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5 (123) 4 (713) 3 (704) 2 (290) 1 (47) 3.5 starsAverage score of 1780 user reviews
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As good as the Avengers 2
The first full venture of the Marvel Cinematic Universe away from planet Earth (aside from the Asgard stuff and space elves from Thor) this movie successfully transitions from the Earth based heroes to a cosmic scale. Fans of the movies that are not comic fans are going to find themselves a little lost in terms of who is what, with the only connection to the other movie being the Collector, who was only seen briefly in Thor: The Dark World. In my opinion, the Avengers was a great movie, bringi...
9 out of 10 found this review helpful. -
Welcome Back Carter 1
When diving into the old issues bins, there can tend to be a certain consistency among comics. For the silver age comics from Stan Lee, this consistency is one of relative quality. As opposed to the fantastical and often farcical stories of the golden age, silver age stories tend to have more continuity and are based in a firmer reality, and Lee has achieved that here, with an engaging enough story for both Iron Man and Captain America. That being said while this issue is entertaining, there...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Goofy 0
The main story here is so bad that one might think that it came from the golden age. It has a lot of staples of that time, including loss of powers, being kicked out of a team of super heroes and malfunctioning robots. Even by the poor standards of most of these early appearances of the Legion, this one is pretty weak. The logic behind the story falls apart completely at the end when the protagonist has to explain himself to the other heroes, including the deductions which he has made. It m...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Follow the bouncing 0
The backup story here deals with the Secret Origin of Bouncing Boy. The story is perhaps a bit simplistic for a hero that is supposed to be based in the 30th century (or is that the 21st century?) but in terms of providing a relatable character this story does the best thus far of all of the Legion stories. The mot common format to this point has been "we showed up from the future with another contest to add another member" and while that is again a part of this story, it shows the heroism of...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Start here? 0
A relatively standard - though admittedly better - story about the Legion of Super Heroes from one of their earliest appearances. This involves some more mostly random time travel, and the villain here is really a stretch in terms of any kind of application (hate tapes drive his rampage.) It is nice though to see the Legion slowly materializing, with Mon-El now a member of the team. This is a mostly pretty forgettable, if still entertaining enough story, and perhaps might be a good point for...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
No seconds 0
The Legion appears here, though only in a cameo appearance, and it is an appearance that makes little sense. This story is similar to many of the period where there are swapped identities but this one goes a little overboard. Without giving away the plot, Samson and Hercules do not actually appear in this issue, but those who do offer a poor reason for doing so. This is one of the few appearances of the adult Legion, where the characters lose their regular monikers, but it is not really enou...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
Strangeness 0
This is yet another first in the diaspora like introduction of the Legion of Super Heroes. Of the many members of the future team, the two with the closest powers to Superman are Ultraman and Mon-El, and it is therefore interesting that the two of them share an equally frivolous entry into comic history. In this case, there is no connection to the Legion at all (rather it would seem that later writers just took the characters as they were no longer being used) and similar to Mon-El here a vis...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Helen of Troy 0
This is perhaps the strangest of all of the early Legion appearances. In this story Supergirl searches through time and space for a suitable wife for Superman. This has perhaps more of the most annoying plot developments of the period than any else. For instance, Supergirl simply states that she and Superman have already learned all ancient languages. There is also an aside where Superman explains that he would want to marry someone like Supergirl, only that it isn't possible because they a...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Not so fun 0
This is another early appearance of the Legion of Super Heroes, and unlike other appearances, this one follows more along the lines of a traditional comic story. It is within that framework though, that the story fails so miserably. There are so many conveniences in terms of plot here that there is little of value left to the story. The headlining villain is quickly dispatched, leaving behind a different group of villains, and this even contains what must be the easiest escape from the Phant...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
For the pets 0
This is yet another first in the history of the Legion (and for DC Comics as well) as it shows the introduction of the Legion of Super Pets. While this is of arbitrary importance to many, it does underline how ridiculous these stories can be. The Pets are assembled by the original three of the Legion of Super Heroes, but Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl and Cosmic Boy are not really necessary to the story here at all. Instead they are static characters once again, whose presence could have just as...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Developing down 0
This is more full-on ridiculousness from the early stories of the Legion of Super Heroes. Some of these early stories have a degree of nostalgic interest, but this story seems to not share that. The plot requires not one, but two doppelgangers, as well as more of the same (for instance easy to construct robots.) The idea behind this story is not very inspired, and really the Legion are not much more than static characters in the proceedings here as most of the action occurs in Smallville. A...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Stories to come 0
This could be considered the first real comic style story of the appearances of the Legion of Super Heroes so far. While other stories have had a bit (or a lot) or hokum, this story is more along the lines of "encounter villain, defeat villain." There are still a lot of suspensions of disbelief here (allowing a hero to go free for a heroic act before death?) at least in comparison to modern comics, but this issue is a lot more readable compared to other Legion stories thus far. It is also th...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Effortless 0
In the history of the Legion of Super Heroes, this one stands a little bit separate. Each of the previous first appearances of Legion characters has involved some time travel from the 30th century. Contrary to that in this issue, Mon-El is first introduced, and the Legion is never once mentioned. Instead the story unfolds much like most golden or silver age tales, with a lot of random plot developments (a killer jack-in-the-box?) and the story is lost in the almost ridiculous story. In term...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
More of the same 0
It is interesting of the inauspicious appearance of many of these early Legion characters, in mostly throwaway backup stories. This issue is the first appearance of Shrinking Violet, Duplicate Girl, Phantom Girl and Brainiac 5, but these staples of the Legion go almost unnoticed as Supergirl frets over having a regular life with no girlfriends that she can relate to. The story here continues to be similar to other early appearances of the Legion, where the Legion itself is mostly pretty arbit...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Other genres 0
As opposed to the other early appearance of the Legion of Super Heroes, this one is more like that of a crossover between genres. Lana Lang finds the first appearance of Star Boy and convinces him to help her to make Superboy jealous. In the process a number of staples of the romance genre are thrown in here (making this feel more like the 1950s Lois Lane comic at times.) Lana ends up essentially wasting a trip to the future just so that she can make her crush jealous? The result is disappo...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Of the era 0
Those looking for a complete reading of the early Legion of Super Heroes will be somewhat disappointed in this outing. The story is among the presumed hundreds of the era which have Superman/Superboy trying to survive against Lex Luthor's villainy and attempts to murder him. In this case the Legion is at first alluded too then serves as a non sequitur deux ex machina which intervenes in a nearly inexplicable way. As always when looking back it is hard to fathom of such iconic heroes getting ...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Non molten tunnels 0
The backup story here is far easier to find than the others. While the other story is mostly forgettable, the Supergirl story features an early appearance of the Legion of Super Heroes. The story is not particularly original, it rehashes a lot of the plot (and even two specific locations) from the first appearance of the Legion members, though this one adds a few more new Legion members to deal with. While the story is similar to the first, this one is a lot more polished, still rooted in th...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Heroic bypass 0
As opposed to the first appearance of the Legion of Super Heroes, the second is a lot more laboured and falls more in line with a golden age approach to comics. Superboy is tricked into thinking he deserves imprisonment, and yet never relinquishes his heroic stoicity, even if it means his own freedom. This is standard golden age stuff, meant more so to titillate the interest of children and not so much of much interest to adults. Anyone that is interested in the publication history of the Le...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Innocuous 2
Although offering glimpses of the silver age, this story is still one told very much in the style of the golden age. The setting may be futuristic and science fiction like, but the story itself and the the characters have the usual "internal dialogue to explain the plot" type of approach that is consistent throughout much of the period. The only difference here is that the characters aren't exactly throwaways, instead this is the first appearance of the original three characters that would be...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
Where does it go? 4
This series is perhaps the most enigmatic of the ones that I actively read, and I suppose my reasons for reading it are equally hard to pin down. As of yet there is very little explanation of what is going on in this series only that the main character is somehow tied to the narrator of the Arabian Nights. Once again numerous genres are hinted at here, but there is not so much of an explanation, except by way of a collection of various myths which have been tied together with little explanation...
4 out of 4 found this review helpful. -
A little bit different for Halloween 2
The GFT Halloween specials thus far have stayed pretty close to the formula from the early days of GFT. With this issue the Halloween story line takes a different approach and instead of relying on some spooky stories instead just puts three of the main heroes from the GFT Universe together for some heroics. Sela, Britney and Robyn are unwittingly led to a Halloween party but then soon find themselves trapped in a haunted house in another realm. It starts off a bit hokey, but the appearance ...
3 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
No Direction for the Future 12
There are those that think that the Superman and Wonder Woman romance is the best thing to happen to comics since ... (some other random thing which has happened to comics.) I tend to not fall into this category as I regard the combination of the two a bit more critically, both because of one half of the romance being my favourite character and partially because I tend to be more critical about some of the writing and with less suspension of disbelief. That having been said I thought I would ...
10 out of 19 found this review helpful. -
The history of the high heel 1
This issue seems inherently interested in showing off the artistic ability of the artist, or at least the description at the end attests to this. While at its heart this is not such a bad concept, it does have to be met equally with a coherent story and thus this issue only greets the reader halfway. The story is a fairly typical one with some of protagonists not differing much from the remainder of those found in supernatural themed series. The problem here as with most of those same series...
5 out of 5 found this review helpful. -
Unimpressed 5
I flipped through this at my LCS this week and I was unimpressed. It was easy to tell from the start that it was just a collection of artwork but I thought because of the title that it might be somehow fashion related. It is too bad therefore that they put the explanation only at the end as this is mostly a collection of erotic drawings drawn by the artist before he got famous on Gotham City Sirens. He is certainly talented, I am just not sure that this particular aspect of his talent needs t...
7 out of 7 found this review helpful. -
Beach Party 1
This pulls out one of the regular features of Blue Water comics – to take some material which has gone in which interest has either expired or lapsed and to continue the story. In the case here the original was a movie called Humanoids. Having never seen the movie this is still an entertaining enough story which is told here, if only a little simplistic. It is definitely based in the splatter genre of horror movies, so common in the 1980s, and if it is approached from this standpoint, then it i...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
Always pertinent 0
(Note this review seemingly disappeared when the site changeover, so I am reposting it)Originally I had given this comic no rating, which I should point out is not the same as zero stars, rather that a comic dealing with such a heavy issue is not really in need of a rating, just because the material speaks for itself, one had an opinion on this issue and that this issue will be judged through that. This educational issue tries to steer clear of the politics behind the issue, and tries to just ...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Campy but entertaining enough 1
I won't be able to put this comic in proper context as I did not live through the 1970s. In this era of five television stations and no internet, the popularity of a real life stuntsman like Knievel is beyond anything which people could expect of similar acts in the modern day with all kinds of reality tv shows and youtube. With that in mind, there is something to be said here for the accuracy of celebrity, and at times this is a little lacking. It does a good job to show off Knievel's vario...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
Science at its best 0
Comics came up in the atomic age in a sense. At first the unexplained was filled in with science fiction, with radiation causing the mutation of animals into monsters or of normal people into heroes. As science filled in the holes, the science fiction did not have as much room for expansion and lost a lot of its best source material as more and more became scientifically impossible. In terms of comics though, there has always been a smaller group of those who use the medium to educate instea...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
This is a trap right? 0
The change of format of this title away from being one of vampires hunting vampires to one of humans hunting vampires seems to be working at least for the time being. With Mary's army now in his service, Andrew has to make a decision about where to go and how to proceed with his goal and there's. After the action of the previous issues (and the story arc) this series is seemingly taking its time to reload here and to set up the action for following issues. Not only are Andrew's powers expand...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
A New Rulebook 0
As with many of the new 52 titles I am willfully choosing to not read certain series even when it means that I am missing half of crossovers. In this case what I am missing is Justice League Dark (which I cut for time reasons not for content) but having done so I think I still get the gist of what is happening here. Andrew has been sent to some other plane (presumably an afterlife to his undeath) and sent back to deal with Cain. Mostly the issue is actually not that eventful. The story telli...
2 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
Not simply about force 0
It seems as though perhaps that the writers of this story arc are appealing to those that love to see hero fight hero. In the previous issue we got to see Supergirl versus the Flash and now it is the battle of all DC female against female battles – Wonder Woman against Supergirl. The presentation here is interesting. As usual in such a battle there is a really good reason for one hero to be fighting the other and one of them holding back out of respect for the heroes themselves. The battle...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Faster than me 0
Like the other issues in the H’el story arc from Supergirl, I am, only reading the Supergirl part of the story which is spread out over a few other series. In that case I sort of skip ahead with the plot while looking at individual events. This issue essentially looks at a smaller part of a battle of the Justice League against H’el and here the Flash is pitted against Kara. As the Flash is still trying to control his own powers and Kara is uncomfortable with her own it creates a situation wh...
0 out of 0 found this review helpful. -
Ride'em Cowgirl 0
As usual the first story here is an Adam Strange one. While the science was equally as horrible as usual (in fact probably more so because of their pseudo-scientific explanations in this one) the end result is actually entertaining enough as Adam and Alanna figure out how to ride giant fireflies to battle a menace. The Giants of the Telescope feature looks at John Flamsteed's achievements. The next story is unconventional as it looks at a polyglot that travels the cosmos learning languages. A bi...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
The Knife is Yours 0
To be certain the entire approach of the new 52 Wonder Woman series has not always been to my liking. The incorporation of random outside elements and the fighting among the gods is not usually the main reason that I read the character. The story has been pretty well handled but has sputtered at times due to some slow pacing. That is not the case here, because although this is a setup story, there is still lots going on here. The events of the Zero issue are finally incorporated into the sto...
4 out of 4 found this review helpful. -
With swords in your hands 0
This is a tricky series at the moment. When things develop which are initially seemingly poorly conceived the writer turns around in the following issue and gives them more strength and bearing. An excellent example of this is the battle with Orion and the interaction with Milan. Once Milan's special gift (and curse) is revealed it fits into the overall story much better than I could have imagined. And so while the action with the First Born seems irrelevant and even out of context for the s...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
Accept Both 0
This is an interesting issue as it contains a little bit of everything. Leading Dejah and Kantos off on to a new adventure is more Martian politics. They are mostly pretty common to the Martian Chronicles with a group of new people being referred to who have not been referenced before. As Dejah and Kantos go to broker a political deal they are met with their bargaining equal, a princess unlike Dejah in that she lacks a sense of competence and compassion. This was heading to an interesting en...
0 out of 0 found this review helpful. -
Who is this friend? 0
As compared to the last issue, this issue has the same overall critique. It was mostly a pretty fun and well told story if not for one flaw which was resorting to the cliche. Previously the cliche was for Dejah to pretend to be a prostitute (in which she was actually wearing more clothing than usual) and she is still dressed as such through this issue. This issue's drawback is the cliche of the mentally controlled person and their former friend telling them "to fight through it, because you a...
0 out of 0 found this review helpful. -
A matter of tals 0
This is a bit of a mixed bag for in terms of its actual content, but in the end it succeeds due to sticking close enough to the source material. The genre of science fiction doesn't necessarily often overlap with that of espionage or detecting but that occurs here as Dejah is on the hunt for a serial killer that is stalking the streets of the city where she is searching for answers. As she considers this to be information which is related she decides that she should find this killer herself. ...
0 out of 0 found this review helpful. -
The sight of us walking 0
Generally speaking I only read the Dejah Thoris stories from the series that focuses directly on her, though I do occasionally delve into some which come from elsewhere. This is such a case as it deals with Dejah after she has met Carter and after a peace accord with the Tharks. The last such series which I read was also a miniseries and was quite fun when she was forced to battle the White Apes of Mars. This time she has a different colour of peril to deal with and under distinctly different...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Until they're contained 0
This entire series has been one of my favourites from the Grimm Fairy Tales line since the earliest of the original series. Since deciding to go the way of explaining the background of the morality tales in terms of a supernatural explanation, the series lost some of its luster. This series gave a bit of that back by looking at the highborns and falsebloods in a different light, more as people and less as superheroes. Generally speaking this has been successful in this series but in this last...
0 out of 0 found this review helpful.
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