The Demon Prince of Momochi House: The Third Shikigami

I read The Demon Prince of Momochi House, Vol. 2

I posted a review at the ComicBookBin.  Follow me on Twitter and Tumblr or at Grumble.  Support me on Patreon.

Review: STAR WARS #7

STAR WARS (2015) #7
MARVEL COMICS – @Marvel

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.  Visit "Star Wars Central review page.]

STORY: Jason Aaron
ART: Simonepon Bianchi
COLORS: Justin Ponsor
LETTERS: VC's Chris Eliopoulos
COVER: John Cassaday with Laura Martin
28pp, Color, $3.99 U.S. (September 2015)

Rated T

Earlier this year, Marvel Comics began publishing Star Wars comic books again, for the first time since 1986.  They regained the license due to the fact that Lucasfilm, Ltd. (Star Wars' parent company) became part of The Walt Disney Company, which also owns Marvel Comics' parent (Marvel Entertainment).

As far as I am concerned, the return of Star Wars to Marvel has been a wild success.  Perhaps, it is my childhood association with Marvel Comics as the publisher of Star Wars comic books.  Still, the three ongoing series (Star Wars, Darth Vader, Kanan: The Last Padawan) and the, thus far, two miniseries (the completed Princess Leia and the just started Lando) are a blast to read.

Star Wars #7 offers a one-off tale after the conclusion of its opening story arc, which saw Luke Skywalker find the journal of his old mentor, the former Jedi Knight, Obi-Wan Kenobi.  In Star Wars (1977), the original film, Obi-Wan was known as “Old Ben Kenobi,” that “crazy old wizard,” who lived out in the desert.  We learn very little of Ben “Obi-Wan” Kenobi in the original Star Wars trilogy.  In the prequel trilogy that began with Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999), we learned much about Obi-Wan's latter days as a padawan and his time as a Jedi Master.

What is still mostly shrouded in mystery is the two decades Obi-Wan spent on the planet Tatooine as a Jedi-in-exile slash hermit.  Star Wars #7 brings to life an excerpt from Old Ben Kenobi's journal.  It tells that while he watched over the boy, Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan yearned for more.  He struggled because his training had taught him to be active, not just some guy sitting and waiting.  Now, his impatience may cost him in regards to his most important task.

I did not expect much from Star Wars #7, although I have thoroughly enjoyed the work of writer Jason Aaron on this series.  However, series artist John Cassaday was apparently only going to draw the first story arc, and he is a big reason that I have enjoyed this series so much.  I don't particularly care for the work of artist Simone Bianchi, who stepped in to draw this story.

I must admit to being pleasantly surprised by Star Wars #7.  Aaron's story of hope, redemption, and courage feels true to the spirit of classic Star Wars.  Bianchi's overly stylish compositions have a sensibility that is not foreign to classic Star Wars; the art even recalls the kind of adventure illustration that influenced George Lucas in creating Star Wars.  Besides, Star Wars #7 has a cover by John Cassaday and colorist Laura Martin, which pleases me.

I am hoping for more excerpts from Old Ben Kenobi's journal.  I have a new hope that there are some exciting adventures to be told.

B+

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux


The text is copyright © 2015 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

I Reads November 2015

Let's make it a November to remember.  Welcome to I Reads You, a ComicBookBin web and sister publication (www.comicbookbin.com).  We write about the things we read:  mostly comic books, comics, and related books.  Sometimes, we’ll write about or link to other topics:  typically books, politics, and entertainment.

Support Leroy on Patreon.

All images and text appearing on this publication are copyright © and/or trademark their respective owners.

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Master Keaton: The Pied Piper of Hamelin

I read Master Keaton, Vol. 4

I posted a review at the ComicBookBin.  Follow me on Twitter and Tumblr or at Grumble.  Support me on Patreon.

Review: MAD MAX: FURY ROAD: Furiosa #1

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD: FURIOSA #1
DC COMICS/Vertigo – @DCComics

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

STORY: George Miller
SCRIPT: Nico Lathouris and Mark Sexton
ART: Mark Sexton; Tristan Jones; Szymon Kudranski
COLORS: Michael Spicer
LETTERS: Clem Robins
COVER: Tommy Lee Edwards
40pp, Color, $4.99 U.S. (August 2015)

Suggested for mature readers

In 1979, an Australian science fiction film, entitled Mad Max, introduced audiences to the character, Max Rockatansky (played by a young Mel Gibson).  Mad Max is set in a dystopian future that takes place “a few years from now,” and finds the roads of Australia plagued by motorcycle gangs and other high-speed drivers.  Trying to keep the roads safe are the police officers of the MFP – Main Force Patrol – who pursue reckless road criminals.  After his family and partner are destroyed by a motorcycle gang, Max becomes “Mad Max,” seeking revenge against the gang.

Mad Max yielded two sequels.  The first was 1981's Mad Max 2, which was known as The Road Warrior when it was originally released in the United States in 1982.  The second sequel was Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, which featured legendary singer, Tina Turner, as the villain.

All three films were directed by George Miller, who spent the better part of the last two decades trying to revive the Mad Max film franchise.  Warner Bros. Pictures finally gave the go-ahead, and a fourth film, Mad Max: Fury Road, debuted earlier this year and starred Thomas Hardy as Mad Max.

DC Comics' Vertigo imprint has been publishing a series of Mad Max: Fury Road comic books that are prequels to the film.  These comic books are produced by George Miller and Nico Lathouris (who co-wrote Fury Road), and Mark Sexton (the lead storyboard artist on Fury Road).

On the recommendation of Mad Max super-fan, Erik Larsen (my VIZ Media PR rep), I recently obtained a copy of Mad Max: Fury Road: Furiosa #1.  This one-shot comic book is written by George Miller (story) and Nico Lathouris and Mark Sexton (script).  Furiosa is drawn by Mark Sexton; Tristan Jones; and Szymon Kudranski, with colors by Michael Spicer and letters by Clem Robins.  Tommy Lee Edwards provides the cover art.

Mad Max: Fury Road: Furiosa #1 opens in the vault, an edifice where the warlord Immortan Joe keeps five young women prisoner.  They are “The Five Wives,” his “Breeders,” whom he plans to use to sire healthy male heirs.  Joe believes these heirs will be future warlords, who will help repopulate the world in his image.

Joe introduces two women into the wives' living environment.  To guard against depression and mental ills, Joe gives his wives a teacher, Miss Giddy, a woman who will provide the wives with an education via books and music.  To protect them, Joe assigns one of his lieutenants, a mysterious woman named Imperator Furiosa, who moves in to live with the girls.  Things will never ever be the same.

Mad Max: Fury Road: Furiosa #1 really does not have a plot, so much as it is a prologue to the main event, which is, of course, the film, Mad Max: Fury Road (which I have not seen as of this writing).  For the most part, this comic book is frustratingly reticent about giving up Imperator Furiosa's past.  However, the story does convey, in a quiet way, Furiosa's growing discontent with the way things are under Immortan Joe.

The overall design layout of this story is excellent.  From the beginning, the design and layout of each page serves to convey the sense that some big change is simmering and that when it comes, it will be sudden and explosive.  As for the drawing styles, Tristan Jones and Szymon Kudranski encapsulate the idea of a slave pit of the post-apocalyptic, especially with the aid of Michael Spicer's colors.

Mad Max: Fury Road: Furiosa #1 has made it that I can't wait for my next trip to a comic book shop to pick up the other Mad Max: Fury Road prequel comics.

A-

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux


The text is copyright © 2015 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

Review: JOJO'S BIZARRE ADVENTURE: Part 1 - Phantom Blood Volume 3

JOJO'S BIZARRE ADVENTURE: PART 1 – PHANTOM BLOOD, VOL. 3
VIZ MEDIA – @VIZMedia

MANGAKA: Hirohiko Araki
TRANSLATION: Evan Galloway
LETTERS: Mark McMurray
ISBN: 978-1-4215-7881-1; hardcover (August 2015); Rated “T+” for “Older Teen”
348pp, B&W with some color, $19.99 U.S., $22.99 CAN, £12.99 U.K.

VIZ Media's presentation of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, the Phantom Blood arc, comes to an end with the third volume.  The legendary Shonen Jump manga series, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, is available in English for the first time.  VIZ Media is publishing the manga as a series of deluxe edition graphic novels with color pages and new cover art.

Created by Hirohiko Araki, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is a multi-generational tale that centers on the heroic Joestar family and their never-ending battle against evil.  JoJo's Bizarre Adventure begins with the “Phantom Blood” arc.  It is the story of two brothers; one who is ambitious, but is also cruel and evil, and the other who is dignified and strives to be a just man.

Dio Brando has used the evil “Stone Mask” to turn people into flesh-eating zombies and also to resurrect great warriors of the past as monstrous fighters.  As JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Part 1 – Phantom Blood, Vol. 3 (Chapters 28 to 44) opens,  Jonathan “JoJo” Joestar takes on two of those reanimated fighters, Tarkus and the Dark Knight Blueford.  JoJo will transform one of them, but the other will prove to be a determined killer who will take the life of one of Jojo's friends.

Then, JoJo and his companions travel to the village of one of their company, the boy named Poco.  Dio is in the village, making it his base of operations, where he has already transformed dozens of villagers into hungry zombies.  Is Poco's sisters one of those creatures?  This is the final battle between JoJo and Dio, but that battle will span continents.

I was vaguely familiar with the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure manga, which was first published in 1986 in Weekly Shonen Jump.  Now, I know why.  This manga cannot help but have a reputation.  The story's contents are the kind that turn into word-of-mouth praise.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Part 1 – Phantom Blood, Volume 3 is the final collection of the Phantom Blood story arc.  For the most part, probably 300 pages of the narrative depict fight scenes.  Creator Hirohiko Araki composes the fights with big, meaty compositions that portray the human body as a stand of pulsating and twisting muscle.  His drawing style looks like the art of American comic book legends, Jack Kirby and Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, and mangaka Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro squeezed into a Frankenstein anatomy for sculptors.

This finale earns the word “blood” and is shocking in so many ways.  For me, the most shocking is the scene where a woman devours her infant. Yeah...  JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is for the adventurous manga reader, and I have to admit that I am ready for more.  Fans of weird shonen manga will want to try the Shonen Jump Advanced series, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Part 1 – Phantom Blood.

A-

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux


The text is copyright © 2015 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

Review: UNCLE SCROOGE #1

UNCLE SCROOGE #1
IDW PUBLISHING – @IDWPublishing

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

WRITERS: Rodolfo Cimino; Alberto Savini; Romano Scarpa and Luca Boschi
PENCILS: Romano Scarpa; Andrea Freccero
INKS: Giorgio Cavazzano; Andrea Freccero; Sandro Del Conte
COLORS: Digikore Studios; Disney Italia with David Gerstein; Disney Italia with Digikore Studios
LETTERS: Tom B. Long
TRANSLATION: Jonathan H. Gray; David Gerstein
DIALOGUE: Jonathan H. Gray; David Gerstein; Joe Torcivia
COVER: Giorgio Cavazzano
VARIANT COVERS: Derek Charm (subscription cover); Andrew Pepoy (RI cover); Giorgio Cavazzano (RE cover)
48pp, Color, $3.99 U.S. (April 2015)

Scrooge McDuck is the maternal uncle of Walt Disney's Donald Duck and the grand-uncle of Donald's three nephews:  Huey, Dewey, and Louie.  Scrooge is the wealthiest person in the world (of Disney characters and stories), but he is quite thrifty, although for a long time, he could be described as a miser.  Scrooge McDuck was created by legendary comic book writer-artist, Carl Barks (who was named a “Disney Legend”), and he first appeared in Four Color #178 (Dell Comics).  Four Color Comics was a classic comic book series in which many Disney characters appeared.

Scrooge McDuck received his own comic book title, Uncle Scrooge (stylized as Uncle $crooge).  The first issue of Uncle Scrooge was Four Color #386 (cover dated: March 1952).  During a period of just over seven decades, several publishers and imprints have published Uncle Scrooge, including Gold Key Comics, Gladstone Publishing, and Disney Comics (now defunct), among others.

The latest American publisher to take on the license to publish comics featuring Walt Disney characters is IDW Publishing.  The publisher's Disney's comics will apparently reprint “classic stories” and offer new stories.  In April of this year, IDW started off its Disney publishing initiative with Uncle Scrooge #1, which is Uncle Scrooge #405, using a legacy numbering system that includes all the issue of the Uncle Scrooge comic book published in the past by various publishers.

Uncle Scrooge #1 reprints three stories, which I assume were first published in Europe, likely Italy, going by the names of the writers and artists.  Two are full-length stories, and a third is a single-page comic.  In “Gigabeagle: King of the Robot Robbers,” Scrooge McDuck frets because it has been several months since he has heard from the Beagle Boys.

The Beagle Boys are the criminal gang that is constantly launching plots and schemes to rob Scrooge of his money.  When he doesn't hear from them for a long period of time, Scrooge worries that they are plotting a particularly devious (and potentially successful) plan to get his money.  Donald Duck and Huey, Dewey, and Louie take their Uncle Scrooge on a camping outing so that he can relax and forget about The Beagle Boys.  Then, Donald sees what can only be an apparition, a giant Beagle Boy...

In “Stinker, Tailor, Scrooge and Sly,” Uncle Scrooge is beset by a thief who keeps breaking into his home to steal Scrooge's trademark red frock coat.  After one of the theft attempts ends with the coat damaged, Scrooge visits “La Belle Brigitta,” a sewing boutique owned by Brigitta MacBridge, who has a mad crush on Scrooge.  However, Brigitta has a new minority business partner, Jubal Pomp, and they have plans for Scrooge, even as the thief continues to stalk the now-damaged frock coat.

I bought IDW's Uncle Scrooge #1 for two reasons.  It was a first issue, and it was a first issue of a comic book series (Uncle Scrooge) that I once read on a regular basis (even religiously) for about a decade.  I did not expect much from it.  I still like comics featuring classic Disney characters, but not enough to read them as much as I did in my younger days.  I was a bit miffed that this first issue did not even include a reprint of a Carl Barks story – Barks, the man who created Scrooge McDuck!

Well, it didn't matter.  The two main stories in Uncle Scrooge #1 are quite entertaining.  Romano Scarpa, the artist for both stories, recalls Carl Barks with his lively, energetic compositions.  If comics are composed of a series of static drawings, there is nothing in any panel that Scarpa draws for these two stories that seems static.  There is sense of movement; characters are moving with zip and arguing with zest.  These are stories of action and imagination.

Uncle Scrooge #1 is the kind of return that bodes well for IDW's foray into Disney comics.  I enjoyed Uncle Scrooge #1 so much that I will take a look at other IDW Walt Disney comic books.

A-

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux


The text is copyright © 2015 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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