Chris Wunderlich Comic Reviews

Well, I'm hooked"again. Thanks Valiant, but I'm not rich, you know. I can only buy so many monthlies, and you're steadily eating into my lunch budget. You know those "for the price of a cup of coffee a day" life insurance commercials? Screw insurance and coffee"buy this book.

We're given a high octane sci-fi spaceship chase through different dimensional portals. Sure, we route for Flash and the gang, but we hardly know them. The beautiful thing about Magnus was the set-up. Everything after that first issue will hold weight because of that first issue. Here, it seems Parker wanted to forego the first issue entirely and dive right into the adventure. I'm guessing we'll get more "One Year Ago" scenes next issue, which may read great in trade, but right now there's little to pull me back next month.

Valiant continues to impress on all fronts. Harbinger isn't my favourite of their books, but it is one I'd like to take a closer look at. The characters here are awesome and I'd like to see where the plot goes. In the hands of Dysart I trust it'll be an interesting ride.

I jumped into this series at issue 7 and had no problems following the story. I feel my beloved Quantum and Woody are in the right creative hands. In fact, I'm breathing a large sigh of relief right now, and packing up to go find the issues I've missed. It's that good.

I wanted to like Rogue Trooper, I really did. Alberto Ponticelli is an artist that deserves to be seen by the masses and treated like an A-lister. He was the perfect choice for this series and delivers with fluid, action packed frames. I can't recommend his work highly enough, but there needs to be meat behind the pictures. If you can't care about the characters or storyline, you're not going to care how awesome it looks. I want to care, but I've got nothing to hold onto here. Perhaps once the story picks up I'll dive back in, but $3.99 for 10 empty minutes? Not worth it just yet.

I'm not sure what Valiant's new Shadowman was like before Peter Milligan got his hands on it, but I do hope that when he leaves someone can point this book in a better direction. This is the first Valiant book I have zero interest in reading next month. I was hoping I could end my review with a line like "the insane mind of Milligan is back!" or "Shadowman is the must-read Valiant everyone is talking about!" but I simply can't. Skip this one for now and buy some of the better titles of the company is offering.

This book tackles three conflicts and wraps each of them up with increasingly dissatisfying explanations. Everything about Milligan's take on Shadowman is wrong. None of the characters are likeable, none of the plots are interesting, and none of the lore's potential is explored. Instead we focus on things like dealing with bullies, believing in yourself and the power of love. Even these things aren't done well. I'm very, very disappointed in Milligan's Shadowman run so far and I think I've learned my lesson. I'm done with this book for now.

Luke: Perhaps I'm just too much of a Cretin - I don't even like Homer's Odyssey all that much. I suppose if you're a big fan of Fraction, the Odyssey, trippy art, or gender identity/reversal stories, you should check this out. I don't particularly like any of those things, so I'll be passing on it from here on out. (And I'm giving it a . Sorry, Michael.)

There is potential to satirize the reliance on technology, self-obsession and the opportunity to criticize class separation and shallowness which would give readers more to chew on. The ending scene adds some mystery which might hook readers to continue the story. The hook phrases "Be Beautiful. Be Intelligent. Be Healthy. Be Immortal" also point to a full, dense story with a plentitude of ideas to represent. All in all, it's an ok first issue, nothing more and nothing less.

If the splash pages were cut in half and the plot was double in length, giving the turtles an actual reason to appear in their own book, this could have been an interesting read. That's exactly what was missing though, something interesting. Perhaps the kid friendly face-lift wasn't such a bad idea.

I may stick around for a few more issues of The Shadow, but I'd like to see more plot development. I'd like to see some expansion on The Shadow's Russian past (though something tells me that might have occurred in an earlier issue). I'd like to see colourful agents, manic villain takedowns and intricate, elegant plans come together in unexpected ways. This wasn't that kind of story. This wasn't what I expected from The Shadow"but it was interesting enough.

I'm not sure what Triple Helix aims to be. It's not "old-school" enough to seem like a throwback and it doesn't do anything new. It doesn't really do anything at all. I don't know why it exists or why Byrne decided it had to be made. If you like your superhero team books bland and you can't say no to anything with Byrne's name on the cover, this might be for you. If you're anybody else, you should avoid Triple Helix #3.

X-O Manowar #21 might not be the "must read Valiant" I was hoping for, but it did convince me to check out some of the back issues and continue reading. There's an interesting story here"this issue just did very little to shine a light on it. Hopefully next month we'll get more.