Comics of November 4, 2015 and Nanowrimo update

This is a bit of a weird week of comics for me. I picked up 6, and that’s a decent number. There’s enough to read for the first time in a while, yet there isn’t too much. At the same time though, 4 of those 6 comics are extra sized – one’s even triple sized. And of course 4 of them are number 1’s, but only 2 of those are Marvel.

I’ll talk a bit more about Nanowrimo in a blog post later this week, but here’s a brief update. In 3 days I wrote 43,802 words. My plan to write 4,000 before going to bed after starting at midnight on November 1 turned into 7,200 words, and I wrote another 10,000 during the day. On November 2 I wrote another 13,000 words. After that I actually opened the main document to write another chapter, but my tired brain just said “nope”. So at this rate, I’m pretty much guaranteed to reach 50k tomorrow (since I usually take a break on Wednesdays). I’m on track to beating last year’s overall word count of 191,000, and maybe I’ll even finish book 1 by the 10^th (it’s probably going to be more than 100,000 words).

Anyway, the comics I picked up this week include Uncanny X-Men 600, Extraordinary X-Men 1, Howard the Duck 1, Monstress 1, James Bond 007 1 and We Stand On Guard 5. Here are my first impressions, and links to full reviews will be added when they’re posted.

Uncanny X-Men 600 review

Extraordinary X-Men 1 review

Monstress 1 review

Howard the Duck 1 is fun. This was on my maybe list, alongside Drax 1 and Hercules 1. I ultimate chose Howard because I felt like something comedic and wasn’t disappointed. There’s a lot of clever dialogue and some good action involving Titania and The Wizard. Also the backup story with Gwenpool is bizarre, but in a fun way. This feels like a series that could easily fill itself with weird situations, and if that interests you, check it out.

James Bond 1 is ok. The issue starts off with a wordless action scene that’s kind of fun and actually quite brutal compared to the movies. The rest of the issue is mostly setup, and that’s why this comic is just ok for me. It feels like a James Bond story and it’ll probably get better with later issues, and I’m sure some people will love this comic, but I thought it was ok. Definitely give this a read if you’re a Bond fan who reads comics though. I’ll likely give this at least one more issue to win me over.

We Stand On Guard 5 is intense. There’s a lot of action in this issue, and several major characters die. It also reveals that someone from Amber’s background is still alive somehow. With most of the setup out of the way in previous issues, this one kick starts the final conflict and ends with an epic cliffhanger to prove how hardcore Amber really is. This series about a future war between Canada and the United states gets better with every issue and it’s almost a shame there’s only one more left.