-
5 (2) 4 (41) 3 (41) 2 (13) 1 (3) 3.5 starsAverage score of 100 user reviews
-
Magneto, Stands Out Amongst A Multitude Of Mutants 3
Okay, to begin: My knowledge of the X-Men during the `90s is pretty sparse - my `Wilderness Years` I`m afraid. My interest waned not long after the Dark Phoenix story-arc and John Byrne`s departure. Read a couple of the new X-Men with Jim Lee, and...that was that. But, Hallalujah!! - now I`m a Born Again Comic Reader, and I grabbed this volume, which chronicles Uncanny X-Men #273 - 277, to fill me in on some of those details from all those lost issues...The volume covers two story arcs real...
4 out of 4 found this review helpful. -
Fangs Very Much 1
Marvel Preview - later, Bizarre Adventures - was one of several black and white magazine-sized publications that Marvel produced in the `70s, usually featuring a different star or theme each issue. Vampire hunter, Blade, was proving popular in the excellent Tomb Of Dracula, and a couple of appearances in Vampire Tales were followed by this extravaganza in `75...Blade was the sole feature in this Marvel Preview, the seventy-odd pages of the vampire slayer`s fight against The Legion Of The Damned ...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Interview With A...Bloodmaster 0
To be honest I was just all about to abandon this series a couple of issues ago, leave it scuppered there on the muddy banks of the Mississippi. But now, as we`ve reached a mid-point in the story, Fevre Dream has begun to peak and it`s got me in it`s grip again...The previous issue left the mysterious Captain Joshua York being confronted by Abner, and revealing himself to be, for want of a better term...a vampire.And so, Joshua spills the beans, so to speak. This issue is all about the origins ...
0 out of 0 found this review helpful. -
Lord Henry Experiences The Horrors Of The Western Front 0
The first issue of this series was impressive, and this second installment is excellent. Some of the imagery that Mignola, Golden and Stenbeck evoke, is chilling, hideous and memorable.In this issue, we learn some of the origins behind Baltimore`s obsession with the vampire, Haigus. The girl, Vanessa, has helped Baltimore escape the town jails, and secured them both a passage on the ship Marianne, heading for Livorno. Whilst on board, Lord Henry relates the story of how he first encountered vamp...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
On Your Marks... 0
Ray Crisara is a detective. He`s traveling home late one night, with his wife and daughter in their car. It seems all is not too well with the Crisara family, as they`re in the middle of a bickering argument - when suddenly...Ray awakes in hospital, his car having been smashed off the road by a truck. His wife and daughter are in a critical condition, and Ray has debris lodged in his brain which, his doctor says, without surgery will kill him in five days. Ray, certain the `accident` is the work...
0 out of 0 found this review helpful. -
Spitfire Down After One-Shot 1
Blimey - so this is Spitfire, is it? I`d had a brainstorm by the time I`d read her character analysis on the first page. I know I was in Comic-Book-Wilderness for a while but, all that had happened to Spitfire? I remember her as a brief character in The Invaders at the end of the `70s, but...Not vampires again. Even I`m beginning to tire of them now. They used to make mean bad guys, and now they`re the heroes as well. I`ll avoid spoilers and giving away the plot, such as it is: Spitfire is in N...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
The Story Of Nancy`s Death... 0
After the frantic, action-pumping antics of last issue, things calm down momentarily for Nancy, for this installment at least. There`s a bit of explaining and plot thickening to do, and we get it here.Last month, we left off as Nancy came face-to-face with Lucifer himself, and grief, what a wet blanket he turns out to be - no wonder they threw him out of Heaven. Yep, Ol` Nick himself, Satan. But it seems Lucifer here, has been dealt a wrong card, or he feels hard done by, at least. For several p...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Awakened, But Still In The Dark... 2
And so, The Awakening storyline wraps up with this third installment. Well, `wrapped up` isn`t strictly true, as we don`t really draw any conclusions come the final page, as Anna and her rescuer, Braden Cole, are thrust into another mysterious adventure like some 19th Century Mulder and Scully.And that`s the big word here, mystery, as come the end of The Awakening Part Three, we`re as clueless about the three principle characters as we were at the beginning of the story. Darius is some evil enti...
4 out of 4 found this review helpful. -
Wide Awake 0
This is pretty good stuff, a tale of possession and bearers of mysterious powers in 19th Century Salem, has got me under it`s...spell.Anna has been jailed for her accidental murder of possessed neighbour, Jared. That night, Darius enters the jail, and uses his mind-altering powers to put the on-guard deputy, to sleep. He then taunts Anna, in her cell, that if she accepts his `help`, he will release her from confinement. Braden Cole, on the trail of Darius, enters and pumps the mysterious charact...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
Monstrous 0
This issue marks the first appearance of the immortal monster-hunter, Ulysses Bloodstone. More on him later, but what really struck me about this comic was....it STINKS of Cthulhu!! I can taste its eldrich, fishy breath in the air... Ia! Ia! Shub-Niggurath! Come on guys, spit it out, don`t be afraid to call his name! We know the Old Ones are coming!!!...but no, obviously all that Cthulhu/Lovecraft thing wasn`t as big in comics in `75, as it is now... Monsters from the sea depths, strange gems fr...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Retro Reprise Of War Tales With A Twist 1
Growing up with Marvel and DC Comics as a boy, my preference swayed towards Marvel. But one of the things I did like DC for, were their horror comics - those series with several short stories in, like Ghosts and Secrets Of The Haunted House. One such was Weird War Tales, short tales of war with supernatural elements, monsters and a twist in the end. I hadn`t known that Vertigo picked up with a second volume of this series in 1997, and it was good to get hold of a copy - and even better to find t...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
Dead Space? More Like Waste Of Space 0
I`ve never read the earlier Dead Space mini-series, or played the computer game, but I saw Dead Space: Extraction is a one-shot, so I imagined it`s own self-contained story. And it`s a sci-fi horror - great! Oh dear. What a disappointment. Okay, the plot, such as it is: Medical Officer Nicole Brennan is working aboard the spacestation, Ishimura, in orbit above a planet. Signs of hallucinations and infection are reported from the colony on the planet`s surface, and then casualties start... The i...
0 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Weird Western Tale 0
The Awakening Part One was like reading X-Men meets Weird Western Tales, although I never saw Hex or Scalphunter come up against something like Darius... The comic opens with a gunfighter shooting down townsfolk in a hail of blood `n bullets, leaving the bodies in his wake he jumps on his horse, heading toward the townships of Salem. From his musings, we learn the gunman is tracking a man. A man who `took` his family, his wife and child - and now he wants vengeance. Now, we`re in the garden of b...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Dead All Over 0
The tragedy really hits home for policeman Rick Grimes in this second installment of Image`s excellent The Walking Dead. Rick arrives in Atlanta, searching for his wife and son, to find zombies have overrun the city... Moore`s art has gotten better for this issue, I think. He really catches the emotions Rick is going through - check out the scenes where he talks to the horse. The writing and dialogue is such we can feel his despair as the plight of Atlanta is explained to Rick by the young m...
3 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
Captain Bintang`s Night-In-With-A-DVD Movie Review 1
Retro one, this. From waaaay back in 1981... I told my mate, Adam, I had this to watch: "Oh yeah, I remember that..."he said, face screwing up like a bulldog chewing a wasp, "...it`s a bit crap"... Thanks Adam, but I gave it a whirl anyhow. I`d heard Outland described as `High Noon in Outer Space` - well, I can`t remember High Noon, but the movie does have elements of the classic Western, and it is set in space, on Io, one of Jupiter`s moons. Sean Connery plays Marshal O`Niel, on a new annual to...
0 out of 0 found this review helpful. -
"My God, It`s Like A Bruce Willis Movie!" 3
This was superb. It`s the dog`s bollocks, infact. Punisher Max: Happy Ending is a complete one-shot, and it`s got the lot - action, humour, twists, menace and it`s well written and brilliantly drawn. Juan Jose Ryp who I`d enjoyed earlier this month on Nancy In Hell, does another outstanding job here, every panel looks great and I had a job choosing a sample pic for the review. I`m not going to give away too much here, but Frank Castle is more of an additional character in the issue, the sto...
3 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
Worth Unlocking 0
This series had passed me by, but I now see it`s had two or three volumes and a proposed television series! It was the `Lovecraft` word that drew me, and looking at the cover I thought Locke & Key was a Cthulhu Mythos based story... It isn`t. It`s a mysterious dark fantasy, although we don`t really get too much of that until the last couple of pages. Welcome To Lovecraft concerns itself with telling us, the readers, about the unfortunate Tyler and how he comes to stay at the imposing gothic ...
0 out of 0 found this review helpful. -
One Moment In Time 0
Neanderthal - another comic book adaptation based on one of the late, great Frank Frazetta paintings. This time it`s a painting originally used for a 1967 issue of Creepy. I`m enjoying this series immensely and the subject for this issue is...cavemen. Well, Homo Erectus actually - the neanderthals of the title. It illustrates a small scenario with a group of neanderthals, a small scenario that is infact, an immense historical point - when neanderthal meet their predecessor, Cro Magnon Man... (I...
0 out of 0 found this review helpful. -
"The Eternal Battle Of Supreme Monsters..." 0
Last week I rediscovered the world of Frank Frazetta. A favourite artist of mine, I found he produced a series of one-shot publications for Image between 2007 and 2010 (alas, he died earlier this year). Okay, it`s not all his work, he`s painted up a few beautiful covers, but the interior work is of another artist - or, at least with the two I`ve read...Dracula Meets The Wolf-Man. Ah, I just love all this stuff - vampires, werewolves, just can`t get enough of them...well, no, that`s not quite tru...
0 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Spicy Indian Horror 1
Ok, now overall I liked Eat The Dead, it`s a fantasy-horror tale set in the forests of India. However, it does require a strong imagination and, if you`re a Westerner like myself, an open-minded acceptance of the theories of Hindi religion - although, that said, doesn`t alot of horror ask us to accept the highly improbable? Five strangers are drawn together as they travel through India, some have been experiencing strange, disturbing visions. Following an attack in the forest by a ferocious, biz...
0 out of 0 found this review helpful. -
Vikings Steal Thor`s Thunder... 3
...not literally, but meaning this issue is all about the villains of the piece - Harald Jaekelsson and his crew. I really enjoyed this historical/horror/superhero mini-series, and this opener reveals the origins of how our resident God of Thunder comes to tackle a ship full of undead Norsemen... 11th Century Norway, and a horde of rogue Vikings, led by Harald Jaekelsson are putting a village to flame and sword. They are cursed by the village elder, before they finish him off with an arrow throu...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
Due For Demolition 0
Here`s a blast from the past, an early installment from the first volume of Ghost Rider. To be honest, Ghost Rider was a series that never really appealed to me. I liked some of the `Marvel Monsters` from that period in the 70`s - alas, Johnny Blaze wasn`t one of them... This issue I found in an old junk shop, and for pennies, and I couldn`t pass a Bronze Age Marvel up. And so, faithful readers, that`s how it`s ended up in my reviews. Remember those auto-crazed, cop car chasing movies in the 70`...
0 out of 0 found this review helpful. -
Hex-cellent! 0
I like historical comics, and the Wild West is great for comic-books and movies as it`s good `n violent - or at least it should be, trouble is I havn`t really read many good ones - the odd retro Caleb Hammer and Boom`s disappointing Pale Horse, being two - as a boy, I used to enjoy Scalphunter (now that would be a good movie!) but never read any of the other character in Weird Western Tales, Jonah Hex...until now. `You`ll Never Dance Again` was excellent. I`ll skim over the plot to avoid spoiler...
4 out of 4 found this review helpful. -
Calling Gets A Little Muffled... 0
I really enjoyed the opener of this mini-series, it had all the right scares. Gotta say I was getting a little frustrated with this one though... The widow of one of the hundreds who died a mysterious death aboard the cruise ship, is full of suspicion and is prying further into the deaths. Her investigations lead her to another bizarre death, the head of a pharmaceutical company has died, the symptoms being uncannily similar to those aboard the ship. Five `John Does` on the ship all had mystical...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Vampire Empire 3
As more and more vampire-based titles hit the shelves, you`d almost expect the quality to drop, and maybe that`s true with some, but not with Ides of Blood, this is good stuff... Set in another alternate history: 44AD, some years previously the Roman Empire has invaded Transylvania, and as a result, vampires are integrated into Roman society. Mostly slaves and plebs, but now the aristocracy is beginning to succumb to the bite... The Roman sun proves too strong for some... But a killer is on ...
5 out of 5 found this review helpful. -
Work Of Art 0
Frank Frazetta was always a favourite artist of mine, his fantasy and sci-fi artwork on books and magazines I thought exceptional. And so, I was instantly drawn to this title, Frank Frazetta`s Swamp Demon. Expecting a gallery of pictures, I was quite surprised that this is in fact, a story. Frazetta has painted one of the covers, and the story is his. But, don`t panic - because the artwork by Josh Medors is beautiful. It`s intricate and carefully done - but then, Frazetta wouldn`t have settled f...
5 out of 5 found this review helpful. -
Crypt Chick 0
Razor is a character I`m just discovering, and the more I unveil the more it appeals. Darque Razor #0.5 is the best of the Razor stories I`ve come across so far... Razor has returned from death, still bearing the bullet-hole in her back which, I assume, saw her off in the first place. She`s at a girlfriend`s flat, relishing coming back to life - fair enough. However, elsewhere in Queen City cemetary, grisly goings on are happening. It seems that through the whole transference of Razor`s death, ...
0 out of 0 found this review helpful. -
In The Habit... 1
The 90`s saw publishers like Avatar Press and London Night churning out several bad-girl heroines. One of the most popular was Razor - who looked like some cross between Psylocke and X-23, fighting demons on the grimy streets of Queen City. Often paired up with some other femme fatale, this issue saw her battling alongside (and with) Areala... Areala, I like this character. She`s a Warrior Nun, in leather corset and a habit with a thigh-high split, armed with a broadsword and some techno/occult ...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Fine Idea That Looks Awful 0
A string of comics with photographed covers, featuring heroines appeared in the `90s, and this is one of them - Carmen Electra no less, graces the cover of this one-shot. I was never a fan of photographic models adorning comic-books, couldn`t really say why, it just seems...trashy. Still, Ms.Electra`s charms are a damn sight more appealing to the eye than the interior... Good Grief! The artwork in Razor & Embrace: The Spawning is truly...shite, frankly. Pity really, because if you don`t reco...
0 out of 0 found this review helpful. -
More Buffy Than Blade 0
I was a few pages into this comic before I realised what I was actually reading. I was thinking `what a load of corny nonsense, surely this can`t be serious?`. And that`s just it - it isn`t. Vampire, PA is a tongue-in-cheek poke at vampires, it`s light and easy-going. Imagine a TV sit-com or an episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer then add your own canned laughter. The comic starts immediately after events in an earlier story that I know nothing about, but we do get a rough recap of sorts... ...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
BuddaBuddaBuddaBudda!! 3
I don`t give out the 5 stars often, the last time I did was for...well, well, the first issue of this mini-series. Highly anticipated the second installment and once reading it, I wasn`t disappointed - X-Force: Sex & Violence is bloody OUTSTANDING! The story, once again, moves along at a rollercoaster pace. And, it`s pretty brutal stuff - nevermind the brief hotel room bed-wrestling between Logan and Domino (although maybe that was the scene many readers have been looking out for (??)) - the...
3 out of 4 found this review helpful. -
Curious origins of mysterious character... 0
When I first picked up this comic, one look at the cover told me I should expect a Clint Eastwood clone, although I was soon proved wrong. He`s actually a detective, which I thought was a pleasant surprise. But, there is a certain something about the character Caleb Hammer, he`s another guy haunted by a tragic past... ...and there`s something else about him, I just can`t put my finger on... Hammer, working for Pinkerton Detective Agency, arrives in the town of Manacle, Wyoming. He`s on ...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
It`s a Dag`s Life 0
Northlanders is a series that has passed me by, but it drew my attention as I enjoy history, and this period in particular - Vikings, brutal, wild, great mythology. This issue, The Sea Road, is a single-issue story - ideal. It`s a short tale of Dag. Dag is an aging trader, who takes his boat and crew on an alternative route in search of...trade, I guess. However, things just get from bad to worse. Facing off with a mutinous crew, who are not too happy with Dag taking off into the unknown (...
0 out of 0 found this review helpful. -
Marvel`s Frankly Farcical Fantasy... 0
`For those who thrilled to J.R.R.Tolkien`s "Lord of the Rings"...` states the cover, `...an all-new adventure into EPIC FANTASY!`... Epic fantasy? Hardly. Doug Moench must have just finished one of the many cheesy sci-fi fantasy novels of the `70s or his first Tunnels and Trolls game when he put this to paper... Weird World is an odd fantasy adventure, although to be fair it begins quite well, but then slips rapidly into just plain daft. It tells the story of Tyndall, sent out into the monster-h...
0 out of 0 found this review helpful. -
Vampire Tale Looks The Business... 0
Vampires again. I know there`s so many vampire comics in the mix at the moment, that alot of people are getting fed up with them. I`m not, I like vampires. Or should I say, I like the old-style creatures of the night, not all this teenage, romantic nonsense (shudders). No chance of that in Baltimore: The Plague Ships, these are most definitely `old-style`: red eyed and bestial-looking nosferatu. In fact the whole comic comes across in an atmospheric `old-style` - the art is very appropriate. Se...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Nothing Grimm About This Eye-Candy... 0
Okay, I know a couple of days ago, I reviewed a Lady Death swimwear issue and cast a bit of a critical eye on that and the whole swimwear/lingerie glamour mags. Then I got my sweaty paws on Grimm Fairy Tales: Swimsuit Edition #1 and...this ones actually quite good. Unlike some of the mags of this theme that I`ve flicked through, the portraits in this issue are actually pretty decent pin-ups. Beautiful artwork and vibrantly coloured - sure, I guess it`s all eye-candy. It`s all cheesecake art. On...
7 out of 7 found this review helpful. -
Captain Bintang`s Night-In-With-A-DVD Movie Review 0
1957, a Russian cargo plane crashes over Antarctica, carrying a mysterious cargo... Present day, and US Marshal Carrie Stetko is based on a multi-national research base out in Antarctica, her six-month shift is coming to a close and she`s prepared for her flight back to the States... However, a body has been spotted out on the ice. Flying out to investigate, Stetko is curious that the body is miles from nowhere, with no sub-zero weather kit and smashed as if from a fall. As Stetko investigates f...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
Feed Your Head 2
...remember what the dormouse said? This is some weeeeird trippy shiiiit, man. Lewis Carroll`s original story of Alice`s Adventures in Wonderland has some psychedelic connections, and I think Raven Gregory has tried to hit on them in this tale of Wonderland. There is something very odd going on with the Liddle family... Mum, Alice, sits on the sofa with a thousand yard stare stroking a white rabbit. She`s `zoned out` explains troublesome teenager, Calie as she smuggles a boyfriend upstairs to he...
3 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
Goth Glam? 0
I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Sure, she`s an attractive looking spectacle - if you like hellish albino swordmaidens. Lady Death has featured in quite a number of pin-up art features now, not really my choice of comic-model, but hey, whatever rocks your world... They`re a curious thing, these swinwear/bikini/lingerie etc publications. I can understand volumes of artwork from, say, Frank Frazetta or Boris Vallejo being of interest with their particular painted super-realism and sen...
3 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
Hell Never Looked So Good 0
Meet Nancy - whisky drinking, chain-smoking, clad in combat boots, skimpy t-shirt, a tiny pair of denim cutoffs and swinging a chainsaw. She`s dead and gone to Hell. She doesn`t like it, and wants out. And there you have the plot of Image`s new series, `Nancy In Hell`. It`s not much of a story, but then who cares. For me, this comic is about the art - it`s excellent. Juan Jose Ryp has worked on a few Avatar Press publications, and this series is in that typically Bad Girl Art style that Avatar ...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful.
Use your keyboard!
- ESC
Log in to comment