Submitted by Mike 'Ace' Maillaro on Thu, 07/02/2015 - 09:22
Today is part 4 of our All-New All-Different Marvel coverage. The remaining books weren’t particularly easy to group, so I just lumped them all together and will post them alphabetically.
AGENTS OF S.H.I.EL.D. #1 by Marc Guggenheim and Mike Norton
Submitted by S.J. Mitchell on Wed, 07/01/2015 - 15:46
You can love it. You can hate it. But you can't deny it's success or sheer popularity among fans.
The first graphic novel covering Superman/Wonder Woman, sub-titled: Power Couple has received the distinction of being the winner of 2015's Stan Lee Excelsior Award!
The Stan Lee Excelsior Award was established in 2011 to "encourage reading for pleasure amongst children and teenagers". It also was intended to "raise the profile of graphic novels and manga amonst school librarians and teachers". With hopes of the awards bringing awareness to schools for graphic novels that deserve to be included in their libraries, it has brought graphic novels to over 77 schools just one year later.
This year's 3 finalists were (in order of placement):
Submitted by Mike 'Ace' Maillaro on Wed, 07/01/2015 - 11:27
Marvel has been announcing their post-Secret Wars plans. I'll be posting them up over the next few days with some commentary. I tried to break them up by theme. Today, we’re talking Avengers. I will admit that I should probably have included , SCARLET WITCH, CAPTAIN MARVEL and VISION as “Avengers” books, especially over ANT-MAN, but we had a lot of titles to cover and I needed to break them down as best I can.
Submitted by Mike 'Ace' Maillaro on Wed, 07/01/2015 - 10:14
Marvel has been announcing their post-Secret Wars plans. I'll be posting them up over the next few days with some commentary. I tried to break them up by theme. Today, we’re talking X-Men. For months now, we’re heard the rumors that Marvel was going to be getting out of the mutant business. I’ve called BS on those rumors all along, and I think that this lineup of books SHOULD put that to rest. These are some terrific, top-notch creative teams and should be a strong indicator that Marvel still has a lot of faith in their mutant line.
Submitted by Mike 'Ace' Maillaro on Tue, 06/30/2015 - 12:11
Marvel has been announcing their post-Secret Wars plans. I'll be posting them up over the next few days with some commentary. I tried to break them up by theme. Starting today with Spider-Man.
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #1 by Dan Slott and Guiseppe Camuncoli
Submitted by S.J. Mitchell on Thu, 06/25/2015 - 13:05
Superman used to be the butt of jokes regarding his underwear being on the outside. DC fixed that by giving him a new 'armored' look. A jeans and t-shirt look was made to accomodate Grant Morrison's run on Action Comics; which he has re-claimed now that he's been de-powered and his identity exposed.
It was also said that just putting on a pair of glasses and slouching his shoulders as Clark Kent shouldn't be enough to conceal his identity. DC is now addressing that problem as well in an attempt to phase out any of the old Superman tropes.
And they're using Lois Lane to do it.
In an interview with Comic Book Resources, John Romita Jr doesn't pull any punches when speaking of Lois Lane. He explains that not only is she annoying, but she should consider herself stupid for not figuring out Clark's identity 25 years ago:
When I was a kid, I learned how to make paper airplanes. I can now make three different kinds -- the basic kind, the skinny basic kind, and the one that somewhat looks like a Star Trek scout ship. When pressed, I can make a paper sailboat (or maybe it's a hat), and once I made a swan. I don't think paper fans count.
That's me.
And then there's John Montroll.
John Montroll is the author and designer behind DC SUPER HEROES ORIGAMI. Which I absolutely had to have, because I'm a fifty-years-in-the-making fan of all things DC Comics. And I thought it would be fun to share this with my seven-year-old through art projects of origami.
I learned that I knew nothing about folding paper -- but that I could be taught.
Submitted by Mike 'Ace' Maillaro on Wed, 06/24/2015 - 09:00
Rounding out our coverage of JUSTICE LEAGUE: GODS AND MONSTERS CHRONICLES is the third episode. This one is called "Big" and is all about Wonder Woman.
Commentary:
You know, the HR-V ads before these videos are WAAAAYYYYY off theme. The narrator is so bright and cheery, it takes a second to adjust back into the dark tone GODS AND MONSTERS has going for it.
This one starts with President Waller sending Agent Steve Trevor to infilitrate Kobra to find a powerful new weapon they are building. Kobra is about to execute him when suddenly Wonder Woman appears through a Boom Tube to rescue him. They quickly defeat Kobra, but Kobra is able to activate their secret weapon, Gigantra! Actually, a giant robot.
Submitted by Mike 'Ace' Maillaro on Wed, 06/24/2015 - 03:00
Here is the second of three episodes of JUSTICE LEAGUE: GODS AND MONSTERS CHRONICLES. This one features Harley Quinn and Batman, and is called “Twisted.”
Commentary: While I have thought both of these shorts were terrific, I can’t help but think that it has to be confusing for a lot of casual viewers to do stories like this. One of the comments on Youtube said “This ain't your grandma's Justice League!” and I’m just not sure how I feel about that. YES, I love to see the status quo get rocked at every opportunity, but when you get this far away from the source material, part of me wonders why you don’t just create something new entirely. Batman’s costume in particular is such a departure, he looks more like an homage to Batman than any version of Batman I’ve ever seen before.
Submitted by Critical Blast Staff on Tue, 06/23/2015 - 10:20
by Mike Maillaro, Gina Maillaro, Graham Scherl, and Mike Weaver
ARMOR WARS #2 by James Robinson and Marcio Takara
Summary: Rhodes is watching the autopsy of Spyder-Man by Dr Druid. Fisk is working with Arno Stark to rob Kiri’s technology. Arno is able to provide Fisk’s operative Stingray with a stealth armor to sneak into her lab...though the armor is killing Stingray. Kiri’s lab defenses go into full effect, and Kiri and Lila (Rhode’s niece) defeat Stingray.
Submitted by Mike 'Ace' Maillaro on Tue, 06/23/2015 - 03:00
Welcome back to Critical Blast’s 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 Mon, 06/22/2015 - 12:58
DC has been putting a lot of marketing muscle behind the upcoming JUSTICE LEAGUE: GODS AND MONSTERS. In the upcoming weeks, there will be a digital comic series, and they have also been posting some shorts on Machinima's Youtube channel. There are three of them, and we'll be posting them over the next few days.
Here is the first one, called "Bomb" and featuring Superman and Brainiac:
Submitted by Mike 'Ace' Maillaro on Mon, 06/22/2015 - 12:28
From Comicosity:
June 22nd, 2015 – New York, NY / Portland, OR – Today comiXology, the revolutionary cloud-based digital comics platform, proudly announced a digital distribution agreement with Dark Horse Comics, the largest independent comic book publisher, to bring their full digital catalog of collections, graphic novels, and manga to comiXology’s platform! Now, all Dark Horse Comics collections, graphic novels, and manga will be available on comiXology the same day the print versions arrive in bookstores.
“We are very excited to announce that we have reached an agreement which brings the Dark Horse catalogue found in the Kindle Store to the comiXology platform,” remarked President and Publisher of Dark Horse Comics Mike Richardson. “For the first time, hundreds of Dark Horse graphic novels will be available to comiXology’s devoted readers. The technology is stellar and we are pleased that our books will be showcased flawlessly.”
Submitted by S.J. Mitchell on Thu, 06/18/2015 - 11:11
And that's a good thing!
On the surface it would appear that Superman and Wonder Woman are going through a rough patch, but that doesn't mean that the writing is on the wall for DC's power couple. On the contrary, it simply means that they are learning more about one another. With each argument they endure, their relationship only grows stronger as they discover how best to deal with the other's needs.
Sure they're fictional characters, but when people start freaking out over an isolated incident or a disagreement, sometimes it's good to put things into perspective. Over the course of their young relationship we've seen them have differing opinions and philosophies. This happens in every relationship.
People shouldn't be climbing out on the ledge because they saw a panel of Superman telling Wonder Woman that he doesn't love her anymore.
Submitted by Mike 'Ace' Maillaro on Tue, 06/16/2015 - 03:00
WORLDS UNITE - This year’s Mega Man/Sonic crossover has been odd at times, since quite a bit of the story has said you need to read “WORLDS UNITE BATTLES #1” to follow what’s going on. Thankfully that is finally coming out this week (along with MEGA MAN #50). I do love a lot of the twists in this story, like Mega Man and Sonic both being taken out of action real early, and the Sonic Boom reality being involved too.
