Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Brief Reviews Second Batch

Wildstorm Revelations 5
WildCats! Grifter looking as cute, badass, and oddly clueless as ever (something about Cole hanging with kickass women does that to him). Some story stuff happened, but... GRIFTER! (Can you tell I miss WildCats?)

Anita Blake Vampire Hunter Guilty Pleasures 9
I'm only reading this to get to the end of the story. Really. I swear. Because I can't think of any other reason I would still be reading this. I've never read the books, but if they're as silly and incomprehensible as this, I'm not missing anything.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 12
The next story arc, "Wolves at the Gate," starts with some intrigue, Andrew's back, Xander tries to make a love connection, and uh, Buffy makes one with Satsu. Now, I've always appreciated that Joss Whedon has been willing to explore sexuality in its various forms and female empowerment. I thought it daring when the show had Willow fall in love with Tara after having a werewolf boyfriend, Oz. Having a regular, lesbian character on a TV show was a big deal then and it was handled wonderfully. Willow the lesbian witch has grown into one of the better, well-rounded characters in fiction. But now we have Buffy, who has gone through a string of boyfriends on the show, including a couple of vampires, sharing her bed with another woman and while it's not stated that Buffy is bi, the possibility that she and Satsu will be intimate again exists. We haven't seen any male gay lovers in the show or comic, and I can't help a bit of resentment here of the probably unintended implication that female on female sex is a solution to loneliness or bad relationships with the opposite sex. I'm just not sure where the Buffyverse is heading, but until Xander starts lusting after Andrew, I'm gonna be wondering. None of which detracts from the sharp dialogue and well written and drawn story.

The Lone Ranger & Tonto 1
A nice jumping on story for people who have managed to not read the excellent The Lone Ranger comic. The art was a bit sketchier than the regular comic and not quite my taste for these characters, but the story had the usual element of the need for justice and the ambiguities involved, along with things rarely being what they seem. Well worth reading for fans of the series and newbies.

Serenity 1
The second mini series to be set between Firefly the series and Serenity the movie. Fans who have seen the movie know where things pick up there, so there's a bit of spoilage, perhaps, in knowing that no matter how good things seem to be going for the Serenity crew, it won't stay that way. But by the end of the first issue, in Mal's words, "We're rich." That can't really be a good thing. Makes me really wish the series were still on, or another movie was being filmed. *sniff*

5 comments:

  1. I like the mask better in this Lone Ranger comic...

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  2. I always thought that it was Andrew who was lusting after Xander...

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  3. LOL, Baal. Still, it's the changing or altering orientation of a major character that is of interest. I was never too sure about how Andrew swung, anyway. ;)

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  4. Anonymous11:45 AM EDT

    3-19-2008. I'm sad to see that DC/WildStorm are not treating WildCATs as it deserves. They launched the Worldstorm a year ago and there was only WC 1, the second issue never came out, and nobody did anything about it. While WC has great characters, it has non-commited creative teams. Zealot for example although based on WW has it's own unique spin and style, you recognize her (something still to be found on the original character: WW). Grifter is Han Solo!!!!! hahahaha, the man is at the top of his game, and still sometimes finds himself in situations that are over his head, yet he still manages to escape with hair-trigger luck. Warblade, in spite of being another Wolverine knock-off had some characterization, all in all it was a visually striking book, with interesting characterization, although sometimes lacking direction, yet again it falls prey to the negligence of the DC titles. It seems as of lately DC is only interested in putting out "Crisis"-on-the-title books, and they are always coming up with more and more Crisis about everything, why can't they just concentrate on their characters, their mission, and the supporting cast? is it that difficult? and the worst part is that Wildstorm is following suit, forgetting their flagship. As Shelly said: "can you tell I love WC?" and I'm sad to see a book about a team that gave X-Men a run for it's money go down not even in a blaze of glory.
    -Bruce W.

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  5. I remember reading something a while back about the delays on WildCats and then a couple of months ago, that the art was done on WC 2! I also read that now that they're doing Wildstorm and will have a revamping of the entire universe (there's another series after Wildstorm: Revelations) that when the WildCats story is done it will be printed but will be out of continuity or some such. At this point, I'm waiting for the dust to settle after the latest Armageddon and revamp to see what will happen with WildCats. I do miss Cole, tho.

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