Random Recommended Reading! All Star Western: Guns and Gotham

Random Recommended Reading! All Star Western: Guns and Gotham

The fourth RRR for you guys!

DC comics, bad ass western themed hero, let me just ask you one thing. Do you feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk? I sure did when I bought this series. Man oh man, when the New 52 launched and ignored this title. It never struck me as something I'd like. But something came over me and I bought the first trade. I couldn't be any happier.

The Plot

The first trade covers two stories that Hex and Dr. Arkham go through. One is about a cereal killer loose in Gotham, the duo connects the killer to an organization known as  the "Crime Bible Followers". The second part sends Hex to the sewers of Gotham to look for a missing boy, and what they find is far from what they're looking for.

The western noir tone it has makes this book different from the capes. It's a nice change of pace! 

The Art

Man this art, it's gorgeous. Straight up gorgeous, the covers, the colors, it's all eye candy and it looks great.

from giant bat fights to people screaming, it's just a beautiful book!

The detail in gun fire, movement, etc. It all looks wonderful. Only thing that isn't the best...is Hex's iconic facial scar. While I understand it'd be hard to consistently draw, but in my opinion it changes from hideous to mildly ugly.

Dialouge

This is something I don't talk about enough in my RRRs, I should start. This book has a problem with it's "I" being changed to "Ah" and such. While I get that it's a Western book and people sounded like that. It just makes me stumble over it while reading.

It wouldn't be too bad if it was just random people. But Hex talks like that and many other important roles.

Action

There isn't heat vision, or batarangs in this book. But revolvers and Tomahawk will work just fine. The action feels like an old western spaghetti.

 

The blams and the gore is just the icing on the cake with this book. It's got story, action, wonderful art, even comedy( Dr. Arkham)!

Over all All  Star Western is an amazing series! I hope this book doesn't get overlooked by others like I overlooked it. So please. Do me a favor and yourself a favor and pick this series up ASAP!

 

Random Recommended Reading! Wolverine Weapon X: Adamantium Men

Random Recommended Reading! Wolverine Weapon X: The Adamantium Men

Hello and welcome to my third RRR!

So I've been on a Wolverine kick this past week and I don't know why! Scouring for some interesting stories I came across this shady story arc titled....

This five issue story puts Logan up to his greatest challenge, taking on Weapon X soldiers. A mysterious government group known as Black Guard has obtained the blueprints for the Weapon X experiments. The group plans to mass produce their soldiers to become the nations only form of security.

The Plot

At first I thought the plot was going to be very corny. But after reading into an issue or two I realized I was wrong. It's Wolverine fighting 12 Wolverine wanna be's with laser claws! The only gripe I have with this story is that they don't really specifies why they want Logan dead, other then they don't want any old Weapon X test subjects around. Logan's goal is very obvious, he doesn't want people to replicate Weapon X.

The Art

The art is pretty solid, Ron Garney's Wolverine looks nice. Only issue I had was with Logan's face, sometimes it looked like he had small thin eye sockets.

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

This was a big hit and miss with me. Sometimes it looked very odd(left side), other times it looked, well, pretty bad ass(right).  But other characters were drawn just fine. Where this really shines for me is the coloring

We get nice pages like this. Where great color and are fuse into an epic fight. The covers are also very detailed. In issue 3 we see Task Force X looking at the reader in a night time jungle setting, the color empathize the eyes and energy claws gives it a kind of Star Wars/ Terminator feel to it. And it looks breath taking.

Action

It's a Wolverine book, need I say more? Every issue is evenly balanced with action and story. This book doesn't hold back on the action either. Nice panels of claws, blood, and laser claws happen quite often. Like the picture above.

The story ends with a twist when Wolverine needs to fight 11 of these super soldiers on an oil rig. But I wont spoil that for you!

Do yourself a favor and pick up Wolverine Weapon X #1-5

Random Recommended Reading! Code Name: Action

Here is the second RRR!

You like James Bond stuff? You like Dynamite Comics? Why not read Code Name: Action!  This new limited series published by Dynamite comics tells the story of Operator number 1001,a secret intelligence agent, as he is teamed up with the legendary Operator 5! There mission puts them up against an unknown foe who has been captures presidents, military officials, and other high power individuals and replacing them with doppelgangers.

Plot

The plot is pretty straight forward, but told in such a fun way, it works great. The pacing can be fast at some points, but over all a fun ride. It doesn't delve to deep into its characters, but it gives them a tad bit of mystery. Characters like Number 5 are cool and mysterious because of the lack of information explained about him. All we know is he is a legend in the agency. Does he need some deep #0 back story? No, the character is, interesting and funny enough to have you commented to liking him.

Art

Jonathan Lau's art is drawn very well in this series. The effects he puts on motion such as things hitting the ground, or people dashing gives it this manga feel to it.

It's the little effects like that, that give; at least me, the manga/ anime feel to it. But while the art is wonderful to look at, it's the covers. Whether it's Jae Lee's covers or Art Baltazar's covers, you just can't go wrong.

Both are just amazing to look at.

Action

The whole series feels like a James Bond movie. When there is action on panel, I can't help but make the James Bond theme in my head. It's nothing to crazy, except the jet joy ride! But it's over all fun to read. Of course some of the other masked vigilantes join the fray in this story, such as the Spider, Green Hornet, Devil, American Crusader, and more. Mix that in with a James Bond setting and you got a nice action packed comic.

Every issue is packed with chase scenes, stealth, fights, and story development. 

Please, do yourself a HUGE favor and pick this story up as soon as you can!

Random Recommended Readings! Godzilla Rulers of the Earth

Hello and welcome to Random Recommended Readings! Just a little idea I came up with to share various story arcs, cross overs, events, or even one-shots. Of course the big two are going to get love, but I want to focus a tad bit more on Image, Dark Horse, and IDW and such. Stories ranging from old to current, else worlds, to canon universes!

I plan to post at least 2 RRRs a week when I can, but when I do, I promise they'll be worth checking out.

To start off our first RRR, we'll be focusing on the Big G, the mean green Kaiju machine; of course you know him, Godzilla!

IDW's ongoing series focusing on a race on alien that want to(of course) take over Earth using the local Kaiju.

Now, why should you read this besides the fact that it's a Godzilla title?

Plot

The story takes on two different view points. One from a young news reporter following Godzilla around. And the other point of view is of a solider that fights against invading Kaiju. Both characters are nothing interesting in their own ways. Along with colorful side characters it feels a tad bit more realistic when they interact.

Now the idea of aliens invading Earth has been done to death in all forms of media. Godzilla comics, movies, and such are known for having aliens use Kaiju to fight for them. But in this series, the aliens are actually interesting. Sure they're not space cockroaches in human skin, or Xlians. But they have a uniqueness that seperates them from the rest. With alien weapons,tenticals, shape shifting and more, they're definitely a cool race.

Art Work

This is by far the best artwork for a Godzilla book IDW has ever done. In the past IDW series the art was, let's face it, pretty darn bad. But this series, the way the capture the emotion and detail in the Kaiju's faces lets you know what they're feeling. And it's over all just nice to look at when you have pages like this....

You just know it's going to be a good comic.

Kaiju Action

Man oh man, you get a lot of action in this series. First two issues it's Godzilla vs. American Godzilla! Next issues they bring in military to fight these small versions of-

Better slow down there! Don't want to spoil every thing for you guys. But you get a weeks worth of Kaiju action every issue. Unlike some where an entire issue will focus on the humans, there is an equilibrium in this series.

Plus if you've always wanted to see the underdogs get spot light, now's your chance to see it happen! You get Manda, Gezora, Orga, Varan, and so many other lesser known Kaiju in this series, hell, some times it's an entire issue focusing on them.

All in all the series has a nice amount of action and story, cool human characters, great art, and is just a straight up fun ride. I highly recommend reading this series if you're a Kaiju junkie like I am.
And only six issues into the series, it's not to late to hop aboard!

Check it out now!