C.H.E.S.S. #2 - Short Fuse Media Group

C.H.E.S.S. No. 2, March 2019

It is hard to imagine how any creative team could better immerse their audience with so relentless an assault upon their senses as Issue Two of Alfred Paige’s “C.H.E.S.S.” does straight from the start. For whilst the twenty-two page periodical momentarily lulls any unsuspecting bibliophile into a false sense of sedentary security with its opening eavesdrop upon a tense dialogue between Avery and his ‘on the ground’ team leader, Deborah Stewart a.k.a. Heart, the action very quickly ramps up a few notches as the comic shifts focus to Infrared and Footpath’s supposedly stealthy night-time investigation of the Conflict Technology Solutions Headquarters in Kyoto, Japan.

Dripping in atmosphere and an urgent need to be absolutely quiet as the team’s “killer robot” silently sneaks into Nakadai’s building via its roof’s access stairwell, this sequence’s palpable claustrophobic ambiance genuinely makes it difficult for a reader to breath for fear of alerting the establishment’s authorities, and additionally makes Schafer’s verbal reservations regarding the mission’s roster appear all the more irritatingly loud whenever he speaks; “And you’d be surprised how stealthy Infrared can be. Hence the text feed, to save him speaking. Maybe you should follow his example…” Fortunately however, for those perusing this publication whose lungs were starting to burst for lack of air, the suffocating silence is reasonably swiftly broken when the villain’s criminal cadre suddenly ambush the so-called failed robotic super-soldier, and literally all Hell is let loose in a staggeringly entertaining fist-fight between Rowan Kelly Moore, Infrared and Nakadai’s group of super-powered assassins.

The dynamically-pencilled artwork for this lengthy battle royale compellingly speaks for itself, and gains some considerable gravitas due to the combatants predominantly only having enough time to grunt in effort or groan in pain. As a result much of this mêlée’s dialogue actually stems from Avery’s dislocated team who are ineffectively trying to make sense of matters using their mechanical comrade’s badly disorientated text feed, and their resultant confusion as to what is happening wonderfully adds to the turmoil of the chaotic bout itself. Indeed, even after Footpath is knocked unconscious, courtesy of a cowardly strike from behind, it still looks as if the two “C.H.E.S.S.” operatives may yet come out on top until Infrared has an arm lopped off by the ferocious cybernetically-enhanced Stress and logically determines that “the situation was turning in the enemy’s favour.”

Please note that for more updates on "C.H.E.S.S" you can go to its "Facebook" page.

First published on the "Dawn of Comics" website.'

Creative Team: Alfred Paige, Alex De-Gruchy, William Reyes and Jesse Hansen

Battlestar Galactica: Twilight Command #1 - Dynamite Entertainment

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: TWILIGHT COMMAND No. 1, February 2019

Fans of Ronald D. Moore’s 2004 re-imagining of the American military science fiction television series “Battlestar Galactica” probably found Michael Moreci’s script for this untold tale’s opening instalment entertaining enough, what with the twenty-page periodical’s mix of fast-paced action sequences and conspiratorial conversations. However, those readers unable or unwilling to recall the plot to the programme’s two-part second season finale “Lay Down Your Burdens” arguably found it little more than a disconcerting mess of jumbled set-pieces focusing upon a settlement of weary-worn human survivors being unnervingly fed by their hated enemies and a small party of rebels fighting alongside a somewhat miraculously friendly talking toaster; “What in the -- A talking Centurion?! What are you waiting for? Kill it!”

Admittedly, “Dynamite Entertainment” does try to warn any bibliophiles haplessly perusing this publication within their local comic book store, that “the events of this issue take place concurrently with Season 3 of Battlestar Galactica.” But such a short summary as to where the mini-series sits within the “Sci-Fi Channel” show’s timeline is hardly going to make much sense to anyone unfamiliar with Admiral Adama’s shockingly sudden abandonment of his people on New Caprica, and resultantly any newcomers to this title will debatably spend most of their time understandably wondering just what in Kobol is going on as a scruffy-looking, one-eyed Executive Officer Tigh rushes headlong to Chief Petty Officer Tyrol’s tent before being ominously carted off by the Cylons…

Lamentably, Moreci provides little elucidation as to the background behind this story during its telling either, despite his narrative containing plenty of opportunities to do so, such as Galen’s heated night-time conversation with Samuel T. Anders when the pair squander three entire pages talking about how little they know about the mysterious Commander Flores, or the Colonial pair’s subsequent introductory meeting with the rebellion’s grim-faced leader. Indeed, with the exception of an early scene which was clearly penned simply to reinforce Saul’s fiercely loyal insistence that the Galactica’s commanding officer will return to rescue his people at some point, this entire adventure is debatably devoid of any meaningful exposition concerning its prior build-up whatsoever.

Similarly as unsuccessful are some of Breno Tamura’s breakdowns, which whilst excellent at depicting the awkward unnaturalness of the robotic cylons, seem rather disagreeably scratchy when used to depict facial expressions when in close-up. Packed full of dynamic gun-play and buckets of bullets, there can be no denying that the “Dragão Brasil Magazine” debutant can pencil some astoundingly energetic panels, yet his questionably inconsistent handling of human anatomy persistently jars the eye throughout this publication.

Writer: Michael Moreci, Artist: Breno Tamura, and Colorist: Dijjo Lima

Spirit's Destiny #1 - Short Fuse Media Group

SPIRIT'S DESTINY No. 1, March 2019

Featuring a genuinely enthralling opening, which provides both plenty of heart-racing tension as a masked burglar seemingly attempts to steal away a sleeping baby, and a pulse-pounding punch-up between the titular character’s seriously super-kick ass parents, it’s abundantly clear that “writer/creator Dorphise Jean has been developing the story of Spirit's Destiny for multiple years.” Indeed, this marvellous introduction to “an ongoing comic series featuring a Haitian girl with extraordinary abilities” arguably couldn’t grab its readers’ attention any better, especially after it’s revealed that the sinisterly-clad intruder is actually the infant’s father Brian and rather than trying to steal his beloved daughter away from her mother, the overly-confident criminal is apparently disconcertingly injecting his child with a solution which he hopes “is best for you.”

Of course, after such a sense-shattering start, any subsequent depiction of Destiny simply going through the daily ‘hum drum’ routine of getting ready for school is going to significantly slow the twenty-eight page periodical’s pace down. However, despite the sedentary nature of this comic’s subsequent sequences, this publication’s creative team still manage to imbue its proceedings with plenty of intrigue due to the implication that some disconcerting family tension potentially exists involving the teenager’s French-based creole-speaking grandma; “I swear between the two of you, I’m gonna meet an early fate.”

Similarly as successful at injecting everyday events with plenty of ‘pow’ is Jean’s portrayal of the “poor, naïve, innocent soul” half-heartedly selecting the best food her cafeteria has to offer and suddenly encountering Noel’s unjustifiably enraged girlfriend. This book’s audience literally just have enough time to register the jealous Lisa’s presence in the panel before the irate long-haired blonde has been sketched momentarily grabbing hold of Destiny’s uniform-grey blouse and then getting savagely smacked straight in the face by her formidably fierce foe for her unfounded aggressive act.

Perhaps the only hindrance to Issue One of "Spirit's Destiny" is therefore that is has been pencilled by a plethora of artists, who despite all prodigiously doing their best to make this comic a visually engaging experience, debatably still can’t help but repeatedly remind its reader that someone else has intermittently taken over the artistic duties. In fact, by the time this plot’s troublesome trio have unwisely broken into the Lucid Mechanical and Chemical Engineering Corp, and played out a scene somewhat reminiscent of Flynn’s early fate in the 1982 American science fiction action-adventure film “Tron”, the amount of changes throughout this comic’s interior are arguably a palpable distraction.

Writer: Dorphoise Jean, and Pencilers: Edwin Galmon, Richard Perotta & Stan Yak

Geek-Girl #4 - Markosia Enterprises

GEEK-GIRL No. 4, January 2019

Deftly tying up all this mini-series’ previous plot threads in light of Sam Johnson’s decision to make this title an ongoing publication (utilising the funding platform “Kickstarter”), Issue Four of “Geek-Girl” arguably starts somewhat slowly before blossoming into a full-on action-fest involving Chromex, Terry, the League of Larcenists, Neon Girl and undercover telekinetically-powered operative Tyler. In fact, by the time Pig-Head is busy serving his “quirky bunch of villains” a formidably-sized pizza-feast, prior to “the briefing on today’s job”, and a furiously frustrated Sandra has finally managed to contact a hung-over Ruby Kaye, all of this comic’s main cast are clearly in position for artist Carlos Granda to prodigiously pencil one pulse-pounding climax; “I told you to be ready. I’ve got where the League of Larcenists are! I’ve texted you the details -- Get over there now. I’ll meet you!”

Of course, that doesn’t mean that this twenty-eight page periodical rests upon its dialogue-driven laurels for its entire opening third either, as its creator even manages to provide an evening visit to Munchers diner with plenty of punch when Summer James, Mariella and “Little Miss Popular” are suddenly robbed at gun-point by a seriously incompetent mugger. Instantly donning her “power-inducing super-tech glasses”, an incensed Kaye soon overpowers the Batman-masked thug courtesy of a table to the face, and simultaneously provides just the sort of the ‘pizzazz’ Maine College’s co-educational student needed to get Geek-Girl “back in the game.”

Interestingly however, despite Ruby being “back in the costume” by the time a cybernetically-enhanced Neon Girl literally crashes in upon Pig-Head’s plans, and rather whimsically quotes Mel Brooks’ 1974 American satirical Western film “Blazing Saddles” as she punches through the secret headquarters’ brick wall, this comic’s conclusion is not as straightforwardly scripted as its readers may have anticipated considering “Maine's First Lady of super-heroing” is leading the charge. Indeed, Sandra’s “hell bent” decision to soar off in chase of Chromex and Terry’s escaping armoured truck leaves a wholly out-matched titular character facing almost the entirety of the Larcenist’s “serious tech” and “a guy whose brain has been fused with a pig’s” who isn’t afraid to use them upon the bespectacled brunette.

Astonishingly for a book which has previously depicted its super-heroes suffering from all manner of physical beatings and maimings, Johnson actually pens for this intense laser beam-filled finale to reach a satisfying conclusion, as Kaye’s unsuccessful attempt to replicate Al Pacino's “Say hello to my little friend” scene from the movie “Scarface” is salvaged at the last second by Neon Girl’s return and Tyler’s revelation that he’s working for Mister Carlyle. True, Pig-Head loses a hand during the cataclysmic conclusion, whilst Chromex luckily lives to commit crime another day, but such intriguing developments are actually soon overshadowed by the prospect of Geek-Girl potentially teaming-up with the chain-smoking power broker’s telekinetic in this series’ next edition…

Geek-Girl #4 is Out Now and available at www.geekgirlcomics.com and www.comixology.com

First published on the "Dawn of Comics" website.'

The regular cover art of "GEEK-GIRL" No. 4 by Carlos Granda

Doctor Who: The Thirteenth Doctor #4 - Titan Comics

DOCTOR WHO: THE THIRTEENTH DOCTOR No. 4, March 2019

Long-suffering survivors of the British science fiction television programme’s eleventh season who turned to “Titan Comics” for a quality fix of their favourite Time Lord were debatably hard pressed to take away any lasting enjoyment from Jody Houser’s narrative for Issue Four of “Doctor Who: The Thirteenth Doctor”. Indeed, the contrived penmanship behind this twenty-two page periodical’s plot is so exasperating in places, particularly towards its utterly unsurprising conclusion as the alien Hoarder is trapped by Perkin’s sabotaged vortex manipulator, that it smacks of the “Cupcake POW!” creator becoming hopelessly disillusioned as to where her storyline was heading and subsequently rushing the comic to a very unsatisfying end.

For starters, having previously written that the TARDIS could apparently automatically ‘swoop in’ to rescue the time travellers from certain death whenever they’re at the end of a corridor packed full of angrily armed extra-terrestrials, the Rod Parker Fellowship Award-winner suddenly decides that perhaps allowing the titular character to summon her antiquated Type 40 TT capsule whenever danger looms probably isn’t the most exciting of ideas, and awkwardly states that despite the Gallifreyan always having the ability to do this, the Doctor ludicrously doesn’t because the Police Box “gets a bit prickly… If you summon her too much. It’s a little demeaning for her, to be honest.” This explanation makes no sense whatsoever, and proves as unconvincing as Doctor Schultz’s account of having somehow “managed to locate… the traveller responsible for the antidote” to her potentially lethal poisoning, despite the hulking humanoid mule presumably travelling throughout the entire cosmos in order to acquire the formula’s precious ingredients.

Frustratingly, things debatably only get worse with Houser’s artificial script as “the time-twisting conclusion of the Thirteenth Doctor’s first comic adventure” reaches its climax and the “fizzing… confident explorer” solves almost everything courtesy of a wave of her ever-trusty sonic screwdriver. Apparently now able to utilise the multi-functional gadget to re-programme a large robot “for something more important than polishing gaudy décor”, such as cleaning locks right off of door handles, the Time Lord not only manages to succinctly rescue all of the Hoarder’s other captives, but handily even outwits the blue-skinned demonic-looking creature in to admitting his numerous transgressions within hearing of a band of law enforcement time agents; “Convenient they were listening right outside your door as you confessed your crimes. Temporal kidnapping. Temporal extortion. Temporal conspiracy…”

The regular cover art of "DOCTOR WHO: THE THIRTEENTH DOCTOR" No. 4 by Giorgia Sposito & Arianna Florean

Conan The Barbarian #1 - Marvel Comics

CONAN THE BARBARIAN No. 1, March 2019

There can surely be little doubt that the hype surrounding the return of “Conan The Barbarian” to “Marvel Comics” following a fifteen year run at rivals “Dark Horse Comics” had plenty of the sword and sorcery hero’s fans analeptic with anticipation in January 2018. Indeed, even the New York-based publisher’s Editor-in-Chief C.B. Cebulski got caught up in the company’s announced agreement with “Conan Properties International”, by stating that “It’s a legacy we’re now going to live up to with the talent we have lined up for the Cimmerian barbarian’s homecoming in early 2019. We’re excited!”

Some twelve months later and Jason Aaron’s narrative for “The Weird Of The Crimson Witch” arguably delivered upon that promise too, with a tale that should not only have sated the appetites of those readers who simply wanted to see the “black-haired, sullen-eyed” slayer of men just ferociously hack his way through a veritable army of opponents foolish enough to linger down in the fighting pits of Zamora. But those who also longed for the dark, magical elements of the Hyborian Age where a beautiful, partially-clad temptress can quickly transform into a wrinkled, undead witch and soon surround the hapless titular character in a writhing mass of hungry living corpses; “The dead flesh was soft and jellied. Held together by magic and maggots. But the teeth and nails were petrified and hard as jagged sea rocks.”

These sense-shattering shenanigans really do help carry the comic’s audience along at a terrific pace throughout the thirty-page periodical, and debatably don’t really ever slow down even when many years later, King Conan of Aquilonia walks across a victorious battlefield littered with Turanian bodies and subsequently challenges a pair of orphaned flesh-stealers who gleefully appear to be picking the juiciest of cadavers for their hand-pulled cart. This particularly gruesome sequence is admittedly somewhat dialogue-driven, yet soon turns the entire “all-new ages-spanning saga” upon its head when its revealed the tiny adolescents have been ‘mothered’ by the self-same Crimson Witch whom the Cimmerian had partially-beheaded so many years earlier “a league beneath the earth… in an ancient temple far older than Acheron, older than even Atlantis.”

Artist Mahmud Asrar also plays a prominent part in the success of this comic’s storyline, imbuing many of its ‘tried and tested’ action shots, such as Conan wrestling with the homicidal harpy he had moments before bedded or mercilessly carving through a ravenous horde of zombies, with plenty of pulse-pounding dynamism. In fact, the maniacal glint in the eye of this book’s main antagonist as her machinations reach fruition, along with the distinct feeling that the Turkish-born penciller was determined to populate as many panels as possible with swathes of blood, make every picture a compelling feast for the eyes.

First published on the "Dawn of Comics" website.'

The regular cover art of "CONAN THE BARBARIAN" No. 1 by Esad Ribic

Doctor Strange #386 - Marvel Comics

DOCTOR STRANGE No. 386, April 2018

Containing little more than a skimpy summary of the titular character’s unsuccessful attempt to restore Las Vegas “back in[to] fighting shape” following the city’s total destruction at the hands of a squadron of Hydra Helicarriers in “Marvel Comics” 2017 crossover event “Secret Empire”, it is difficult to believe that many within this book’s 24,864-strong audience were particularly pleased with Donny Cates’ narrative for Issue Three Hundred and Eighty Six of “Doctor Strange”. True, the American author’s script does a reasonably good job of explaining the Master Of The Mystic Arts’ pivotal role during the proceedings of his “Damnation” mini-series, yet that arguably doesn’t help resolve the frustration surrounding just why so momentous a magical act as the Sorcerer Supreme trying to resurrect “the poor people who had passed away in the attack back from the dead” wasn’t depicted in detail within the the primary protector of Earth’s own ongoing series as opposed to a separately published “shocking misfire from the top-downwards” (“Bleeding Cool” 2018).

Instead, regular readers of Steve Ditko’s co-creation are forced to endure an incredibly word-heavy discourse between the Ancient One’s former protégé and Mephisto whilst the pair play a disturbing round of Brimstone Blackjack at one of Hotel Inferno’s gambling tables. This debatably sedentary sequence does contain a few fleeting moments of entertainment, predominantly in the form of Strange first being smacked in the mouth by a muscle-bound demon for uttering the words “hit me”, and secondly for depicting the beleaguered Illuminati momentarily besting his aghast opponent courtesy of a spell which causes the extra-dimensional devil to be (mis)dealt the losing card; “I wasn’t supposed to be next in the deck and then I got this weird magic key tingle all along my tongue and Boom! Here I am! I’m tellin’ ya boss. This guy’s a lousy card cheat!” However, these ‘laughs’ are few and far between amidst a storyline that generally seems to have been penned simply to pad out an entire edition which is disappointingly just ‘treading water’ alongside a dated “central premise [which] is [already] based on an event that occurred a year earlier.”

Questionably therefore, this twenty-page periodical’s sole success can only be found within some of Niko Henrichon’s well-pencilled panels, and dishearteningly, even these are not as many as some bibliophiles would have hoped due to the Canadian illustrator’s far too satanically smiley interpretation of Strange’s red-skinned, fang-toothed nemesis. The former member of the Six-Fingered Hand has always been portrayed as an arrogant, overly confident manipulator of men, and in many ways a Machiavellian match for Loki, the God of Mischief. But during this opening instalment to “Bleeding Neon” the demon seems to be enjoying himself far more than one might have expected for so sinisterly serious a "perennial villain in the Marvel Universe."

First published on the "Dawn of Comics" website.'

Writer: Donny Cates, Artist: Niko Henrichon, and Colour Assistant: Laurent Grossat