May Comics: Free Comic Book Day Edition

Powers Annual 2008
I guess the comic annual is not dead. More of a stand alone story. Delveing into Walkers past from being a cro-magnon to a caveman. Underlying tone is that Supers for all the good they do have made the normals weak and dependent on them for protection. Oh and super graphic violence and sex.

Doctor Who #3
You think I would have head about this being a Doctor Who fan. Gary Russell who is story editor for the new series is writing so it should hold up to the series.

I missed issue #1 & 2 but luckily issue #3 starts a new story having the Doctor and Martha arriving in the future on a alien world and the cat nuns make another appearance. You think they would have a more stringent hiring policy for those nuns by now.

There is also a Doctor Who Classics book featuring the 4th Doctor for you old timers.

Elephantmen: Wars Toys 2 & 3

Nothing is better when you combine great story and great art... unless you add genetically engineered animal killing machines in a futuristic war. Oh wait it's got that too!

Great insight to the war to end all wars and our favorite Elephantmen. Good story showing the humanity in the beast and the beast in humanity point counter point.

This is how prequels should be done. A story that is strong enough to stand alone from the rest of the Elephantmen universe, interesting and engaging.

Thanks Hip Flask crew for creating a book that I hold up with classics such as Metabarons.

Star Wars: Legacy #19, 20, 21, 22
I am really glad I decided to pick this new on-going Star Wars series. Since it is the only book I collect that comes out monthly when I pick up my reserve it's like a reading a small trade.
I'd like to summarize the plot but there is just too much going on and even after 22 issues there's too much back story for me to explain here. But there is a great space battle in issue 20 & 21. And after issue 22 no one is going to feel sorry for those Bothans, the Mon Calamari are fracked!

I purposely timed our trip to Komico to coincide with Free Comic Book Day, that way I get comics, the boys get comics and I don't get upset if they destroy any comics. Hey they're $3 and up, it can get expensive if a toddler literally rips into your collection.

I was interested in only three of the offerings that were available the Stranded, Superpowers, and Dan Dare (by a favorite Warren Ellis). Unfortunately I was rather unimpressed by the lot, of course they were free so I shouldn't be too hard on them. So take the following with a hefty grain of salt.

The Stranded might be totally good... just the part I read. The art is late 90's Image fare and the story pretty run of the mill. Not bad, just nothing I haven't seen a dozen times before. Also it seems that it is going to be made into a series for the Sci-fi Channel.

I was really excited about Dan Dare written by Warren Ellis. Dan Dare was a pulp 1950's sci-fi character like Flash Gordon that they now have the rights to, but unlike Flash, I'd never heard of the character. It was part of a flip book with The Stranded so the story was short. It was ok and I'm sure people will like it but it's just not up my alley. I was surprised at that since I liked Ellis' Ministry of Space mini-series and it was in fact influenced by Dan Dare.

Project Superpowers is your usual cover only painted and co-plotted by Alex Ross and Jim Krueger book. I thought their EarthX and Justice series were very good and I loved that Ross painted the entire Justice series. But I guess they wanted a more regular release schedule and a fully painted book would not be able to meet the time constraints.

Other than that it was an okay look at golden age heroes set free into today's world. If you like that kind of stuff... I was never really a fan of the Justice Society stuff either.

ET picked up Marvel Adventures. I thought he might go for the Transformers issue but in his mind he saw four superheroes and thought that was a better deal than just the Transformers. It was a usual superpower team up book but ET liked it.