Category: Comic Reviews

Wrestling is in the middle of a quiet cultural renaissance. Sure, we’re not exactly seeing a return to the high-water marks of the 1980s or the Attitude Era of the late 1990s, but wrestling’s getting big again. One of the best ways to see how this particular form of entertainment is sparking the imagination is by looking at your local comic shop. Titles like Do a Powerbomb and Wrassle Castle have brought wrestling into the four-color world, but they’re just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the squared circle’s presence in comics. Ahoy Comics’ THE GIMMICK (Joanee Starer, Elena Gogou) is another great example of how well comics and wrestling can go together.

Dem’ Gulls is a fun start to what I can only describe as middle schoolers taking Tiny Toons and Animaniacs to the next level.

Pro wrestling and crime are more closely related than one might think. After all, the whole thing more or less got started as nothing more than a pretty elaborate con, and the rap sheets of some of the men and women who have been involved in the sport tell their own tale. Honestly, it’s a little surprising that more writers haven’t mined this particular vein, especially since it’s full of larger-than-life characters routinely putting their health on the line for the promise of what’s generally a pretty small payday.

What exactly does it mean to carry on a legacy? Does it matter who you’ve learned things from? Does it matter if it’s a family or cultural aspect versus something that you’ve picked up just by living your life? Do you have to know you’re doing it for things to count.

These are all questions that get asked by The Legend of the Night Owl #1. Or attempt to anyway because let’s be real getting an answer to those questions would probably break the world.

There are so many ways to tell a story. You can start at the beginning and make sure the reader know everything that’s going on. You can have a point of view character who learns things as an excuse to teach the reader what is going on. You can do it all as a flashback or memoir and have a different frame for everything.

Or you can just throw all of that out the window and trust that your audience understands the conventions of the genre you’re in and can fill in a lot of the blanks for themselves.

Anyone into the Dracula mythology, or wanting to get into it, needs to check this one out. It probably needs that connection for the reader to get the full effect out of it, but it’s a great story that has the blessing of the Stoker family.

The new run of Savage Avengers by David Pepose (Scout’s Honor, The O.Z.) and Carlos Magno (Avengers Forever, Kang the Conqueror) at least feels like it’s going to be more of a team book than a team-up book. It certainly still centers on Conan, at least for now, but our first issue brings in a truly interesting team.

Wrestling is one of those forms of entertainment that I broadly claim as one of my ‘things’. You know, one of those special interests that are maybe so all-consuming that they reach deep down into your wallet and consume your free time? That.

Regrets, we all have them. Whether it’s a typo noticed too late on a work email, a spoonful of salt in a cup of tea instead of sugar or a morning wasted trying to think of a third example for a throwaway bit at the start of a review, we all have things we wish we could go back and change. But what if you could go back and fix those mistakes? What if you could ensure you had the future you always dreamed of? And how much would you be willing to sacrifice to get it?

A continuation of a great story where you can figure out what’s going on if you start here, but you really should go back and start from the beginning.

Motorcycles and music and witches and the beasts that hunt them. All spread across the Texas desert. It might not be for kids, but it’ll definitely make the kid inside you really happy.

Reburn is set in a futuristic or alternative universe where AI, holograms and memory implants exist. We’re in the future baby! This is a dystopian story a la Brave New World: too shiny and everyone is just a bit too “unified.” There’s a giant pre-recorded hologram of their government leader that stands over the city at night, regaling the locals with her rhetoric. “We are one,” she says. 

We have a double winner here. A good story anyway, but also one that is a good introduction to Jewish mythology. Great for young readers and people who just like good stories.

For people familiar with World of Darkness this is a nostalgia inducing trip back to the 1990s. For those who aren’t get ready to be thrown into the pool and pray you know how to swim. If you’re cool with that though then jump on in.

If you’re a fan of true crime in any medium this is one to check out. Eric Powell and Harold Schedcter take a dark and gritty look at the real life story of Eddie Gein.

As one of the most compassionate characters in comics Wonder Woman is going to try to save everyone. But what happens when the person she decides needs saving is a literal bringing of destruction and threatens the lives of everyone else?

Scouting has always been a little weird to me. Even as a kid, I wondered what exactly all of this preparedness was going to be for. As a child of the suburbs, I wasn’t entirely convinced I would ever need to know how to tie a thousand types of knots or navigate through the woods with only my knowledge of woodcraft. Besides, all the made up words and loyalty rules seemed a little, you know, cult-y to me even at the time.

Barbaric #2 is another round of fun right off the rip. More blood, more craziness, more asshole weapons who just can’t keep their mouth shut. What else could you ask for?

I come into Barbaric with a few things in mind:

Vault Comics is on top of their stuff and if I could easily pull it off I’d have the shop just get me all of their #1 issues
I love fantasy based stuff
The ax’s mouth is dripping blood, so we can assume it doesn’t ask for a well done steak. I’m guessing mid rare at the most

I know I should judge a book by it’s cover. Especially a comic because there are at least 37 different covers and I can only get so many of them. But it’s so hard with Hollow Heart because this cover is so enticing. Why is there a dude staring at me? What is the dude staring at me from? How do the eyes go all shiny like that?

All of that aside, I’m loving what I’m seeing in this first issue.