It’s the last day of November, which means that NaNoWriMo is almost over. It’s always a fun month, but it also takes its toll. For example, I ran the second overnighter from start to finish I didn’t get a proper night’s sleep between Thursday and Sunday that week as a result. There were two long shifts at work within those days of little sleep. Right now, I’m suffering from eye strain, so there’s no guarantee that I’ll be able to handle any full comic reviews today. It also means that I can’t play Overwatch, which I only bought last week. I’ll try to review a couple comics, but no promises.
The comics I picked up this week include Inhumans vs. X-Men 0, Ghost Rider 1, Star Wars Annual 2, Black Widow 8, the Batman Annual, the Superman Annual and Monstress 8. I needed to make a few more cuts for temporary budget reasons, and as good as it’s been so far, Old Man Logan was one of them. Here are my first impressions, and if I manage to write any reviews, links to them will be added below.
Edit: It turns out that napping for a bit in the afternoon helped my eyes recover. They’re not quite better, but good enough to handle a couple reviews.
The Star Wars Annual 2 is great. It’s mostly about a mechanic on a world that’s been torn apart by the war between the Empire and the Rebel Alliance. Even though she’s not a fan of the rebellion, she takes an injured Princess Leia into her hut and tries to heal her. It’s a good exploration of a character with a strong sense of morals. Also the mechanic is drawn as a tall, muscular woman, and there aren’t enough of those in fiction. If this sounds interesting, or you’re a fan of Kelly Thompson’s writing in general, this is definitely worth a look.
Black Widow 8 is fun. The Black Room, an offshoot of the Red Room that raised Black Widow to be a Russian Assassin, sent a bunch of child assassins to the white house. Black Widow arrives to stop them. Of course she also needs to avoid the incoming SHIELD agents, since SHIELD is after her. That’s all that needs to be said about this issue.
The Superman Annual is great. Superman encounters the Swamp Thing. They fight of course, but in the process, they both help each other in some deep and meaningful ways. It doesn’t feel like a completely necessary entry to the main series, but there’s some great introspective storytelling. Also, the fight is intense and the art is fantastic. By all means check this out if that sounds interesting to you.
Monstress 8 is good. This issue explains a bit more about what’s going on with the monster, and it leads to a couple brutal violent moments and an intense situation. By now it’s hard to sum up what’s going on in this series – it’s so rich with eastern inspired mythology that you really need to read it from the start. That said, fans of Marjorie Liu’s writing and Sana Takeda’s art should give this series a chance.
Do you plan on getting your hands on the DC Holiday Special #1 coming out in mid-December too? 😀 I didn’t think the Batman Annual would have a Christmas theme too, but it sounds like it isn’t so bad; looking forward to it.
– Lashaan
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IvX was actually really good. Weird.
Ghost Rider was good, though too much Cho.
Black Widow remains Black Widow. Great action. Samnee’s killing it.
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