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5 (48) 4 (111) 3 (111) 2 (27) 1 (1) 3.6 starsAverage score of 298 user reviews
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Two Names No More 0
"Public Enemy" Directed by Dwight Little Written by Marc Guggenheim & Wendy Mericle "The Arrow is Batman” and “Arrow is Batman without Batman”, these are common refrains because they are true. Arrow producers: Berlanti, Kreisberg, and Guggenheim, consciously used the visual iconography of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy in adapting Green Arrow to the small screen. With good reason, it was a popular and understood language. With the pilot to The Flash, the roof...
2 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
I am Who? 0
Written by Dan Jurgens Pencils Ethan Van Sciver Inks Ethan Van Sciver Colored by Marcelo Maiolo Written by Dan Jurgens, Convergence #0 “The God Machine” doses the requisite setup for the event to really begin next with issue #1. Jurgens and artist Ethan Van Sciver deliver a disorienting book that tells the origin of the Planet Incarnate, Telos by what is essentially one big villain monologue, in a story powered by dream logic. Set outside the confines of time and space, “The G...
2 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
Tricks, Tricks Every Where 1
"Tricksters" Directed by Ralph Hemecker Written by Andrew Kreisberg As The Flash is wont to do, a lot happens in this episode. “Tricksters” makes usage of heroic or villainous identity as mutable, generational, and legacy items. Is an episode where all three of Barry’s “Dads” are in the same room. And the whole mystery of Eobard Thawne, the Reverse Flash, got perhaps more convoluted than necessary.While I believe in analyzing media from an intersectional perspectiv...
1 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
It's Showtime (read in Sting voice) 1
Written by Kelly Thompson, Art by Sophie Campbell who is also credited with story along with Thompson, Colors by M. Victoria Robado, and Letters by Robbie Robbins. I am probably not in the target demo for Jem and the Holograms being published by IDW. The relaunched series is written by Kelly Thompson, art by Sophie Campbell who is also credited with story along with Thompson, colors by M. Victoria Robado, and letters by Robbie Robbins. For starters, I am a guy. More importantly, I was born in 19...
3 out of 4 found this review helpful. -
Disrupting the Norm 0
"Chapter Six" Story by Jim Zub, Line Art Steve Cummings, Colors Tamra Bonvillain, Letters Marshall Dillon, Back Matter Zack Davisson So, tell me if you’ve heard this before. There is a girl, Ohara Emi. She is kind of ordinary. A bit shy, more interested in being a good daughter for her family than doing the things that she really loves. She has her routine and sticks to it. She gets up. She walks to the train. She goes to school. Goes home, dose her home work. Sleeps and repeat. If Wayword...
1 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
Who Am I? 0
Catwoman #40 “The Issue and End” - Written by Genevieve Valentine Pencils Garry Brown Inks Garry Brown Colored by Lee Loughridge Cover by Jae Lee & June ChungI am a bandwagon jumper.Last month, when Catwoman #39 “Better Than He Does Himself” came out and it was confirmed that Selina Kyle is bisexual, my interest was piqued. Side note, you can read Catwoman writer Genevieve Valentine’s thoughts on #39 here. Issue 39 being the penultimate issue to Valentine&rsquo...
2 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
Groundhog Day 0
"Rogue Time" Directd by John Behring Story by: Grainne Godfree Teleplay by: Brooke Eikmeier & Kai Yu Wu A fair amount of the discussion surrounding last week’s episode of The Flash “Out of Time”, revolved around trying to quantify its importance. “Out of Time” was one of the more emotionally effective episodes the series has done, but with Barry’s time travel antics in the final five minutes it all seemed to destine to be ret conned away, it never happened...
3 out of 4 found this review helpful. -
The One with the Get Out of Hell Free Card 0
Written by Gail Simone Pencils Nicola Scott Inks Doug Hazlewood The macguffin is one of the most common plot devices you’ll find in western narratives, mainly because you can make just about anything one. It is generally defined as the object or person who moves the plot and character forward. Hitchcock was always rather good at using them: the money in Psycho, mistaken identity in multiple features, or rope in Rope. But not all of these are made equal. For every Ark of the Covenant you w...
2 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
To Be or Not To Be 0
"The Offer" Directed By Dermott Downs Written By Beth Schwartz & Brian Ford Sullivan The first half of this season of Arrow was less than interesting, blame the less interesting that you’d think “Who Killed Sara Lance?” I’m working on my ‘Critical Path’ through Arrow and right now could likely cut about half of season three’s first 13 episodes.Now the structure of this season was not done without purpose; it was all done as means to introduce Ra&rs...
1 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
Bringing the Rain and the Funk 0
"Out of Time" Drected by Thor Freudenthal Written by Todd Helbing & Aaron Helbing The Flash has been an amazing ride thus far; with how effortlessly it seemed to execute its specific and larger comic mythos and translate it onto the small screen in understandable fashion. “Out of Time” is another episode like “Fallout”(1x13), “The Sound and the Fury”(1x11) and others that end on the promise of more. This series has gone so far in such short a time. Such hi...
1 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
Not with a Bang 2
With Earth 2 #32 “Grounded” the monthly title that was my first real stab at sticking with an ongoing DC title ends. Counting the pair of annuals, the series run comes out to 35 total issues a bit more if you count the Zero/Villians/Futures End Month titles (but really who wants to do that). But this isn’t ‘The End’. The weekly title World’s End still has a couple of issues to go. And even than it isn’t the end with the title relaunching as Earth 2: Soci...
2 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
A Man Cannot Live by Two Names 0
"Nanda Parbat" Directed by Gregory Smith Story by: Wendy Mericle & Ben Sokolowski Teleplay by: Erik Oleson & Ben Sokolowski On the latest episode of Thought Bubble, Da7e Gonzales and Joanna Robinson debated the merits of The Flash and Arrow. Da7e brought up how The Flash really just goes for its comic book stuff. Arrow’s third season, has felt more akin to its first season than its second. The first season was a much slower burn, largely due to it finding its tonal legs. Once it h...
2 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
Fin 0
Agent Carter "Valediction" Directed by Christopher Misiano Written By Michele Fazekas & Tara Butters When Agent Carter premiered, it was a breath of fresh air from Marvel. Removed from the generic necessities of 100+ million dollar blockbuster spectacle, Agent Carter was allowed to tell a much smaller intimate story about a person. Not an alien God. Not an eccentric billionaire-playboy-philanthropist. Not a guy who turns into a big scary rage monster. And not a character who is the absolute ...
1 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
I Wasn't Always on the Island 3
"The Return" Directed by Dermott Downs Written by Marc Guggenheim & Erik Oleson Executive Producer Marc Guggenheim previewed “The Return” by linking it to the lineage of other flashback centered episodes such as "The Odyssey"(1x14) and “The Promise”(2x15). While formally it mirrors those two episodes, “The Return” main thread, Oliver’s secret return to Starling, and sub thread, Ollie and Thea surviving on the island, lack the emotional weight of tho...
2 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
Down Down You Go 1
Like Secret Six #2 “Down the Rabbit Hole” so to have my thoughts been delayed. Darn hospitals.“One Less Mouth to Feed” was a decent enough start to the series; it had a lot of ground work to lay. Having the series start in a scenario like the original Saw was a nice. It forced character interaction and naturalized the exposition while providing a deadline clock plot for the second issue. If Gail Simone wanted to, she could have had the next 4-5 issues work in the same way...
3 out of 4 found this review helpful. -
Gotta Go Fast 1
"The Nuclear Man" Directed By Glen Winter Written By Andrew Kreisberg & Katherine Walczak "Aren't you worried about moving too fast?" Cisco wonders in relation Barry and his blooming relationship with Linda Park. This is, of course, a double entendre. Barry and Linda are progressing rather fast, but also there is the potential problem of Barry actually moving too fast when the time comes, though Linda didn’t seem to mind that. With Barry and Iris defiantly not together in the immediate...
2 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
Legacy 0
"Canaries" Directed by Michael Schultz Written by Jake Coburn & Emilio Ortega Aldrich "I felt pretty lame not recognizing my own brother just because he's wearing a hood." In Thea’s defense, Ollie was wearing some grease paint and eventually a domino mask. Still Thea’s appraisal runs counter to the meta aspect of Arrow. That keeping a secret like this is incredible difficult and the idea of it being kept strains credulity more than Team Arrow’s ability to do this night in n...
1 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
Sympathy for the Devil 0
"Uprising" Jesse Warn Beth Schwartz & Brian Ford Sullivan The sad thing in life is that everyone has their reasons. You may not like them or understand them but they are theirs alone. Everything then is justifiable at least to the perpetrator. Malcolm Merlyn has always been treated like the Devil on Arrow but even the Devil has his own twisted reasons.Normally I don’t mind the flashbacks, they aren’t really worth talking about most of the time. This season’s batches has lar...
1 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
Pulling a Shawshank 0
The Flash "Crazy for You" Directed by Rob Hardy Written by Aaron Helbing & Todd Helbing If Barry Allen were to live in Westeros he would undoubtedly be like Sansa Stark in the first chunk of that series, a “sweet summer child” according to Old Nan. Barry Allen has all the markings of a tragic brooding hero, murdered Mother and a Father in Iron Heights for a crime he didn’t commit. None of this has stopped Barry from being a warm, caring, genuinely helpful person. Unlike San...
1 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
An Assassin and a Catman walk into a Store 0
Secret Six #1 “Unhinged, Part One: At the Point of Puncture” Written by Gail Simone Pencils Nicola Scott Inks Doug Hazlewood Letterer Steve Wands Secret Six: Six Degrees of Devastation came out from 2006-2007. The first issue of Secret Six third volume, now an ongoing series, hit store shelves September 3 2008. A lot can change in a year, even in the temporally nebulous DC Universe. The Death of the New Gods happened, which means sadly Knockout is dead (or is she?). Bane is now part ...
1 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
Take me Down to Midnight City 0
"Midnight City" Directed by Nick Copus Written by Wendy Mericle & Ben Sokolowski The TA for my media studies class went off on a bit of a stoner tangent about fractal art the math behind music (way to ruin music guy). While his idea of visually representing the overall arc/plotting of a series isn’t exactly new it was a nice reminder to always keep an open mind and to see multiple points of view. With The Flash and its exuberance, that series has set itself up as the Superman, Doc Sava...
2 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
Fragments of Time 0
Superman/Wonder Woman #7 “Rise” Written by Charles Soule Art by Eddy BarrowsThe thought bubble is an interesting in between literature and film to me. In prose you can easily write what it is a character is thinking just as easily as their dialog. Authors can use this interiority as a tool to build tension or in the case of John W. Campbell, Jr.'s novella Who Goes There? excise it completely and ratchet up the tension. In film interiority is slightly trickier. You can have the voic...
1 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
Signifying Something 1
The Flash "The Sound and the Fury" Directed by John Showalter Written by Alison Schapker & Brooke Eikmeier As Harrison Wells tells his A.I. at the end of tonight’s episode of The Flash, “The Sound and the Fury”, the “end game” approaches. The idea of end game approaching in episode 11 is a bit surprising. Andrew Kreisberg did say in an interview with IGN "With Arrow, I think we learned not to jerk the audience around too much.” They really haven’t je...
3 out of 4 found this review helpful. -
A Harbour in the Tempest or Chekhov’s Sword 0
Superman/Wonder Woman "Until the End" Written by Charles Soule Art by Tony Daniel Last issue ended in a “strategic retreat” between Superman-Wonder Woman and the rampaging Zod and Faora. It was a nice prelude to the actual Big O’ll Fight that is Superman/Wonder Woman #6 “Until the End”. Of course we can’t have this final climatic battle until Superman and Wonder Woman get their house in order. It’s been simmering below the surface since the beginning, th...
2 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
Silence and Fury 0
Superman/Wonder Woman #5 “Reflections” Written by Charles Soule Art by Tony Daniel In an issue that could be consider a “Big O’ll Fight” issue, even discounting earlier skirmishes the Superman-Wonder Woman v Zod-Faora(:Dawn of Couples Therapy) takes up half of the book. The action is nicely contrasted in the great stillness and just beautifully composed imagery at the start with Wonder Woman returning home to Themiscyra.Page 1 is simply beautiful. The main frame, Wo...
2 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
The Living are the Left Behind 1
"Left Behind" Directed by Glen Winter Written by Marc Guggenheim & Erik Oleson In my thoughts on the Arrow season 3 midseason finale, “The Climb”, I speculated that while Oliver was away Team Arrow and Starling would go through some kind of Battle for the Hood. Not a totally unreasonable thought, the Arrow has been largely deified by the police and local goverment and it isn’t like we have various prince and princess-lings (Aresonal, Diggle,Lureal Canary,Ray Palmer). &ldquo...
3 out of 4 found this review helpful. -
Fire & Ice like Oil & Water 0
"Revenge of the Rogues" Directed by Nick Copus Written by Geoff Johns & Kai Yu Wu I don’t like being all sentimental but man, it’s real nice having The Flash back on TV.With the Man in the Yellow Suit revealed, Barry is no longer the fastest man alive. Having lost is title, like Rocky in Rocky III, Barry needs to train up before facing off with his nemesis once again (this time for KEEPS). The Flash actually hasn’t done many training sequences; we’ve had Barry clinica...
1 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
What Would You Do? Blowing off Steam 0
Superman/Wonder Woman #4 “What Any Man Would Do; The Blog Read Around the World” Written by Charles Soule Art by Tony Daniel Colors by Tomeu Morey Superman/Wonder Woman #5 second page is densely packed with word balloons. So much so that on my first read I missed this visual component of storytelling completely, our leads are dressed differently. Kal-El is dressed like Clark Kent. Diana is still dressed like Wonder Woman or is putting the Wonder Woman uniform back on. Either way it c...
2 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
Too Epic Too Litle Time 2
Like Man of Steel, Justice League: War was a less then auspicious start to this new DC Animated Universe. Son of Batman was no better. It isn’t like group working at Warner Bros. Animation, suddenly forgot how to make a good animated feature, they released the out of continuity Batman: Assault on Arkham after those two features. The latest entry into the New52DCAU (because convoluted acronyms are all the rage) doesn’t reach the highs of past animated features but also dosen’t ...
2 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
What isn't out of Superman's reach? 0
Superman/Wonder Woman #3 "Zod" Written by Charles Soule Art by Tony Daniel Color by Tomeu MoreyDC’s A-tier heroes are treated as near gods, kind of helps that some of them are. Superman and Wonder Woman cannot only be gods in this book. Throwing them together in the context of exploring a romantic relationship is a very humanizing move. Even run-ins with literal gods allows for very human scenes in their wake. The part of the Superman-Batman conversation where Bruce emphasizes the fact tha...
2 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
Meet the Family 2
Superman/Wonder Woman “Gods and Monsters” Written by Charles Soule Art by Tony DanielGone is the fun timey wimey stuff, replaced with the need to deal with more pressing matters. Doomsday is a big deal, he did kill Superman the one time long ago in a universe far far away. As straight forward “Gods and Monsters” is, Soule and crew make it an enjoyable read.When it comes to discussing the art of a given book, I tend to think that it’s not my strongest suit. I have be...
3 out of 4 found this review helpful. -
What do Superheroes do for dates? 0
I’m not a shipper but I do love a good ship. Yes, the pairing of Superman-Wonder Woman runs counter to the generally held meta cannon of Superman-Lois Lane and Wonder Woman-Steve Trevor, but this isn’t exactly a new pairing. It also doesn’t suddenly make those past meta relationships meaningless.From the angle Charles Soule is taking, Superman-Wonder Woman is actually a rather interesting pairing given their distance from humanity. This opens up for perhaps some interesting ru...
2 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
And this Firebird you cannot change 0
Suicide Squad #5 “The Flight of the Firebird” Written by John Osterander Art by Luke McDonelle After two stand alone issue, Suicide Squad gets back to its namesake with impossible missioning. “The Flight Of The Firebird” begins the first point in an arc involving the Squad’s mission in Russia and the retrieval of a political prisoner, Zoya Trigorin. It was that or Nicaragua.Being that it is the first issue in an arc, there is really a lot to write about without plot...
1 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
The Squad vs The Aryan Empire 0
“William Hell’s Overture” Written by John Osterander Art by Luke McDonell Let’s just take a moment to appreciate the greatness of Suicide Squad #4 title, “William Hell’s Overture”. How could you not give this book that title, irrespective of plot, when you have a character named William Hell. As a far as names go, William Hell is also a pretty decent B-Movie kind of rhyme on William Tell.“William Hell’s Overture” opening six pages play ...
2 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
Hell Hath No Furies 0
The third issue of Osterander’s Suicide Squad is a fantastic read with great efficiency in setting up the various dramatic threads for the issue and series that is only undone by the physical limitations of the 23 page comic. “Jailbreak” could’ve used an extra page or too, with a better ending “Jailbreak” could’ve been something special.Suicide Squad spun out of Legends, making it only fair that Squad deal in the aftermath of this event now that their f...
2 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
Kings and Queens of Ash City 0
There is no greater limiting factor for comics then the page count. This makes the space highly valuable, even with a slightly longer run (26 vs 23 pages) using two of those pages to fill with expositional text is a big deal. Inelegant the page may be, it gets the point across. That in order to save humanity someone initiated the Aphrodite Protocol, fusing man with machine. To rule this new evolution of humanity 9 powerful beings, heirs, were created and put in deep freeze for 700 years. With th...
2 out of 4 found this review helpful. -
Carter, Peggy Carter 2
When Agent Carter was announced, I was very hopeful that Marvel Studios would finally deliver something different. Ten films into their slate, and I’ve grown board with their formula which has only shown through more as they’ve stretched genre to differentiate their films. If Agent Carter couldn’t be different, it could at least be better the Agents of SHIELD, currently an improved if forgettable series. Agent Carter isn’t all the change I could believe (Marvel really lo...
2 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
How Lisa Met Ally 2
WARNING: NSFW IMAGES BELOWLet’s quickly get some foundation down. Yes this is an 18+ book, there is a fair amount of nudity and sex in this book. So you know maybe don’t leave this open around your kids…or anyone you haven’t tried to make read Sex Criminals.Written and Art by Stjepan ŠejićThere are three key factors that got me from being a guy who would pick up the random graphic novel/trade paperback at a Barnes & Nobel to buying monthly books and listening ...
3 out of 4 found this review helpful. -
This Thing Never Works Like it Should 3
Written by Sean Ryan Art by Rob Hunter Colors by Blond After a disastrous first mission, the New Suicide Squad is being sent out on their second mission set in China dealing with the manufacturing of meta humans. I overall enjoyed the first arc of New Suicide Squad “Pure Insantiy”, mostly for Vic Sage’s rather meta reasoning for why the Squad is now was made up of Black Manta, Harley Quinn, Deathstroke, Joker’s Daughter, and Deadshot. With all that squared away, issue 5 &...
2 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
Holy Cliffhangers Arrow Man 1
I was helping a friend out with a video project earlier today. My biggest note was that his ending wasn’t a strong hard cut to black or somber slow dissolve on a made point. It was more like a slow fade to black that wasn’t sure it was ending.There are strong reasons for ending on a cliffhanger with a hard cut to black after some shocking moment or realization. The sudden cut is disruption to the rhythm we consume media in. It sends your audience out wanting more, groaning that they...
3 out of 4 found this review helpful.
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