Green Arrow - New 52 volume 1.

The Midas touch TPB

DC

JT Krul - Writer
Dan Jurgens - Layouts
George Perez - Finishes

Oliver Queen, aka The Green Arrow, is a direct cross between Hawkeye and Batman/Bruce Wayne. He has the Batman set up and is 'the worlds most skilled archer'. - Although I guess crime fighters should have backup skills, Queen does get close and go to the fists a bit fast for my liking.

We start with Arrow flying to Paris to take out some street thieves. On face value this seemed like a bit of a long stretch but as he is a billionaire I'm willing to let it go. After defeating the gang and getting them incarcerated another villain busts them loose. His name is Rush, and he has assembled a team of brawlers who he wants to use to take out Arrow 'live' streamed on the internet. This has the juxtaposition of the audience cheering on the villains. Arrow sends them a message as he brings them to justice.

Oliver Queen often talks to his tech guy, Jax, about building him some new arrows to use on bad guys. He also has a back-up team that talks to him and helps him fight bad guys. 

The next person to tangle with Green Arrow is Midas and Blood Rose. Both are more than they seem. On face value, they are simple villains, but there is some deeper motives behind their mayhem.

The book is well drawn and the writing is good, showing us that Queen, the man behind the very small mask, is trying to use his skills to make a difference, both with The Green Arrow and his company. It has it's flaws; some of the set up is kooky and no matter how hard Queen gets hit, he always looks chiseled and handsome in the next panel.I do like his little team. The only other problem is that Oliver Queen runs off and The Green Arrow appears a bit too frequently for no-one to guess what is going on. I'm going to recommend. I have Volume 2 and I'm looking forward to reading that.

Gotham City Sirens - Book 1 - Strange Fruit

DC

2011

Tony Bedard, Peter Calloway - Writers
Andres Quinaldo, Jeremy Haun - Pencils
Lorenzo Ruggiero, Jeremy Haun, Waldo Wong - Inks
Steve Ward, Travis Larkham, Dave Sharpe - Letters

Gotham City Sirens tells us the tales of Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, Catwoman, Talia al Ghul and Zatanna. If you recognise the names you will know that four are 'enemies' of Batman.

So this book had the possibility of being interesting as we might get to see villains when they are not trying to kill the Caped Crusader.

Poison Ivy finds an alien plant with which she uses to try and take over the Earth. Several times she states that she is now more plant that human and wishes to mold the world in her chloroform filled likeness. Harley Quinn and Catwoman arm themselves with defoliant 'flamethrowers' and try to stop her. Eventually Ivy has a change of heart and kills her new alien plant boyfriend with a kiss.

Zatanna shows up at the Siren's headquarters and threatens Ivy. Someone, or something, has threatened Ivy's trees. All sorts of magical shenanigans takes place and Selina (Catwoman) gets trapped underground. The other girls follow. Here again Ivy is painted and distant, alien and non-human with her drives and personality.

The book has nice art. The stories, however, don't really move forward and usually end with a simple change of heart or other left field device. I never felt attached to any of the characters and the whole book seems like an excuse to smash three lady characters together with no real reason or drive. The other drawback for me is that Ivy is a super villain with a purpose and Catwoman was a burglar. I'm not sure from this book what Harley's powers are or what she wants to do about anything.  I didn't like this (and I have another TPB to read) but you might if you really enjoy these characters. I guess they do the things that made them famous in Batman?  

Silk
Volume 1
2014

Marvel

Robbie Thompson - Writer
Stacy Lee - Artist
Ian Herring - Colour Artist

I managed to pick up these five issues cheap from Mike, who runs the 'Waiting for Doom' podcast, which is all about Doom Patrol. He was wanting to get rid of them and I was lucky enough to score.

Silk is the alter ego of Cindy Moon, who picked up her powers from the same spider as Spider-Man. After locking herself away in an bunker for ten years because *reasons* she is now dedicated to becoming a reporter and fighting crime in New York.

Issue one sees Silk fighting Dragon Claw. Still with some inexperience, Silk has to get saved by Spider-man. Their relationship isn't the best, despite the fact that they have slept together.
In a cut scene we find out that Black Cat is behind the Dragon Claw character. Cindy also finds out that her family might be still alive.

Issue two starts with some investigations into her family and some flashbacks to her life before the bunker (cleverly done in another colour tone). Silk is attacked by a rogue Hydra robot, the kind we see across the Marvel universe; Skull and tentacles.

Issue three has a long action sequence against a now boosted Dragon Claw. Silk tries to re-habilitate his evil ways and finds out his back story. This bit really reminded me of the characters we play in our own SHRP games. After the battle Silk is ambushed by Black Cat. low on webbing and adrenaline she loses the fight but escapes. Spider-man introduces her to the Fantastic Four.

Issue four has Reed Richards test Cindy for her power levels. He recommends her to visit a shrink while Johnny Storm asks her out on a date.

Issue five sees Cindy hard at work at the Daily Bugle. She gets J Jonah Jameson to help her with some leads on her family. In a cut away scene Black Cat seeds a trap for Silk with Dragon Claw's kid. Cindy teams up with Spider-Man and then the trap is sprung...

I liked the artwork for this book and feel it really matches the story and the character. The characterizations are good and the story builds nicely. I liked the twists and the way Silk interacts with Spider-man is great. I recommend this book, especially if you like the 'ordinary hero' drama books, much like Spider-Man.

I will be trying to track down all the issues I'm missing of this one.

As an aside, along with Spider-Gwen, I remember Jessica Drew as a flying Spider-Woman and Julia Carpenter as the black clad psionic web weaving Spider-Woman. A quick Google let me know there is actually a whole bunch of Spider women in the marvel universe!

Aliens Earth War

Issues 1 - 4

Dark Horse

Mark Verheiden - Writer
Sam Kieth - Artist
Jim Massara - Letterer
Monica Livingston - Colorist

1990

Aliens was a very important movie franchise for me growing up.  One of the true perfect blend of horror/sci-fi and action, the movies where some of the first we all snuck out of the video store and watched in secret without telling our parents. The comics that came out from Dark Horse in the late eighties where very 'hot'. We all wanted them and they where very collectable. It was also hard getting them as they seemed to be scooped up and hoarded.

Aliens: Earth War starts at the end of the Aliens movie. The relationship between between Ripley and Newt is strained. Ripley gets dropped back on LV-426 with remarkably similar outcomes to the movie. We learn that Earth has been over run with Aliens after someone was daft enough to take some eggs back to the home planet. Ripley works out that the Alien creatures all want to be close tot he Queen Alien, so they plan to catch one to trap all the creatures on Earth in one spot and destroy them, I'm guessing by nuking the site from orbit. Ripley wants to work alone but Newt insists on coming with her and helping. From here the book descends into standard Aliens fare.

The art is good. The plot follows the faithful lines forged by the movie franchise and never threatens to touch on anything new. The magic of the movies to me was the special effects and the way that they helped build the tension. Once the action started to unfold you were in the zone, invested and went on the ride. The weakest part of the books is the action sequences. Let's just say that I was never worried about the outcomes.

It's a qualified recommend if you are a massive fan of Aliens as the books, despite seeming to be rare and valuable years ago, are now cheap and easy to find online.

Generation - X

Issues 1 - 10

Marvel

'Created by' - Scott Lobdell (writer) and Chris Bachalo
Inks by Mark Buckingham

November 1994

This book came out towards the end of 1994 and at the time my heavy collecting phase was passing. I headed to Uni and the lure of beer and football took me away from my beloved comic books. These books where in a huge batch given to me by Adam. Of course the easy comparison to make is with Gen 13. Even the names sound similar. I will try to judge it on its own merits.

The first issue has an embossed silver shiny cover. We are introduced to the team. They are Husk (Who is the sister of Cannonball). She can shed her skin to reveal a body composed of any material she has studied underneath. M, who is a low grade super-man type. Jubilee, who is described here as a pyrokinetic, basically she launched fireworks from her hands. Chamber- who has a 'furnace' of sonic energy in his chest that has blown off his chin, making it look like his mouth is on fire. Synch - who has a rainbow aura that allows him to copy other mutants powers. Finally there is skin, who has several feet of extra epidermis. Added to the mix is Emma Frost, she formally known as the White Queen, now a redeemed hero, and finally Banshee, Sean Cassidy. Former X-Man and Interpol agent.
The first issue introduces a villain called Emplate, who feeds off Mutants. He is tracking Chamber. The young British mutant supplies him with two much power and drives him away. The team finds 'Penance' - a young mute with razor sharp talons and hair who is a lovely puce colour.

Issue 2 starts with Jubilee confronting Gateway. - He was the X-Men's teleporter while they where operating out of the Australian Outback. He is supposed to be Aborigional but over the next few issues he starts to look more and more like a munchkin.
M - whose name is Monet. I am unsure if this is where her code-name comes from?- is telling Emma and Sean about the origions of Penance. The mutant herself is resting in a medical bed.
The rest of the team are playing Scrabble. Penance escapes and the team chases her into a nearby wood.

The third issue starts with the team trying to find Penance in the woods. In turn they all get into combat. With her power set she's pretty dangerous.
There is a brief interlude with Nanny- a Villain I first read in Avengers 300, who likes to steal babies.
Gen X chases Penance until Chamber finally subdues her just by talking to her.

Issue four starts with Chamber talking to Gateway. I feel I must point out that Gateway never talks, in fact he rarely does anything.
Skin, Synch and Jubes are shopping in New York when they stumble upon a murder scene - they have to fight a large montrous muntant.
At home Husk gets drunk.

We start issue six with Emma tied up and is being taunted by a Morlock called Marrow.
- The Morlocks have a long and storied history in the pages of X-Men books.
She can't use her powers because Marrow and Hemingway (who is the large massive grey creature from previous issues) are using Leech to dampen her telepathic powers. Synch, Skin and Jubes are wandering the sewers trying to track Emma. Synch uses his aura like a blood hound. Once they get close Leech dampens their powers as well.
Husk is drunk and comes on to Chamber, starting the first love interest in the book.
Frost escapes the villains clutches by booting the crap out of Leech and then brain frying them. There is another giant grey skinned mutant who tries to blow them up.
Back at the Xavier school Husk tries to kiss Chamber, which makes him blow up their dorm rooms.

We have a transition issue. Banshee has a nightmare. The team are living with Emma and the proximity of his dreams means Emma gets inserted into them. Despite Banshee being fully dressed in his dream-scape, Emma is only in her undies. In the next few panels we see she is actually sleeping in the buff...
Chamber broods over his rather wild and alarming power set and Skin and Synch build Artie (Who they rescued from Gene Nation) and Leech a tree-house.
Finally Banshee gets a phone call from Ireland and his Castle has vanished.

The next two issues take the team from Ireland into a magical pixie land where Synch and Chamber fight with medival style weapons and Skin takes on a dragon.
We have an interlude in Hawaii with a mutant called Mondo and another Frost.
We wrap this arc up after a fight with trolls and pixies.

Issue ten starts with the team having a party. They are introduced to Mondo. During the party M finds Banshee almost dead in a fridge. The team rushes to get him medical attention. Frost reads Banshee's mind while the rest of the team walks into a trap with X-Men villain, Omega Red.

The book was one of the many X-titles from the 90's. If I remember correctly in the late 80's they spawned X-Factor. In the 90's we got 2 X-Men books, then X-Force and finally Generation X. An obvious comparison is the Gen 13 book that came out earlier in the year. Gen X has a better cast of characters, each one is ethnically different, and an interesting power set of the team. The first few issues does a good job of introducing the team but the fantasy story let's down the tone, IMO, which is why it only gets a Qualified.
Still I have up to issue 30, and I am keen to keep reading. The interplay is good and the art matches the story. Again the fan service is strong in this one, with Emma Frost acting as the conduit.

The book itself runs to issue #75 and I have a hankering over tracking them down to see how the story arc runs.

Gen 13 - Volume 1 1994

Limited Series Issues 1 - 5

Image

J Scott Campbell - Pencils
Jim Lee and Brandon Choi - Writers
Alex Garner - Inks
Chris Eliopoulos - Letters

Apparently when the first issue of this book came out it had huge publicity. I missed this and only picked it up on the off chance it was any good. Most of the other Image titles had put me off after 2 or 3 issues. Gen 13 didn't. Somehow I grabbed each copy from my LCS, which at that time was in the town of Crawley in West Sussex, England, and only later found out they where sought after...

Issue one starts with an action shot of a family on the run. The mother is gunned down and the father manages to destroy some of their pursuers with his super powers before he two takes a round in the cranium. A pretty brutal start.
We switch to college, where a bookish girl makes her way clutching text books to her chest. Her more adventurous roomate, in our first fan service shot, is off dating a fresh new fella. After she leaves a knock at the door informs our hard studying girl that she's been accepted on a government program.
We switch to Lynch and Ivana, two people running the program. They give us some background. Two Gen actives are warming up by fighting and sitting on gym equipment. The male one murders his sparring partner for being lippy. These must be the villains. We have more fan service but for the girls as well as the boys.
Caitlin, our bookish girl, actually runs into 'Grunge' who is a fellow intern at the government program. She then also meets Bobby and Roxy.
Then we have a training montage. No one questions this. Grunge and Caitlin don't appear to be Gen active so their dosage of drugs is upped. This has an immediate affect on Caitlin. She throws up and has a headache. Or she was drunk. She stumbles on Grunge and Bobby having a sneaky cigarette and they are all accosted by a guard. Caitlins powers activate and she rips through her night dress. See the above shot for the next fan service shot.

Issue two and the team is on the run. It lists them as Fairchild (Caitlin), Roxy Spalding, 'Grunge' Chang, Sarah Rainmaker and Tom Hallinan. The last two are new, or I wasn't paying attention. Each apart from Grunge manifests and uses their powers - and then there is a flashback for those of us who didn't buy issue 1. Fairchild doesn't trust Tom, who is a bit of a murdering A-Hole. She turns out to be right and Tom is actually Threshold, one of the villains. He knocks out the rest of the team. Fairchild grabs a gun and vows to free them.

Issue 3 starts with Fairchild scouting the complex holding her friends. There is a mysterious box. We suspect it contains the large grey hulk thing from the front cover of the issue. Jack Lynch shows up. he is curious as to what is going on. Fairchild, with a gun and some pouches that have shown up from somewhere, is looking for payback. Her team is captured, stripped naked and tortured by Threshold. Once in to the building, using her fists and gun as a club, she rescues a small boy. The big grey thing is 'Pitt'. He escapes his box. He is dripping with chains. After a misunderstanding, both he and Fairchild are trying to rescue the boy, Pitt and Fairchild start pounding each other.
Threshold adds torture to the list of crimes he is prepared to do for fun. He threatens to kill Grunge as he has no powers. This doesn't work so he threatens Roxy. This makes Grunge mad, activate his powers, which are 'Absorbing Man' power set. Grunge breaks free, lays out Threshold and frees the team. Pitt and Fairchild finally realise they are on the same side.

Issue four starts with Ivana and Lynch arguing. Ivana breaks the deadlock by murdering Lynch's henchmen. A massive fight breaks out between the team, as they leap in to rescue Fairchild, and the 'ops' who were holding them. Pitt frees Timmy, the boy.
Lynch reveals that he was in Team 7 with Fairchild's father - in another flashback. Bliss and Threshold were the kids from the first issue who have been brainwashed to be murdering A-Holes.

Issue five starts with our team landing in a dumpster and Grunge taking a close look at Fairchild's butt. They escaped thanks to Lynch but then have to confront Threshold again. With his extensive training he pretty much owns them solo. Lynch confronts Ivana who turns out to be a robot or a cyborg or an android and attacks him. Lynch also has hidden powers which saves him.
Threshold is monologging. Bliss shows up and vamps all over Bobby. Her powers seem to work through snogging. Rainmaker takes her out with mini lightning blasts and threatens her to take out Threshold. Lynch appears with a team of Mecha suits after escaping a 'base detonation' by Ivana. Lynch just lets Bliss and Threshold escape and Gen 13 decide that this super hero lark is the one for them.

I loved this book when it came out. Despite the cookie cutter power sets and team set-up, Gen 13 had a certain pizzaz about their stories and again, the art matched very well. Of course the book is full of 'posters', fan service and some of the hero/villain actions have to be glossed over with a wide brush. The fact that the murdering a-holes get let off scott free only to return to their murderous ways is a prime example.
With all these elements I can only give it a Qualified recommend. If you don't mind these things it's an enjoyable read, certainly to 18/19 year old me. If these things bother you I would avoid.

In the back of one of the issues the artist, J Scott Campbell, answers some questions posed by a fanzine about 'How to make a successful comic book', where he answers the questions about the style and content rather glibly. Of course eventually Image titles took a nose dive after the overall shallow style of their books couldn't maintain fan interest. Gen 13 is similar to this, not really working hard on an overall reason for the team to be supers. Of course these days Image titles tend to be very different. Good to see they could change and adapt.

Fantastic Four volume 1 - 1981

Issues 233, 234, 235, 237, 238, 239

Marvel

John Byrne - Pencils and Writing

I first started reading FF back around issue 300. After this time I started to find a whole batch of back issues from 230ish up which were written by John Byrne. At the time he was my favoured artist and I noticed he also wrote the books. Since then I have endevoured to collect a lot of his FF run. There are still a few gaps as the above issues listings testify too.

Issue 233 - We start with a man on Death Row who gives a letter to the priest. This gets handed to the Human Torch, aka: Johnny Storm. This is after a brief interlude where the Torch and the Thing are fighting. In the letter the now executed criminal asks Johnny to clear his name of things he didn't do, while confessing he has had some 'poor life choices'. The rest of the issue sees Johnny in full Private Detective mode. He follows the trail to Hammerhead, a long time Spider-Man foe. They scrap and Hammy escapes by leaping from a building. Obviously not to his death. The Torch informs the mother of her sons innocence af the crime he was executed for but she says he deserved to die anyway. Harsh!

Issue 234 - The cover at the top of the page. An odd story about a man who seemingly has the perfect life because he can alter reality but he doesn't realise it. Because of his powers when he takes a business trip to New York he gets to see the FF in action. 'Gravity Waves' are wrecking cities around earth. Reed tracks them down to space where the FF find Ego, the living planet.

Issue # 237 - There is a robot Doctor Doom inactiv3e on the roof of the Baxter Building so I assume they defeated it in the previous issue. After this the Torch is late for a date. Sue and Reed run off to do the family thing with Franklin and The Thing has a workout while his girl friend watches. These are all good human elements. Reed and Sue go horse riding in Central Park. Johnnies GF strips off... A very tall lady called spinnerette helps a batch of crooks rob a bank and get past Reed and Sue. It turns out she is an alien and is trying to obtain some silver to 're-power' her ship and leave Earth again.

Issue # 238 - Frankie Raye was not naked in front of Johnny but was in fact in a costume. Frankie is a female human torch with almost the exact same power set as Johnny. She tells the story of her father who created the original human torch during World War 2. Frankie dropped a drum of chemicals on herself, hence the powers. The second half of the issue has Reed trying to reverse Ben's powers and stop him being the Thing. He almost succeeds but ends up regressing his rock like form to his lumpy form and this time the condition is 'permanent'.

Issue # 239 - The FF get a visit from Ben's Aunt Petunia, who is in fact quite young (she's married to Ben's older Uncle) - 'By my sweet Aunt Petunia' is a phrase Ben uses a lot in the comics. She  then tells them about a town where the residents are being 'scared' to death.
There a is a quick excerpt into Attilan, the home of the Inhumans, where Crystal and Quicksilver are having a baby. They are worried because Crystal is an Inhuman and Quicksilver a mutant.
The town is built next to a burial site and is housed by some 'spirits' who are driving people away. half the town decides to leave. Wendy, the girl who seems to have made friends with the spirits, is happy and hangs out with them as the story ends.

These books are good, where the art and story mesh. Well, they are the same person in this case. Byrne does an excellent job of highlighting the human qualities in the FF. Each story is a 'small' one. What he does is build up the team for the larger story arcs that follow, while always re-enforcing the characters traits, humanity and their nobility, even if the story is slightly kooky. I don't know who came up with 'Ego the Living Planet' as a villain for heroes to combat or stop but I remember it was the Sixties when he was created...

A certain recommend. Find these in original format (the issues are still relatively cheap compared to Claremont/Byrne X-men books) or in the collected Essential format, although I think the art deserves colour. Byrnes run is issues 232 - 295.