Olympus
In a effort to get away from the usual frustrations of mainstream Marvel and DC, I turned to Image once again. This week saw the release of the Olympus trade collecting the four issues mini series, and much like Chew the book did not disappoint. Olympus centers around brothers Castor and Pollux. They act as sort of agents on earth for the gods if anything escapes from Hades. The story starts out with the brothers tracking down an escapee and sending him back to Hades but they forget to close the portal in time and much a bigger problem gets out.
Knowing that this was only a four issue mini series I expected the story would feel rushed as it had to pack quite a bit into a limited number of pages. The pacing did not prove to be an issue as the story flowed at a nice pace, especially in the last half. It’s a quick read but it doesn’t feel like a rush job. It helps that the book plays off of Greek mythology, so in essence it has Greek continuity to act as back story. Christian Ward’s art is rather unique. The line work looks like the rough pencils many artists use to lay out a story before the proper art is done. This could have easily made the art a mess that was hard to read. (more…)
The past week has been rather uninspiring for me. Last week’s releases made for one of those weeks where nothing was truly bad but nothing felt noteworthy. Most of the good were things like the latest issue of Walking Dead, which almost seems pointless to review because anyone who likes it is already reading and any new readers need to go back and pick up the 
I’m not sure if I’m just cynical or if there really is a lack of interesting comics news out there of late. It’s probably a mix of both, but
In line with my previous post about Marvel’s current pricing schemes Bleeding Cool had a 
DC’s November sales once again dominated the Diamond top ten list. 
Something I often find interesting is looking at what the non traditional comics fans are reading. Thankfully lately it is easier to get an idea of what interests the general public. Things like the New York Times 
It’s a busy week for releases and I’m sure there will be plenty of reviews and comments on various Blackest Night and other high profile books. I thought I would focus on something with a slightly lower profile, that being Gotham City Sirens. The series revolves around Catwoman, Harley Quinn, and Poison Ivy finding themselves living together in the aftermath of the recent changes in the Bat Family of books. Writer Paul Dini and Harley Quinn together again was all the incentive I needed to pick up the first issue. The latest issue sees the end of a three part storyline where Gaggy, one of the Joker’s old sidekicks, impersonates the Joker and tries to kill Harley for being the girl that ruined the good times with his old pal the Joker. Gaggy’s back story ends up being a interesting look at how the Joker went from being the laughing criminal to the sadistic killler that he is now.
R.E.B.E.L.S. #10 came out more then a week ago. I only just now got around to reading it and it was pleasantly surprise. This is one of the Blackest Night ring incentive books that DC has been putting out, where you get a ring from one of the Lantern Corps along with the comic. This book came with the Indigo Tribe rings. Thankfully this issue of R.E.B.E.L.S. is written with the idea that new readers would be coming on board so it makes for a very good jumping on point. You do not have to know anything about the characters or the book before reading this as the story provides all the important details and background information. The series centers primarily around Vril Dox the son of Brainiac. He recently lost control of his intergalactic peace keeping force LEGION to Starro the Conquerer, who was revealed to be the power behind the face hugging starfish like mind controlling Starros. Dox and the rag tag crew he put together are out to stop Starro from controlling the entire universe. Durng all of this Vril Dox’s ex wife Stealth recently died in a attack by the Starro controlled LEGION robots. She then comes back as a Black Lantern being quite unhappy with Dox thinking he was to blame for her death. The back story proves to be quite interesting and everything is told well. Andy Clark’s artwork is beautiful on this. It is not only great from a technical standpoint but the facial expressions in his work really breath life into the characters.
While there are many things that annoy me about Marvel one thing I have consistently enjoyed is the Punisher ever since Garth Ennis rebooted the character a decade ago. I was sad to see Ennis’s real world Max line take on the Punisher come to a end, but Duane Swierczynski did a good job of filling in before Jason Aaron and Steve Dillon relaunched the Max line book this month. I had pretty high hopes coming into this book since I am a fan of 
Over in the Marvel U proper Rick Remender has a very different but equally entertaining take on the Punisher. Issue #11, out this week, is my highlight of the week. It is a very good jumping on point for those not already reading as the book goes in a very different direction after the events of the List where the Punisher was literally cut to pieces by Daken, the Dark Wolverine. This issue sees a strange group of Japanese men hunting down and killing monsters of the world. Many of the monsters have taken refuge in the old Morlocks tunnels in New York. After gathering up what parts of the Punisher they can find, Morbius the Living Vampire in a Doctor Frankenstein like role pieces the Punisher back together again in the hopes that the Punisher will defend the monsters against whoever it is that is trying to kill them all.