Star Trek: The Next Generation: Through The Mirror #1 - IDW Publishing

STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION: THROUGH THE MIRROR No. 1, May 2018

Supposedly released as the first of five weekly instalments “because you demanded it”, this opening instalment to “the smash hit mini-series Mirror Broken” rather firmly fixes its attention upon the exploits of Commander Worf, as opposed to the rest of the U.S.S. Enterprise-D’s bridge crew. Indeed, apart from a handful of panels spent exploring the Starfleet Mining Facility on Naia IV, this entire sixteen-page periodical meticulously follows in the Klingon officer’s heavy footsteps.

Fortunately however, even those readers disinterested in the specific exploits of the “son of Mogh”, should still find David and Scott Tipton’s story-telling technique rather interesting, as it arguably works rather well as a plot-device to gradually inform the comic’s audience as to how the Federation staff’s investigation into a string of missing pieces of equipment is progressing. Admittedly, the Head of Security for the Galaxy-class starship was by necessity always going to be the one to spot the Mirror Universe’s doppelganger within their midst, but that doesn’t stop his subsequent fire-fight against a goatee-bearded Lieutenant Jones to be any less pulse-pounding.

In fact, Worf’s phaser exchange with the thieving technician deep inside the atmospherically dark Computer Labs is scintillatingly stuff, especially when Marcus To dynamically pencils the Klingon’s crew-mates, Reese and Hana, joining the ferocious fray and unsuccessfully attempt to corner their target with a flurry of laser fire. Angry, frustrated, his lavender-coloured blood clearly up, one can almost hear the Commander’s foul, warrior-based oaths being muttered beneath his breath as he leads Captain Ochoa and Lieutenant Amato headlong through the station’s arboretum and straight into a trap staged by a hidden alternative version of William Riker and seriously evil-looking Geordi La Forge; “The only place he could be heading in this wing of the complex is your transporter room…. Phasers ready. There he is! Don’t let him get away! Grrrr…”

Correspondingly as captivating is the comic book writing team’s “back-up” tale, “Ripe For Plunder”, which besides being beautifully painted by American artist J.K. Woodward, also provides plenty of potential insight into just what caused the Mirror Universe crew to “find their way” to the Prime plane of existence once again. Ultimately settling upon Jean-Luc Picard’s concerns as to Emperor Spock’s whereabouts, this four-pager explores just how bad things have gotten for the “cruel” Terran Empire since the Cardassians “destroyed… several key resource installations and mining colonies”, and intriguingly ends with the starship captain dispatching the barbaric realm’s Data in his yacht to “seek out other sources of information” on the former I.S.S. Enterprise's half-Vulcan first officer.

The regular cover art of "STAR TREK: TNG: THROUGH THE MIRROR" No. 1 by J.K. Woodward

The Amazing Spider-Man #789 - Marvel Comics

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN No. 789, December 2017

Despite being the third best-selling comic of October 2017, shifting an astonishing 110,349 copies, Dan Slott’s less than memorable script for “Top To Bottom” arguably must have struck many of its bemused readers as a genuinely lack-lustre affair which focuses far more upon the downfall of the major tech company’s founder and Chief Executive Officer, Peter Parker, than it does his web-slinging alter-ego. Indeed, with the exception of a terribly contrived confrontation with the Griffin, which genuinely appears to have been ‘crowbarred’ into the book’s sedentary ‘soap-opera’ script simply to ensure the titular character actually makes a fleeting appearance within his own title, this opening instalment to the Berkeley-born writer’s “Fall Of Parker” story-arc relies almost entirely upon endless contemplative, self-pitying exposition and heated debates or discussions; “Well, what are you looking at? What do you think I am? Some kind of jerk or something?”

Admittedly, such slow-paced, somewhat sentimental insights into the crime-fighting super-hero’s meteoritic decline would be perfectly palatable in small doses, and actually go a long way to helping shape the future of the New York-based publisher’s “company mascot” now he’s no longer financially able to summon the sort of formidably-powerful technological armaments he once did in order to invade Symkaria and thwart Norman Osborn. But that doesn’t mean the Eisner Award-winner needed to ‘pad out’ almost an entire book with a dejected Spidey slobbing like a couch potato within the apartment of Bobbi Morse, or later looking vain and stupid in front of the entire Daily Bugle staff when he arrogantly chides Joe Robertson for quite correctly publically declaring him a “threat or menace” in the editor's newspaper.

Fortunately however, Johnny Horton’s aforementioned brief appearance does at least provide a modicum of entertainment, even if the one-time Master of Evil has stooped so low as to be simply “robbing food trucks now” as opposed to “banks, or jewellery stores, or armoured cars”. In fact, any readers who thought Spider-Man’s fortunes had soured under the Berkeley-born writer’s pen, need only look at the apparent fate of the experimental mutagenic serum-enhanced criminal to realise just how much further the empanadas-thieving former “King Of The Beasts” had sunk since “that big energy bubble went up over the city” courtesy of Doctor Octopus.

Regular penciller Stuart Immonen also steps up his game once the super-humanly strong winged villain momentarily takes centre-stage, and produces some genuinely pulse-pounding panels in his depiction of Mockingbird shocking the lion-headed beast with her battle-staves, as well as the wall-crawler subsequently vying for control of a hefty food truck in order to ensure that it, and its owner’s livelihood, is saved.

The regular cover art of "THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN" No. 789 by Alex Ross

Death Or Glory #1 - Image Comics

DEATH OR GLORY No. 1, May 2018

Announced in February 2018 at the “Image Expo” in Portland, this “new, creator-owned” comic book series is arguably as engrossing a read as its opening scene, set within the confines of a seedy Yuma-based Burger Boss diner, is expletive-laden and gratuitously violent. For whilst Rick Remender’s script undoubtedly doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to graphic sexual innuendo and bodily mutilation, courtesy of a white-haired mass-murderer with a liquid nitrogen gun and penchant for “one hundred and twenty-three cheeseburgers”, its scintillating story-telling pace does arguably make this over-sized thirty-nine page periodical impossible to put down.

For starters, the Los Angeles-based writer has clearly put a lot of thought into the background and motivation of this publication’s leading lady, Glory, and genuinely raises an emotive conundrum in his audience as the “kind, honest character who was raised free, with integrity”, suddenly attempts an armed robbery in a desperate effort to get “the money needed to pay for her father’s life-saving operation.” This potentially lethal situation, made all the more pulse-pounding by the realisation that the “non-violent” young woman has previously been made physically sick simply just holding a pistol, is mesmerizingly packed full of nervous tension, and genuinely seems to cause the reader’s heart to tick that little bit quicker when the crooked cops she’s raiding suddenly recognise her true identity; “Got you now you piece of -- Glory? You stupid girl.”

Equally as enthralling though, is the former animator’s marvellously sinister cold-blooded assassin, who seems to think little of dispatching “two employees and one customer” at a fast food eatery simply because they balked at his significant-sized order when the restaurant was “closin' in like three minutes” time, or losing his entire right arm when Glory unintentionally ruptures his cryogenic fluid container during a tense, frantic scuffle for a briefcase full of drug’s money. Indeed, this killer’s ominous presence throughout the shadows of this story bodes especially well for a title which Remender has already “outlined” twelve issues for, with the hit man’s future plans for revenge upon the pacifist “regular girl” undoubtedly foremost in his mind…

Debatably this book’s biggest selling point however, is Bengal’s unbelievably dynamic and somewhat Manga-looking animated artwork. Featuring a lengthy off-road pursuit involving a battered police patrol vehicle and plenty of gun-play, it is quite clear that the illustrator “loves drawing cars”, and demonstrates just why this magazine’s author has publically stated that “anything he draws is gorgeous. His style is very appealing. His women are human, cute and realistic. They’re not cheesecake. If you look at the design of Glory, she’s a real person. She’s not a caricature. Her proportions and her face are beautiful but human, she’s very real.”

The regular cover art of "DEATH OR GLORY" No. 1 by Bengal

Aliens: Dust To Dust #1 - Dark Horse Comics

ALIENS: DUST TO DUST No. 1, April 2018

If Gabriel Hardman’s intention was for Issue One of “Aliens: Dust To Dust” to try and recapture some of “the intensity and terror” of “James Cameron's 1986 blockbuster [movie] Aliens”, then he undoubtedly succeeds, as a “12-year-old Maxon and his mom” fiercely fight off an infestation of xenomorphs which seems just as insanely terrifying as that faced by Newt and Ripley. In fact, the storyboard artist for “Batman: The Dark Knight Rises” somehow even arguably manages to replicate “the [self-same] emotional rollercoaster of motherly feelings” the Nostromo’s warrant officer “develops for the terrified little girl” with his narrative’s “edge of your seat” depiction of the “mother and son” fighting “for their lives against the deadliest monsters in the galaxy.” 

Admittedly, this twenty-page periodical’s persistent pace could have proved to be a somewhat tiring experience for any bibliophiles within the title's 12,611 strong audience who were ill-prepared for such a frantically fast read, as it simply does not stop from the moment the anxious adolescent wakes up to the sound of automatic gunfire and discovers his unresponsive parent in bed with a face-hugger firmly latched onto her face. But in penning such a pulse-pounding narrative the “co-writer/artist of Invisible Republic from Image Comics” indisputably “weaves an Aliens story harkening back to the classic film.”

Indeed, it’s hard to imagine any passing bibliophile returning this publication to its spinner rack once they have started following the pairs headlong drive through the partially-destroyed streets of the Trono colony, or their subsequent foot race alongside Assistant Administrator Waugh as they’re pursued to the very doors of the last departing evacuation spacecraft by a veritable horde of angrily hissing extra-terrestrials; “Hold the shuttle! We’re here!” Such sequences really prove enthrallingly gripping story-telling, and one can almost hear the desperation in the cast’s breathless dialogue as their party perpetually encounters more and more of the vicious creatures, whether they be hidden beneath stairwells, seizing upon hapless pedestrians desperately trying to flee for their lives, or assaulting moving motor vehicles with their deadly sharp-pointed tails.

Sadly however, Hardman’s ability to pencil all these sense-shattering shenanigans is not quite as strong as his wordsmith skills. For whilst the artist’s scratchy style does a first-rate job of illustrating the devastation and ruin which the aliens have caused on planet LV-871, as well as imbue every figure with a captivating quota of dynamism, it does occasionally cause his darkly lit panels to mask much of the actual detail to events, such as Maxon’s discovery of his ‘bedridden’ mother and the parasitoid paralysing her…

Script and Art: Gabriel Hardman, Lettering: Michael Heisler, and Coloring: Rain Beredo

Dolphin Squad II: A Death In The Pod [Part Three] - Deadstar Publishing

DOLPHIN SQUAD II: A DEATH IN THE POD, May 2018

Bringing “this seventy two page full colour, all action graphic novel” to a satisfying conclusion with the discovery and resultant rescue of the Albino Avenger, Fabian, Danny J. Weston’s narrative for the final third of this publication definitely relies far more upon gallows humour to provide its gags than it has before. For whilst Vinny continues to deliver some of the corniest one-liners ever uttered by an aquatic mammal within the confines of a comic, such as when the “giant giant panda” Ping Po rescues Laser-Eye from a polar bear’s deadly bear-hug, and the “world’s angriest dolphin” delivers the cringe-worthy wisecrack “looks like we bear-ly made it in time”, it is actually the gruesomely lethal fate of the script’s “malicious mastermind” which arguably draws the biggest guffaws.

Helfert’s unwise decision to saw through his own handcuffed hand with a well-hidden hacksaw, rather than use the toothed-tool to cut through the wooden table leg he was manacled to, is rather reminiscent of Doctor Lawrence Gordon’s grisly resolution to Jigsaw’s conundrum in the 2004 horror film “Saw”. Yet it immediately draws more than a smile from the reader due to the ‘mean-hearted’ haranguing Dolphin Squad give the now mutilated German-accented super-villain for not just simply ‘sawing through the desk’; “Vot? Ze desk..? I… Uh -- Curse you dolphin!”

Interestingly, the author also utilises this debatably grotesque scene and the trail of blood droplets it leaves behind as a plot device to provide a reason as to how the titular threesome can track down the bespectacled scientist to his “secret emergency exit to lobby” and subsequently witness his comically dark demise in the jaws of four no longer mind-controlled minions. The look on the straight-faced polar bear as he closes the door in order to stop the audience from seeing what the quartet of snow-coloured predators are about to do to their former master is wonderfully pencilled by Weston, and one can only imagine the evil professor’s final moments as the jumper-wearing carnivores ignore his plea not to “eat me” and start “licking” their meal…

Sadly, slightly less successful is “the S.E.A.W.O.R.L.D. short” entitled “The Poseidon Misadventure” written by Mark Adams and Mark Warner. Clearly designed to emulate an earlier era in Laser-Eye’s career, before Hogan became the Whalereverine and was actually the porpoise’s “big guy on the team”, this tale certainly provides an entertaining insight into some of the super-team’s former members like Campion the sea urchin, and Anna-Leigh the sea cow. But having spent so long perusing the computer-enhanced digitised drawings of “Dolphin Squad II: A Death In The Pod”, the stylised, characterfully pencilled panels of Dave Clifford debatably prove a jarring distraction from the storytelling.

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

Writer and Artist: Danny J. Weston

Moon Knight #192 - Marvel Comics

MOON KNIGHT No. 192, April 2018

If there’s one thing which Max Bemis’ narrative for Issue One Hundred And Ninety Two of “Moon Knight” undeniably delivers, it is one of the best fight-scenes the Fist of Khonshu has been involved in since Warren Ellis’ “Scarlet” storyline was published way back in September 2014. Indeed, the five-page long sense-shattering sequence is arguably worth the cover price of this comic alone, as Marc Spector’s alter-ego initially busies himself simply biting Bushman’s hand, before becoming a physical whirlwind of devastation upon a crew of “disabled” criminals and ultimately severs a couple of the bald Burundan mercenary’s fingers; “You want to play pirates? Yo $%#& ho, mateys… I’m not one of those super heroes who won’t straight-up kill you, Bushman.” 

Sadly however, this flurry of fisticuffs is arguably all the New York-born lead singer’s script had to offer its slowly declining 20,923-strong audience in February 2018, apart from some simply bizarre conversational pieces between a cuiously ‘zombified’ Jean-Paul “Frenchie” DuChamp, a strangely therapeutic Truth, and a disturbingly polite Sun King, who, with his shades and casually open white shirt, would seem more suited to life as a Travel Agents’ representative than a living vessel of “the Egyptian sun god Ra”. Of course, this comic also contains the utterly surreal suggestion that if Moon Knight hadn’t been such a “bad, bad boy” he could have become a Herald of Galactus, the basis for a ‘mutant-loving’ series of Sentinels, or the very ‘voice of reason’ which somehow scientifically convinced Reed Richards not to undertake his ill-fated starship journey. But it's extremely doubtful that many perusing bibliophiles actually managed to make any semblance of sense from these escaped psychological patient’s mental meanderings within the titular character’s metaphorical mind...

Similarly as ‘hit and miss’ as this book’s writing is its artwork by Jacen Burrows. The one-time “Avatar Press” exclusive contractee really does an incredible job for this periodical’s (infuriatingly misleading) cover illustration by depicting the “deadly vigilante” tightly bound beneath the waves and encircled by a school of hungry sharks. Yet, besides the American’s aforementioned dynamically drawn ding-dong on board Bushman’s “death-barge”, seemingly struggles to subsequently bring any real sense of life or animation to the rest of his sketch’s figures, especially those post Spector’s altercation across “a rolling mysterious seascape” and set upon “Isla Ra.”

Writer: Max Bemis, Artist: Jacen Burrows, and Inker: Guillermo Ortego

Sherlock Holmes: The Vanishing Man #1 - Dynamite Entertainment

SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE VANISHING MAN No. 1, May 2018

Whilst the “Dynamite Entertainment” creative crew may well have leapt at the opportunity to “fill in” some of the “as-yet-unrecorded adventures” which Doctor John Watson was always insinuating with their own anecdotes, this opening instalment to “Sherlock Holmes: The Vanishing Man” seems perturbingly similar to Arthur Conan Doyle’s December 1891 short “The Man With The Twisted Lip” rather than an innovative addition to the internationally popular franchise’s comic-based canon. True, “the curious case of Michael Williams” initially focuses upon the disappearance of a solicitor’s “excellent” yet lowly office clerk rather than a “respectable businessman” such as Mister Neville St. Clair. But the similarities in both characters being supposedly reliable men “at... work and home, who [then violently] disappear without a trace from foggy old London Town” will undoubtedly inauspiciously strike a chord with any readers familiar with the amateur sleuth’s well-documented fictional biography.

Fortunately however, it doesn’t take Leah Moore and John Reppion’s collaborative narrative for this twenty-two page periodical too long before it starts to take on a life of its own, as the hapless, well-meaning druggist Lloyd comes to a grisly end simply because he “had a shop in Tooting once”, and the titular character accepts an infinitely less ‘run-of-the-mill’ investigation involving missing Brigadier Ronald Makepeace and an ancient Egyptian Mummy’s curse; “It’s something from a Boy’s Own Adventure! How could I resist such a case?” These additional sub-plots really help add some enthralling complications to the story-telling, not least of which is Professor Moriarty’s notable surprise appearance in a dead chemist's store clutching a vial of Holmes’ precious “poison”…

Equally as enticing is the husband-and-wife writing team’s attention to detail towards their tale’s supporting cast, most notably that of young urchin Wiggins and the far less likeable Mister Withers. As far as the diminutive Baker Street Irregular is concerned, one can almost feel his excitement at being promised the change from a gold sovereign for completing a seemingly straightforward errand, and then later taste the petrified boy’s palpable fear having witnessed a pharmacist being brutally beaten to death right in front of his horrified eyes. Whereas Mister Hookham’s male assistant, ever present and watchful throughout his boss’s dealings with Holmes and Watson, is clearly capable of lying to his employer, as demonstrated by artist Julius Ohta pencilling the man brazenly walking into his superior’s office upon seeing the older man's guests and claiming he didn’t “hear anyone come in."

Writers: Leah Moore & John Reppion, and Illustrator: Julius Ohta