When I first heard that the next DC Universe animated movie was going to be THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN, I was not thrilled. I was already feeling a downward trend in the storytelling as the animated films tried to form a more cohesive universe, and the stand-alones like BATMAN: GOTHAM BY GASLIGHT weren't all that super of late, either. Seeing this story retold, so soon after having it already retold on the big screen in BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE, was underscored by the fact that the story was also the very first DCU animated film, under the name SUPERMAN: DOOMSDAY.
Submitted by Mike 'Ace' Maillaro on Thu, 08/02/2018 - 09:59
Welcome back to Critical Blast’s long-running weekly look at what new comics you should check out each week. Just a warning, I make these picks pretty much a week BEFORE I actually get to read any of these comics, so if something is a stinker, I take no blame on that. Let's get to it!
First and foremost: If you haven't seen AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR and/or ANT-MAN AND THE WASP, you're probably not even reading this article, so the whole "Spoiler Warning" thing should be a moot point. However, on the microscopic chance that you've just stepped in from Taured and are thus unaware of these MCU events, we'll say it anyway: We're going to talk as though we've all been to the films here. So there, you've been warned.
I was heavy into comics when Vertigo cut its teeth, bringing to comics weirdness for weirdness' sake. It was fun at first, but after a while many of the titles got to where I simply needed to be on the same drugs as the writer to get the context and narrative, and I wasn't willing to go that far.
TAP DANCE KILLER, however, brings a weirdness of a different kind. With a Troma-style plotline and an outrageous cast of characters, TAP DANCE KILLER manages to bring the readers a weirdness that doesn't lose them, posing a series of unanswered questions that don't require immediate answers to understand what's going on.
There are a lot of dominoes toppling in DOOMSDAY CLOCK #6 -- small ones, but ones that are sure to cascade forward and have a greater impact further into the series.
With TRULY LAUGH, Geoff Johns and Gary Frank delve into the backstory of our dollfaced duo, Marionette and Mime, taking us back once more into that horrid world of The Watchmen where nearly every one is cruel and innocence is lost early in life. Through these flashbacks, we meet Erika as a young girl, and the mute Marcos whose family opens the glassware store across the street from her father's puppet shop. Erika's father is beholden to the police, who use his store as a front for dropping off and picking up payoffs, while Marcos' mother defends him against his step-father. As events cosnpire together, Johns paints a truly sympathetic origin story for this pair.
Submitted by Mike 'Ace' Maillaro on Tue, 07/24/2018 - 09:15
Welcome back to Critical Blast’s long-running weekly look at what new comics you should check out each week. Just a warning, I make these picks pretty much a week BEFORE I actually get to read any of these comics, so if something is a stinker, I take no blame on that. Let's get to it!
It's a lovely summer day in Gotham City, as citizens throng the World's Science Fair, eager to see the technology of tomorrow!
But wait!
What's this?!?
Poison Ivy -- airborne aboard a flying snapdragon?
It's a good thing the Caped Crusaders are on hand to put an end to this botany gone bad! But the perfidious plant plunderer was merely a cover for another of Gotham's most dastardly villains to commit a crime, as that larcenous librarian, the Bookworm, uses the distraction to steal the world's first electronic book, capable of storing over twenty different books in their entirety! As Batman, Robin, and Batgirl wrap up the sultry siren of shrubbery, he makes his getaway, but he won't be free for long. Because crime doesn't pay in Gotham City.
Submitted by Mike 'Ace' Maillaro on Thu, 07/19/2018 - 09:37
DC has opened up a website for their DC Universe web platform for pre-orders! It doesn't actually launch until the fall, but if you subscribe now, you will get an additional three months free when it launches. The pricing they announced is $7.99 a month of $74.99 for a year. DC Universe works on desktop and all your iOS and Android devices. It’s also compatible with Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV and Google Chromecast. No mention of Roku at the moment.
So what do you get for your $75? Looks like quite a bit...
Submitted by Mike 'Ace' Maillaro on Tue, 07/17/2018 - 08:26
Welcome back to Critical Blast’s long-running weekly look at what new comics you should check out each week. Just a warning, I make these picks pretty much a week BEFORE I actually get to read any of these comics, so if something is a stinker, I take no blame on that. Let's get to it!
Submitted by Mike 'Ace' Maillaro on Tue, 07/10/2018 - 08:53
Welcome back to Critical Blast’s long-running weekly look at what new comics you should check out each week. Just a warning, I make these picks pretty much a week BEFORE I actually get to read any of these comics, so if something is a stinker, I take no blame on that. Let's get to it!
WONDERLAND rears its ugly head once more in the Grimm Fairy Tales universe, with Raven Gregory at the helm of the crazy train.
A new madness is coming, and it begins in the form of Mr. Monarch -- a.k.a. Caterpillar. I don't know what evil he's about just yet, but I know it's vile because he begins his plans at a day care center.
That's the first of many hooks that are being set in this first issue, that finds Calie Liddle and her daughter, Violet, estranged from each other. Calie is doing the book tour thing as a famous fiction author, retelling her Wonderland story as a work of the imagination rather than a horrifying reality, and Violet is purposefully ignoring all her calls.
From the pen of Keith Champagne and the pencils of Tom Nguyen comes THE SWITCH: ELECTRICIA, a superheroes and supervillains saga in the tradition of KICK-ASS and THE AUTHORITY and made possible through the use of Kickstarter.
Electricia is a bad girl. Very bad. She controls electricity and uses it to commit crimes with her fellow criminals, collectively known as Murderer's Row. They have a satellite and everything, and an array of powers that dwarf Electricia's own. Like their leader, Lover Boy -- a mullet sporting tub who controls you with his voice, Dr. Hate -- an evil genius trapped in the body of a purple cat, Interstellar -- a boy possessed by an alien space god, and... Vladimir Putin? Yes!
Submitted by Mike 'Ace' Maillaro on Tue, 07/03/2018 - 09:39
Welcome back to Critical Blast’s long-running weekly look at what new comics you should check out each week. Just a warning, I make these picks pretty much a week BEFORE I actually get to read any of these comics, so if something is a stinker, I take no blame on that. Let's get to it!
Ah, the comic art pin-up. What once used to be a one or two page bit in KATY KEENE grew into full-blown books in the 1990s from Image and Marvel when they turned pen and ink to ride the popularity of the SPORTS ILLUSTRATED SWIMSUIT issues.
Zenescope is continuing that tradition, but with a fan twist. Instead of a swimsuit issue, their pin-ups are dedicated to cosplay. It's something that's become a bit of a trend. And to make sure you're not just plunking down coin for a collection of art pages, Zenescope includes a short story to serve as the lead-in, with Skye Mathers costume shopping and then having to take out a demon while wearing a LEGEND OF ZELDA costume. (Spoiler alert: Shang prefers Poison Ivy to Harley Quinn!)
Where AVENGERS INFINITY WAR was a great action movie filled with moments of comedy, ANT-MAN AND THE WASP is a great comedy movie filled to the gills with lots of action and adventure.
Ever since the events of INFINITY WAR, people have been asking: Where was Ant-Man?
Well it turns out that Scott Lang (PAUL RUDD), after choosing to side with Captain America in CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR, was apprehended for his participation in the events and placed under house arrest for two years. And he's learned a lot while attached to his ankle bracelet -- like drumming, and up-close card tricks.
It was going to be a good day. Wednesday's always were. Far enough away from last weekend to be over my hangover, and close enough to the next weekend I could start anticipating my next drunk.
Since I was going to be lucid for a little while, I thought it would be a good idea to find something to distract my brain from the glitz and glamour of the grafitti-spattered heroin houses and hoopties that doubled as homeless shelters. It being a Wednesday, my local comic shop had just the ticket: new comic books.
But like any mind-numbing drug, the longer you use them the more you need the good stuff to get the same high. Fortunately, I had a hookup with connections and an eye for quality.
Submitted by Mike 'Ace' Maillaro on Tue, 06/26/2018 - 12:03
Welcome back to Critical Blast’s long-running weekly look at what new comics you should check out each week. Just a warning, I make these picks pretty much a week BEFORE I actually get to read any of these comics, so if something is a stinker, I take no blame on that. Let's get to it!
Perhaps the brightest star in Dynamite's publishing sky has been PROJECT: SUPERPOWERS, a world populated by superhero characters who have fallen into the public domain and repurposed to work in the modern era -- no mean feat, since so may of them were created to oppose the Nazi forces during World War II.
To explain the disappearance of the heroes, and how they return to active duty still in the prime of their lives, we were given a tale of Hitler discovering Pandora's Box, and the heroes voluntarily sealing themselves up within it to save the world, only to be released decades later.
That epic is retold in part in these pages, written by Rob Williams and drawn by Sergio Davila, as Dynamite prepares to relaunch the series with a new #1 issue next month on the heels of this #0 introductory chapter, designed and priced to hook in new readers.
Ah, the 70s. When we thought bell-bottoms and corduroy were comfortable fashions, and our thick, pile carpets were called "shag" for a reason I was too young to know.
One of the many, many highlights of the decade, however, was the television series CHARLIE'S ANGELS, a trio of former police women who went freelance to work for Charles Townsend, who was never seen but whose name was on the detective agency. They were tough, they were smart, and they were sexy, at a time when the feminist movement meant something.
