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5 (120) 4 (390) 3 (532) 2 (282) 1 (79) 3.2 starsAverage score of 1290 user reviews
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Kull Volume 3 Comes to a Head-Scratching End 0
Barry Windsor-Smith's awesome companion piece to the previous issue's cover Issue 10 was the final issue of Kull volume 3, and effectively the end of Kull at Marvel. There's a lot going on in this issue - it opens on action with a boar hunt in the woods. The issue has intrigue (some devious looters), tragic romance (Daphna is sick and Kull's love is the only cure), wizardry (an attempt to save Daphna as well as evil magic afoot in the Pictish Isles), villains (the dramatic return of the serpent ...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Better Than You Think 0
The movie that started a genreThe Italian Hercules movies of the 50s and 60s are often a source of jeers and derision, and rightly so as there were so many of them and scores of knock-offs. The production values of these films was highly variable, with some being incredibly cheap looking. To make matters worse, by the time many of these films made their way to America, they were butchered for content, badly dubbed, and often poor in picture quality, scratched, faded, broken and spliced.Often for...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Average Buffy Episode 3
Giles gets in Buffy's face"Band Candy" is definitely sub-par for the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The villains have one of the most convoluted plans ever, that breaks down something like this: they create a massive factory operation to manufacture a ton of chocolate bars that turn adults who eat it into teenagers (as if that automatically makes them irresponsible), supply them to the local high school and get Sunnydale High to use them as a fundraising strategy to buy new band uniforms, in the...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
Kull Meets His Match 0
The first of a pair of matching Kull coversKull volume 3 was just finding its footing in the early 1980s. Unfortunately, the Sword and Sorcery revival was dying out. While long running plot setups aren't going to payoff at this point, it's still worth checking out the final two issues of Kull, if nothing else for the wonderful pair of wonderful pencil art covers by Barry Windsor-Smith.The story isn't half bad either. It concerns Kull resurrecting an ancient Valusian hero so that he may have some...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Late Era Marvel Kull Was at Least Ambitious 0
The third volume of Kull the Conqueror is the least fondly remembered incarnation of the Kull comics when they were under license to Marvel, however there is one way that this series exceeded the others, and even the long running Conan the Barbarian series, and that's by having multiple concurrent story lines.First there's the story of Kull's long-time nemesis Baron Kanuub, who's sentenced to execution for his role in planning an assassination attempt on Kull. There's also the tale of Daphna, th...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
The Jonah Hex Cookbook 0
Jonah Hex in a collapsing mine The Jonah Hex story in this issue is a fairly lackluster affair about Jonah helping a strong but dull-witted man whose best friend was killed by a crooked local banker and his cohorts. Of the four segments to this comic, this lead feature is actually the least interesting. Probably the most notable thing about it is the excellent use of color by Bob Le Rose, who uses colors to create highlights and shading like an inker does to enhance the illusion of depth.Perhaps...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Lots of Action in Episode 4 0
Lobby card for episode 4The fourth chapter of "Son of Zorro" is filled with action. It kicks off with the fight in the depot where Boyd's men plan to blow the Mail safe with Zorro and Peggy inside.Later Jeff Stewart is in a gunfight when he comes across the attempted robbery of the supply wagon for the new road. He's captured and the bad guys also send a fake engineer to survey the new road, but who is actually planning to blow the canyon wall with explosives, burying the construction camp in th...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Titano! Simon Drudd! And the Man Who Knew When the World Would End! 0
Titano the Giant CrustaceanIssue ten of Tales to Astonish was not one that was particularly notable for the storytelling, but it does feature some great art, presumably by Jack Kirby and Don Heck as there are no given credits.Steve Ditko did sign one of the stories, "Something Lurks Inside!", which is understandable because it's some of his best work on the title. The story involves a rocket returning to earth with an infected passenger and hostile insect like aliens aboard. It's hard to read th...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
The Only Time We Ever Saw Jonah Hex's Mother 0
Jonah Hex in a bar room brawl What makes the story "The Debt" so impactful a story is that it's about Jonah Hex coming to the aid of his mother, and it is the one and only time we ever see her in the entire history of Jonah Hex comics. Though the story is pretty standard - Jonah shows up in a town, helps a citizen (in this case his mother) who is being threatened by hoods, breaks some heads and shoots some people, then rides off into the sunset. But in this case in between the fighting, we get a...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Guess They Were Focused on Issue 200 0
The Cover Tells the Whole Story Issue 199 of Justice League of America, "Grand Canyon Showdown", concludes the tale begun last issue "Once Upon a Time in the Wild Wild West...".The art is good, though Cinnamon and Bat Lash meet for the first time, and they are dressed nearly identically, but no one seems to wonder about it.The story, on the other hand, really doesn't seem to make much sense. It seems as if it was perhaps condensed from a larger, longer story with chunks just left out for reasons...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
The Justice League in the Old West 0
DC's Western heroes meet DC's modern superheroes In the run up to issue 200 of Justice League of America, there was a two part story that sent four JLA-ers back to the American West in 1878. This issue's story, "Once Upon A Time, in the Wild, Wild West!" was the first part of the story. As such it spends a lot of time setting things up: Jonah Hex meets Green Lantern; Zatanna meets Cinnamon; The Elongated Man meets Scalphunter; The Flash meets Bat Lash.Meanwhile in 1981, Superman, investigating t...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Reexamining 'Daredevil' 0
The 'Daredevil' fans would like to forget. Reexamining 'Daredevil' (2003) Most people would rather forget the 2003 film Daredevil, starring Ben Affleck in the title role, which isn't hard to do - it's a very forgettable film. Despite only having come out about 15 years ago, I realized as I recently re-watched it that there were films I saw over 30 years ago that I remember better than this one.So when the questions comes up, "is it better or worse than you remember," the answer is yes. It's bot...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
Lower Your Expectations 0
The Elektra film... it is what it is.It's never a good sign when both the screenwriter, and lead actor try to distance themselves from a movie, as is the case with Elektra. And given the film it was spun off from, Daredevil, was no prize to begin with, it seems like it's a film destined for the scrapheap.Briefly, the story concerns Elektra, an assassin who's hired to kill a man and his daughter, but given her own past - seeing her own single father killed by an assassin - she can't do it. When s...
2 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
One of the Best Nonfiction Graphic Novels of All Time 0
In the New York Observer, Gladstone describes the book as "a treatise on the relationship between us and the news media". When it comes to non-fiction graphic novels, the field is dominated by personal memoirs; Art Spiegelman's Maus, and Harvey Pekar's American Splendor , and more recently Satrapi's Persepolis come immediately to mind. Indeed the very medium itself was birthed by the memoir - Will Eisner's A Contract with God was arguably the first true graphic novel.Once you look beyond biograp...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Back From the Dead 0
Elektra is resurrected In the final book of the Elektra Saga, The Hand plans to resurrect Elektra as their ultimate assassin. Standing in their way is Stick's order, and caught in the middle is Daredevil, the Black Widow, and their temporary ally, The Kingpin!While the story doesn't quite hit the heights the death of Elektra did, Frank Miller's art and style continues to improve. A silhouette ninja battle here is a precursor to his work on The Wolverine miniseries. Definitely worth the read; a p...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
The Climax of the Elektra Story 0
Elektra becomes The Kingpin's #1 assassinThe third volume of the Elektra Saga brings everything to a head. The Kingpin's a hairs breadth away from controlling the Mayor's Office of New York City thanks to his new assassin, Elektra. But Bullseye used to have that job before he was incarcerated at Rikers Island, and when fellow inmate The Punisher tips him off, he plans to escape and get revenge.Frank Miller rocketed to comic book stardom writing, drawing and inking these Daredevil issues featurin...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Entertaining But Dated 0
Droom, one of Marvel's most famous giant monsters. This issue has some stories that make it worth checking out for fans of the Atlas era. First there's a return of the genie from issue #8. Following that is "No Way Out", one of the more interesting philosophical sci-fi stories to appear in Tales to Astonish. After that comes "I Saw Droom the Living Lizard!" which features one of the most famous giant monsters from the Atlas era. The text story "Time-Stream Rescue" is a better than average (for A...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
This is When Frank Miller Started to Change Comics 0
Kirigi attempts to get the drop on ElektraLisa Lyon, the model for ElektraThe second "Book" of the "Elektra Saga" occurs in Daredevil issues 174-176. At this point Frank Miller has really come into his own; writing and illustrating his own scripts, developing the characters, in this case Elektra in particular, drawing inspiration from female body builders like Lisa Lyon (the reference model for Elektra), and immersing himself in Japanese history. The result: panels of martial arts action where t...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Back in 1965 A Supervillain Was Using Fracking To Cause Earthquakes! 0
Burgess Meredith as Professor Okrney Cadwallader This episode isn't for everyone. The creators clearly intended to inject some humor into this series - every single character, even the minor ones provides some comic relief this time out. But the humor might not translate well to modern audiences.But even if some of the laughs fall flat, it's worth sticking it out if for no other reason than to see Burgess Meredith hamming it up as Professor Okrney Cadwallader, the most interesting villain in t...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Disjointed Collection of Material Makes O.K. Remedial Primer On Elektra 0
Frank Miller's first notable work as both writer and artist. One of the most notable runs in comic book history was Frank Miller's late 70s and early 80s work on Marvel's Daredevil, and during that time one of the most notable story lines was the on-again-off-again, doomed relationship between Daredevil and Elektra, which Miller created loosely inspired by the relationship between The Spirit and Sands Saref from Will Eisner's The Spirit comics.But Frank Miller never actually wrote an "Elektra Sa...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
A Strong Finish to Season 1 0
Daredevil The season finale of Marvel's Daredevil is a good one, with Fisk finally becoming the Kingpin when he engineers an escape from custody after delivering a monologue reminiscent of Jules "When I lay My vengeance upon thee" speech in Pulp Fiction.Murdock completes the transition to Daredevil as well, finally donning the iconic red costume, carrying the billy club, and getting dubbed in the press as "Daredevil".Overall this has been one of the best comic book superhero series television ha...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Suffers A Bit From Trying To Speedily Wrap Things Up 0
The Devil Brings HellfireThe first season of Marvel's Daredevil is rapidly drawing to a close. Almost too rapidly. The second to last episode, "The Ones We Leave Behind" seems to have bitten off a tad bit more than it could chew. It's still a good episode, but it has a couple problems.Daredevil follows a blind man back to Gao's heroin lab. This is a bit problematic, as it was just a random blind guy - it seems a bit convenient that the first blind guy he comes across is one of Gao's dealers - b...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Nail Bitingly Intense 0
Wesley takes matters into his own hands. As things start to spiral out of control for both Daredevil - who is still recovering from the near fatal wounds he received in combat with Nobu, and who may not be able to rely on Nurse Temple's help in the future, and needs to find a way to protect himself better in battle - and The Kingpin - whose alliance seems to be disintegrating with the Russian Mafia, the Yakuza, the Chinese Tong, and Owsley all suspicious of each other in the wake of the poisonin...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Developing Foggy and Matt's Back Story 0
The partnership is formed.This episode is primarily devoted to exploring the back story about Foggy and Matt's friendship from roommates in college to today. This is where a TV series like this can really shine, devoting much more time to character development than any movie has time for. Contrasting their current dispute over Murdock hiding his not-quite-blindness and vigilante activities with their earlier days of wide-eyed optimism as shown through flashbacks we come to get a very clear pictu...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Daredevil vs, The Kingpin 0
Remember, Daredevil is in black, the ninja is the one in red. I knew this series would get around to having ninjas in it sooner or later. We'll see if it turns out to be The Hand, as I predicted a few episodes back, but let's not get hung up on that right now.This has to be one of the most exciting episodes of Daredevil yet. Fisk seems to be untouchable now that he's come out to the media as a wealthy philanthropist working to better Hell's Kitchen. When Mrs. Cardenas is killed, and the destruct...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
The Kingpin's Origin 0
Fisk is haunted by his past. First we had Daredevil's origin, now we get The Kingpin's origin. Although they had fairly different backgrounds, especially with how they related to their father figures, we see that the Kingpin in many ways is a mirror image of Daredevil.The title in fact literally refers to a mirror. We learn that Fisk is haunted by the image of his younger self that he sees reflected back at him in the mirror.The devotion to character development that this show pays to characters...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Some Clever Ideas for a Standard Horse Opera 0
There are some clever ideas in this otherwise standard horse opera. At the end of last chapter, Zorro and Kate were caught in a canyon with a cart full of explosives as the bad guys rolled flaming coal barrels down at them. This episode, as you can probably predict from the title, ends up with Kate about to be crushed by a giant mill stone. It's impressive to see that the mill here looks entirely like an actual working mill, and not just a set Another clever bit involves Jeff Stewart lassoing an...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Daredevil's Origin 0
StickImmediately after being tasered by Owlsley, Matt Murdock is approached by his old mentor, Stick. Stick wants his help to stopping something called "Black Sky" that the Yakuza are bringing into New York via a shipping container. Matt agrees, on the condition that Stick promises there will be no killing. But things don't go as planned.Last episode I said that the series owed a lot to the Frank Miller incarnation of Daredevil, and this episode proves it. Stick was never part of Daredevil's ori...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
One of the Earliest D.C. Comics Characters to Hit the Big Screen 0
Columbia Pictures' The Vigilante: Fighting Hero of the West is a simple, fun "modern" Western. Set in the present (1947 the time of filming) rather than the Old West, it featured an updated version of Greg Sanders (The Vigilante), played by Ralph Byrd of Dick Tracy fame, fighting crime in Southern California. It's derivative of the serials that have come before - once again (despite the name 'Vigilante') the hero is working for the Federal Government as is the case with most superhero fare of th...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Daredevil or Batman? 0
Is "Condemned" an homage to Batman?In a previous review we mentioned how the work of Frank Miller looms large over this series. The show does include his name in the "special thanks" at the end of every episode. But Frank Miller's run as a writer of Daredevil comics began at the urging of editor Denny O'Neil. While that is one of the most legendary runs in comic history, O'Neil and Miller's names are associated with another comic character even more than Daredevil: Batman.While still working on ...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Feel the Heat 0
The building gang war finally erupts in “World On Fire”. If last episode was about Fisk's private life, this one is about his role as The Kingpin. Even during his second date with Vanessa the talk is less about romance, and more about his plans for the neighborhood, and why she shouldn't fear him, even though she knows what he does for a living.But the "fire" of the title is, as usual, a metaphor. It not only refers to the literal burning of Hell's Kitchen - something that happens wh...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
In the Blood 0
Ben Urich and Karen Page start their own investigation.With this episode we finally get to see what the Marvel Cinematic Universe version of Wilson Fisk is like. A good portion of screen time is given to Wilson Fisk's date with art dealer Vanessa Marianna. Fisk, played by Vincent D'Onofrio, brings a realism to the character that is reminiscent of the modern NYC gangster films of the 1990s like Carlito's Way. A man for whom crime and violence is a way of life. As with the comics, Fisk like Darede...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Frank Miller Looms Large Over This Series 0
In the third episode of Daredevil, Nelson & Murdock are retained by Wesley to defend an assassin on the mob's payroll. Nelson of course objects, but Murdock agrees so that he can gather more information on the organization.It's very apparent that this series is going to take Daredevil into the "belly of the beast", so to speak, with regards to the Hell's Kitchen underworld, and it's not going to happen without him getting his hands dirty. All of this is reminiscent of the work Frank Miller ...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Daredevil: Redemption 0
In the second episode of Marvel's Daredevil, we see that the show is going to continue in the vein of the first episode. Namely, it's going to be a much grittier superhero TV show than we've seen anywhere to date. In a flashback, we learn a lot about what happened to Matt's father, and how he redeemed himself. It parallels Matt's story, where he has failed to rescue the kidnapped boy, but gets a second chance.The lighting is surreal filled with bright colors, clearly influenced by Cinema du Loo...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Musing on the Nature of Competition 0
"We all have the desire to win, whether we're human... vampire... and whatever the hell you are, my brother," says Mr. Trick in this episode, and it's pretty much an accurate summary of the episode's theme. Angry with Cordelia, and desiring to be thought of as a normal high school girl, Buffy decides to run against her for the title of Homecoming Queen. Meanwhile, Mr. Trick takes advantage of the fact that there are two slayers in Sunnydale to arrange for "Slayerfest 98" a competition to hunt d...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
Daredevil Redux 0
Netflix believes they can do Daredevil justice.Without the need for fancy special effects like say Spider-Man or The Hulk, you would think that Daredevil would be fairly easy to adapt to the screen, however Marvel's martial arts heroes like Daredevil (and Elektra, The Punisher, etc.) have traditionally fared very poorly in adaptation. Undaunted, Netflix has chosen the character for a flagship series for the company's foray into producing original streaming content.The results are quite promising...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Dr. Jekyll Meets Dracula Meets the Wolf Man 0
Pete isn't the best boyfriend.As the title implies, there are multiple "beasts" in this episode that Buffy (the "beauty") has to deal with.The episode opens with Willow reading a bedtime story for Oz who is in werewolf form, the story is Jack London's The Call of the Wild, and true to style, it sets the tone for the whole episode. When Xander falls asleep during his turn watching Oz and it's discovered that there was an open window Oz becomes the first suspect in a series of maulings on the nigh...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
Growing Cast of Interesting Characters 0
Everybody likes Faith... but Buffy's not sure about her.Season 3 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer really upped the number of interesting supporting characters. Like most episodes of Buffy, the title of this episode "Faith, Hope & Trick" is a double entendre. There is the obvious idea that Buffy regains some faith and hope (which is true - she even starts dating again), but there is a catch (though she doesn't know it yet).The other meaning of the title is that this episode literally introduces th...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
Setting Up Ultron 0
In "The Dirty Half Dozen", Gordon is unable to save Campbell from HYDRA. Coulson wants to work with Gonzales' forces and offers to open Fury's toolbox. Bakshi reveals to them the location of the HYDRA base where Deathlok and Campbell are being held.Jiaying bans Inhuman involvement, but Raina, Gordon, and Skye go behind her back to get Skye back to S.H.I.E.L.D. in time to join the raid on HYDRA. Hydra shoots down the Bus, but the team escapes in a quinjet.Things are moving at a rapid pace, and t...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Twisted Alliances 0
Who do all four of these people hate more than each other? "Frenemy of My Frenemy" pushes the crossing and double crossing about as far as you can go. On one side you have Coulson who has recruited Deathlok (a former foe) to help him coerce current foes (and former allies) Ward and Agent 33 to help them against enemies Hydra, who were former allies (now enemies) of Ward and Agent 33, while simultaneously avoiding former allied S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who are now working against them as a separate fa...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful.
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