Birth of a New Nation

Simply put, today I am going to give you an example of the biases I have. Hopefuly through a little bit of review, you'll get a sense of my opinions for various writters, and for how my opinions on comics go. Today I will only reveiw full stories, or full to date that I can.
I should preface all of this with the fact that as of august, most of my possesions were stolen. I have next to nothing. and so I only really have comics from the last few months and a few a friend was getting rid of(some very awesome books, four boxes of indy stuff, Shane your awesome!). So I can not review a controversal story in it's entirety for you. That would be R.I.P. If you are deep in the future and there are multiple RIP stories now, then I'm talking Batman. Instead I shall speak of Grant Morrison's work on Final Crisis. Eventualy, upon it's conclusion, I will speak of Rage of the Red Lanterns, Geoff John's work, Final Crisis Revelations, Greg Ruckas work. Captain America White, Jeph Loeb and Time Sale, The first arc by new writter, Andrew Kreisberg , on Greenarrow/BlackCanary, New Krypton/Braniac/Atlas.

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Final Crisis
Written by: Grant Morrison
Art By: JG Jones, Carlos Pacheci/Jesus Merino(issue 4 )

Wow. Epic stuff. Gods falling to Earth. Lanterns being arrested. Heroes Dying. Morrison has painted quite the opening gambit against the hereoes of Earth. for three issues he managed to build towards a single goal that we all knew. Evil Won. Just when the heroes think that They got together at the last minute to win and save the day, they see they we're miles behind Evil. Dark side unleashed Antilife on the planet and has been trying to take the mind of Turpin.
Morrison has pieced together an epic story. He spends just enough time with characters that you should be vaguely familiar with to tell an incredible story. So if you are mildly familiar with DC universe, if you know who the New Gods are, and are a fan of Grand scale stories, this might be for you.
All I can say is... SUBMIT.

Story: 9
Art: 7.8
Overall: 8.5



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Thunderbolts 123-125
Written by: Christos n. Gage(tee hee N-gage)
Pencils by Fernando Blanco

I must preface this with the fact that i've never before been in the mindset to read through an entire Gage issue of T-bolts before. And now I see that these four(i don't have the first, nor will i ever) parts to "Running the Asylum" Has some of the most appalling art I've ever seen. It makes me sickened.

For those curious, 122 just connected the obvious dots between "Caged Angels" and "Secret Invasion". So what's the key difference between Gage's page and Bendis' page? For those curious, yes they used the same script almost exactly. The difference is that Gage felt the need to just stretch out what was said into annoyance. Page one of SI 5 and page 3 of T-Bolts 123 again are so similar they have to be compared. I wish they had just put Bendis' page in there instead because it works so well. In one page he summed up what the T-Bolts pen Gage had to spend 3 pages telling. Now from here onward we actualy get original storytelling in Gages work, and I must say the writting is okay. It's not terrible. I look at the words and he just has a problem of over writting what he has the people saying. I understand that, but his editor should have seen this and fixed it.
the biggest problem these issues suffer from is that the art is horrible. clearly this guy whould not be drawing Icons. Original characters sure, because then they can meet his style. But these images, I mean, at least they got Osborns hair right. That said, there is one page that is fairly decent which is the first full spread "Engage" page. complete with sound effects, the page looks okay. And I will admit, he does do a good Penance. But otherwise, the art makes me want to cry.
Now as for the story, I'm more impressed in retrosepct because I know what Dark Reign holds and this build up almost supports the themes that Dark Reign is ready to imprint. The 123 cliffhanger is poor simly because they are beating the same stupid Norman story over again. I get it! He's crazy! He sees spider-man everywhere! We don't need you forcing a Secret Invasion plot point like that as a clifhanger.

WARNING WARNING TANGENTAL RANT ABOUT Secret Invasion.
More importantly, as an aside, Marvel needs to stop needlessly tying in books to their events. We didn't need a Ghost Rider crossover, we don't need to see what the thunderbolts did to get to the big brawl. A short two issue filler arc would have been prefered and then an issue dealing with SI. That's it. Unless there is a specific Skrull in the midst of the book like say Hank Pym, Jarvis, ect. or it makes sense for there to be skrulls in the story like in Nova or Guardians of the Galaxy, we don't need the skrulls. SI should have been trapped in SI. The battle in the savage lands should have just been in an issue of Mighty and an Issue of New Avengers and otherwise cut out. There wasn't ennough story elements. If you have as smart of a premise as Aliens have already invaded, we have to stop this, then you shouldn't be just an action book. Maybe 2 issues of fighting, but not almost all of them. Hell the story is there, there would have been the Inhumans tie in or the F4 tie in there wasn't. SI could have been great. But le sigh.

Sorry for the Tangent.

The story is run of the mill and is only good for briding the gap between Elis' story and the Dark Reign story. Tis all. I also liked the Iwo jima moment at the begining of 125, that's how you open a page saying a villian is a hero.

Story 7
Art 2(i can at least tell whose who)
overal meh 5



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Series I will cover on a regular basis will be:
The / indicates either title like GreenArrow/Black Canary or it indicates titles that will be reviewed together.

Nova/Guardians of the Galaxy/War of Kings Tie-ins
Action Comics/Superman/FC:Leigon of Three Worlds
Umbrella Academy
Ultimate Spider-Man/Ultimatum
X-factor
ThunderBolts/Dark Reign/Secret Warriors/Ivincible Iron Man
Dark Avengers/New Avengers
Green Lantern/Green Lantern Corps.
GA/BC
Final Crisis/FC:Revelations
Captain America
Captatin America:White
Batman/Batman:Cacophony/Allstar
Buffy s8/Angel After the Fall


See, if you had been saying I was a DC fan boy, you'd be wrong. It is simply DC has the beter stories being told right now.


Normaly you will find my Comic Month in Review at the Sunday after I recieve a months shipment. For note, I preorder my books through Impulse Creations. They are a website and a store based in the midwest, even though they are central, and are fantastic. If you preorder, you get bag,board, and 30 percent off. Orders over 75 dollars(which on a monthly basis gets you almost every time) free shipping. check them out.