Comic Reviews Jonathan Edwards Comic Reviews Jonathan Edwards

Review: DC/Young Animal: Milk Wars

By Jonathan Edwards

DC/Young Animal: Milk Wars is a weird kind of crossover. I know, big surprise from the story about the extradimensional corporation Retonn weaponizing milk to “homogenize” the DCU. But, what I mean is, it’s not a dedicated five-issue miniseries, nor is it a five-part story taking place in single issues of the various books involved. Instead, it’s five separate one-shots, each pairing DC and Young Animal characters. Now, Grant Morrison did something similar with The Multiversity, but there, it directly ties into the narrative. Whereas, with Milk Wars, it’s a stylistic choice more than anything else. But, what makes it truly strange is the fact that two of the one-shots, Mother Panic/Batman Special #1and Shade the Changing Girl/Wonder Woman Special #1 have little to no impact on the plot. You could remove both of those issues and their respective characters, and the story literally wouldn’t change at all.

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Review: Sacred Creatures vol. 1

By Jonathan Edwards

If Ales Kot’s Wolf taught me anything (other than that a mediocre series can still get you back into reading comics), it’s that I’m a sucker for extra-sized first issues. So, when Sacred Creatures #1 came out in July of 2017 boasting a whopping 66 pages on top of a contemporary fantasy story (a subgenre I already prefer), I was more than a little intrigued. I picked up the first issue, as well as the other issues in the first volume as they came out, but they all ended up unread and in my backlog. That is until I signed up to review this trade.  

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Review: Justice League: No Justice #1

By Jonathan Edwards

To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t exactly excited about this book, and that’s mainly because Scott Snyder is in the driver’s seat. Don’t get me wrong; I like him well enough as a writer. However, the Snyder-spearheaded Dark Nights: Metal only just wrapped up back in March, yet here he is with another crossover event impacting the whole of the DCU. Okay, sure, James Tynion IV and Joshua Williamson are co-writing Justice League: No Justice, but Snyder’s the one with top billing. And, regardless of the actual quality of his work, that starts to be just a little bit too much company-wide creative control for a single writer for my taste. But, despite going in feeling that way, I still quite enjoyed Justice League: No Justice #1.

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Review: Hungry Ghosts #4

By Jonathan Edwards

I didn’t review Hungry Ghosts #3, but I did still read it. And, it was weird. Structurally, it was identical to issue #2 with virtually no framing narrative. As a pair, the stories were the strongest presented so far, even if the ending of “Deep,” the first story, both came out of nowhere and was… strange. By themselves, neither of them was better than “The Pirates” from issue #1, but they were much closer in quality. Granted, none of the stories throughout Hungry Ghosts have been outright great or, more importantly, all that scary. And, even though it’s safe to say Hungry Ghosts #4 is the book’s best issue, those previous problems are still very much present.

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Review: Doom Patrol #11

By Jonathan Edwards

Doom Patrol#11 really, really should’ve come out before Milk Wars. I already knew that going in, but after reading through it, it’s pretty baffling that DC would ever let that event happen before this issue. From setting up Milkman Man to establishing this version of Cliff as being from fanfiction to explaining where the Doom Patrol just came from and what they’re talking about at the beginning of JLA/Doom Patrol Special #1, several things from Milk Wars make considerably less sense without first being touched upon here. All that being said, Doom Patrol #11 is itself a great issue with a lot going on in it.

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Review: Red Sonja/Tarzan #1

By Jonathan Edwards

I have never read an issue of Red Sonja in my life. What’s more, I’m only familiar with Tarzan at all because of the Disney film of the same name, and I haven’t seen that for something like a decade, if not longer. Gail Simone, on the other hand, is a slightly different story. Granted, I’ve not yet read nearly as much as her work as I should have, but, from what I have read, she’s a very skilled writer, and she very much continues to be one here. Because despite going into this crossover book knowing as outright little about two franchises that, frankly, I didn’t remotely care about, she had me fully hooked by this issue’s midpoint.

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Review: Action Comics Special #1

By Jonathan Edwards

I love Superman. Plain and simple. When I was a kid, I only really liked him because, well, I was a kid, and he was a superhero. The superhero. And, for a few teenage years, I didn’t like him for all of the easy, low hanging fruit reasons to dislike him. He’s too strong. He’s boring. His one weakness is too readily available. Blah blah blah. But, when I finally sat down and actually read books like Superman: Birthright, Superman: Secret Identity, Kingdom Come, and All-Star Superman, I quickly came to love him for everything he truly embodies. So, you better believe I was hyped when I found out that, among other things, Rebirth meant the original Superman was returning to the limelight. Now, just a couple of weeks ago Action Comics #1000 came out and paid thorough homage to the legacy of the Man of Steel. Admittedly, I stopped reading Action Comics after a couple of months, mainly because I found the other Clark Kent (when that was still a thing) to be insufferable. However, I absolutely picked up that issue, and it was fantastic. So, I am kind of surprised to see Action Comics Special #1 come out this week. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems a bit strange, maybe even pointless, to release a special right after the infinitely more special 1000th issue.

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Review: Justice League of America #29

By Jonathan Edwards

As singer and songwriter Adele once wrote and sang, “this is the end.”  In this case, it’s the end of a long, at times bleak, trek of a comic titled Justice League of America. I remember being really excited when first hearing about the book, its interesting cast of characters, and all of the possibilities that came with them. And, the first four Rebirth one-shots, focusing on The Atom, Vixen, The Ray, and Killer Frost, respectively, were all promising prequel tie-ins that each built up more and more hype for the main book. Then, Justice League of America: Rebirth #1 came out, and it was different. Everything suddenly felt less thought-out and put together and more superficial and contrived. However, this wasn’t an isolated incident. Justice League of America issues #1 through #4 followed the trend with a weak and irritating first story arc, and things only went further downhill as the series continued. Slightly over a year later and here we are with Justice League of America #29. And, long story short, the conclusion to “Dawn of Time” sucks, but the series finale afterward is marginally better.

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Review: Justice League of America #28

By Jonathan Edwards

After reading and reviewing the absolute hot mess that was Justice League of America #27, I found a question prodding me from the back of my mind: had the introduction of Ahl, God of Superheroes, really been as out of nowhere and slipshod as I’d thought while writing that review? It seemed too poorly thought out for even Orlando, so I did some quick research and discovered that it might’ve very well tied into the recent Milk Wars crossover event between JLA and pretty much every book from DC’s Young Animal imprint. As such, I opted to verify those claims for myself. This led me not just to read the entirety of Milk Wars but also reread the first four issues of Doom Patrol, read issues #6 through #10 for the first time, reread parts of JLA #27 and #22, and, of course, read Justice League of America #28. It could perhaps be considered an excessive amount of reading, as Ahl is only relative to five of those eighteen issues. What’s more, only two of those appearances were in series other than JLA proper, and not even those make his presence here any less problematic.

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Review: Justice League of America #27

By Jonathan Edwards

Well, here we are at the beginning of the end for Steve Orlando’s Justice League of America, and holy shit is this issue terrible. I mean, Jesus, this book’s been bad in the past, even awful, but this takes the cake. From the utterly laughable premise to the entirely clumsy execution, everything about Justice League of America #27 reads like Orlando isn’t even trying anymore and is instead phoning it in as much as possible. Maybe this is his way of being petty and getting back at DC for canceling his crappy book, or maybe he somehow thinks this is a quality idea. But, it really, really isn’t, and it kind of has to be seen (or at least heard) to be believed.

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