up crew is not going to be a good thing.

Kaleb Hebert 10/5/16 Kaleb Hebert 10/5/16

Review: Evil Ernie: GodEater #3

By Kaleb Herbert

God-Eater is quite the fitting name for the grotesque, gigantic creature that was trapped on Earth and is now free. Through the artwork of Worley and Razek the reader can really get a sense of how immense the God-Eater truly is and how SOL Ernie is in terms of facing off against this monstrosity. Besides the big reveal of exactly who the God Eater creature is this was a rather slow, dreadfully uneventful, somewhat disappointing issue in comparison to how the first two issues went. The first two issues had great character build-up, a solid pacing in terms of events taking place, and this issue just lacked any kind of real motivation to progress the story. From what Jordan and Davidsen delivered previously, maybe there was just a high expectation for them to keep following up with better and better material. Perhaps this slower issue will lead into greater things which is expected from what the past issues have delivered.

Robert Larson 10/5/16 Robert Larson 10/5/16

Review: Red One #4

By Robert Larson

I’ve figured out Red One’s schtick. Imagine a hard-core pornographic film that had no sex in it: some initiating dialogue, a premise, but ultimately no payoff. That’s basically this book. It works at a literal level, because Vera keeps talking about sex but never actually having any (though we’re treated to a porno fluffer sequence that ranks up there with the most pointless moments in all of print media); it also works because we keep having this conflict between her and the Carpenter teased, but now the arc is over, and we wait another year for it to be finished. All promise and no payoff.

Justin Wood 10/5/16 Justin Wood 10/5/16

Review: The Shaolin Cowboy: Shemp Buffet

By Justin Wood

This may be one of the hardest books to review I've ever come across. In fact, I'd argue nothing I've read can compare to this. Shaolin Cowboy: Shemp Buffet, collecting the Dark Horse era of Geoff Darrow's cult classic miniseries in hardcover, is evidence of an epic undertaking with over 120 pages of Darrow's immediately recognizable hyper-detailed linge claire style, meticulous from beginning to end. It's also an epic undertaking to read from cover to cover, a true endurance test. I can't quite tell how to classify this book. It's either a fascinating piece of experimental art or an insufferable oddity that only exists as evidence to Darrow's inexhaustible patience of drawing the exact same thing for months on end. Or maybe it's both.

Kaleb Hebert 10/5/16 Kaleb Hebert 10/5/16

Review: The Great Divide #2

By Kaleb Hebert

Fisher might just be on to something here. It has been a long time since a post-apocalypse style story has peaked my interest like this. The concept of a simple skin on skin touch killing a person and that person becomes part of you is frightening. Who would want to live in a world where any form of bare touching could kill those you love. Though death essentially lurks around every corner, there are still things people can do for fun in this new world, so it isn't all down in the dumps. There are still strippers, and even prostitutes, but this is a highly regulated profession since any skin on skin contact would lead to death for one person.

Mike Badilla 10/5/16 Mike Badilla 10/5/16

Review: Jackboot and Ironheel #3

By Mike Badilla

In issue 3 of Jackboot and Ironheel, we find our hero, Eddie, has been recaptured by the Nazis and returned to Lungotz prison camp. For those that missed my review of issue 2, Eddie was given a chance to escape from the camp by some of the nuns working there. However, he was unable to make a run for it as he was confronted by something creepy in the surrounding waters. A Nazi soldier is recounting the capture by radio to his commanding officer, including that one of the soldiers was lost to the threat in the water, called "Muggenthaler," by the soldier.

Chris Tresson 10/5/16 Chris Tresson 10/5/16

Review: Grimm Tales of Terror vol. 2 #13

By Chris Tresson

This is the third time I’ve decided to review an issue of Zenescope Entertainment’s Grimm Tales of Terror Volume 2. The last two issues failed to impress somewhat, the stories weren’t that great, the art was average and the overall feel of the books hasn’t managed to do anything for me yet. So without further ado, let’s jump into my review of Grim Tales of Terror Volume 2 #13.

Dustin Cabeal 10/5/16 Dustin Cabeal 10/5/16

Review: Death of Hawkman #1

By Dustin Cabeal

I give the notion of killing Hawkman a 5 out of 5. Unfortunately, I won’t be giving this comic the same score. As far as comics go, this one is generic and lacks any real consequences. If Hawkman actually dies, that will likely be the only thing to happen in the comic. The main reason is the underdeveloped DC space line of books. What’s currently going on in them? Are there any? Nothing and no are the answers to those questions so being thrust into space to watch Hawkman die is almost as anti-climactic as seeing him alive at the beginning of the issue.

Patrick Larose 10/5/16 Patrick Larose 10/5/16

Review: Spell on Wheels #1

By Patrick Larose

There are some things I really like about the comic book industry right now. There’s still plenty of bad to go around. The single-issue market is still broken, the comic book movie boom didn’t save the industry, and nor has their business practices ever successfully adapted to the Internet era and while diversity's up, it's never quite as up as it needs to be. All that said, however, it’s got one thing going for it that I dig a lot. Now more than ever do comics have such wide breadth of tonal and genre variation. There’s not just one perfect comic out there for somebody, there’s four or five.

Patrick Larose 10/5/16 Patrick Larose 10/5/16

Review: Intertwined #1

By Patrick Larose

Intertwined is a comic that sells itself as a mash-up between the crime noir and kung fu genres, however, I think I’d offer up a different description. Rather, I’d argue that Intertwined is a comic that uses the machinations of Hong Kong action cinema to tell a story ultimately driven by the pathos of superhero storytelling.

Dustin Cabeal 10/5/16 Dustin Cabeal 10/5/16

Review: Shade: The Changing Girl #1

By Dustin Cabeal

Madness is a challenging story to tell. It can be everything and anything, but giving it structure and keeping it feeling like madness… is a difficult task. That’s what this series is up against, and after reading the first issue, I can understand why of all the titles announced for DC’s Young Animal, that Shade had people the least optimistic about it.

Mike Badilla 10/5/16 Mike Badilla 10/5/16

Review: Rise of the Black Flame #2

By Mike Badilla

Rise of the Black Flame #2 starts off on some crazy rollercoaster of which I can't even really say as to what is happening. We are in a German museum, and people are looking over all these relics of civilizations long past. We see a young man closely examine a picture, of which the picture talks to him, then they young man becomes an older grizzled man, then the face talks to him more, then he's flying through a void towards the face... then he is awoken by someone kicking him in the back. Our man, Farang, is awoken by the person that owns the house and told he has visitors. A man and a woman approach, and Farang recognize the woman as "Sarah," which appeared in issue 1. She pays the house owner to cover Farangs late rent and tells Farang that he is working for her now, which seems to upset him.

Justin Wood 10/5/16 Justin Wood 10/5/16

Review: Deadman: Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love #1

By Justin Wood

I mean come on. How could I not read this book with a title like that?

A Deadman spinoff with no canonical anchor to any current stories, 'Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love' is kind of exactly what I've been missing from superhero stories, not to mention horror stories, lately. Besides some overtly modern touches, 'Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love' feels like a comic from another time. Expertly paced, moodily atmospheric, and elegantly illustrated, this limited series takes the mic away from nearly everything being done at DC and teaches a class on what actual storytelling looks like.

Chris Tresson 10/5/16 Chris Tresson 10/5/16

Review: TMNT Universe #2

By Chris Tresson

TMNT Universe #2 is out this week from IDW. I reviewed the first issue and it was a pretty good start from the creative team, so I’m heading into the second issue expecting more of the same… Let’s see, shall we?

Justin Wood 10/5/16 Justin Wood 10/5/16

Review: Chimichanga: The Sorrow of the World's Worst Face #1

By Justin Wood

Eric Powell wrote this? Big Man Plans Eric Powell? The Goon Eric Powell? The review copy I received was coverless and lacked a title page, meaning it took some faint Google research to dig up the basic creator info on Dark Horse's new miniseries Chimichanga: The Sorrow of the World's Worst Face. It's a comic with a subtitle; it must have had a preceding story, and I was curious how what I had just read had managed to be some sort of sequel miniseries from Top Ten publisher Dark Horse. And there it was. Written and created by Eric Powell.

Laramie Martinez 10/4/16 Laramie Martinez 10/4/16

Review: Luke Cage E.02 - "Code of the Streets"

By Laramie Martinez

Like its predecessor, episode two of Luke Cage moves at a slower pace. The simmering tensions between characters come to a head by the end of it. In a lot of ways, this episode coupled with episode one serve as the origin of Luke Cage as a hero. And while dramatic, the big bang at the end of this episode isn't the most surprising thing about the series' second showing. No, the most surprising thing turns out to be a little piece of character insight in the form of what I call the, "Pull the trigger" speech. To find out what that is and what I think of the show after the first two episodes check out my review below.