Comics of June 27, 2018

I’ve decided that instead of my originally planned 5-6 entries in my odds and ends month for my James Bond Blogathon, I’ll only be covering three official entries. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, The Living Daylights and License To Kill. If I feel like it, I could do a month dedicated to unofficial entries and odds and ends instead. Why? Because it’s Camp NaNoWriMo next month, and I plan on doing a major edit for the second book in my vampire/werewolf series based on some very helpful feedback I received earlier this year. That and I’m also working on moving things over to my new computer. Nothing wrong with my old one – it’s just that because I’m getting paid enough now, I’m going all-out with what will be a top of the line gaming PC. I’ve never had a job paying me enough to do that before, and it’ll be a lot harder to do after I buy a house. Might as well do it now.

Anyway, the comics I picked up this week include Thor 2, The Man Of Steel 5 and Red Sonja 17. Here are my first impressions.

Thor 2 is fun. After being teleported into Hel by Loki, Thor is immediately thrown into an intense situation, but also a reunion with several of his fallen family and friends. I’m not a huge fan of the art, but this comic is otherwise great. There are a lot of well-written character interactions, some great Thori (the demonic dog) jokes, and it manages to simplify a story that’s grown very complicated over the last few years. Thor fans will very likely enjoy this issue.

The Man Of Steel 5 is an improvement over the last two lackluster issues. It actually moves the story forward a bit, while also giving us a bit of action. That said, it feels like everything that’s happened in this miniseries so far could have easily happened in 4 issues instead of 5, without sacrificing character moments. And part of the problem is that weird flashback in every issue that keeps repeating itself and doesn’t seem to be involved with the main story on any level. The next issue will have to be very good to convince me to stick with Brian Michael Bendis’s Superman run after this miniseries.

Red Sonja 17 is great. Most of the comic revolves around the mythology of the sword Red Sonja found while on her time traveling adventure, and the warrior it once belonged to. It’s a great tale that also gives this story arc a clear direction. The mythology is balanced well with a couple action scenes, the major ones being in flashbacks, and touches of humour. Whether you read Red Sonja’s time traveling adventure or not, this is a great comic for fans of the character.