Pick Of My Pile for the week of 10-22-08

Hello Chums,

A great week for comic book reading this week. I picked up quite a few solid reads. Let's check them out.

As always Marvel first.

Thor - The Truth Of History 1 (one-shot). Alan Davis does the art and writing on this 34 page story. This story features Thor, Volstagg, Fandral and Hogun in Egypt when the pyramids are being constructed. For fun Laurel and Hardy make an appearance in present day.

Hulk #7. Jeph Loeb, Arthur Adams, Frank Cho. Nuff Said. Maybe not. How about this: Two stories written by Loeb, one drawn by Adams the other by Cho. Hey these guys are so slow this is a good way to get them in a monthly book. They only have to draw 11 pages (each) a month. We get 22 pages of great art and hopefully they can keep up.

Samurai #2 (of four) (Soleil). More great story and art set in feudal Japan.

The New Avengers #46 (secret invasion tie-in). When is this going to be over? This issue tells the story of how the villains find out about the Skrull invasion.




Captain America #43. The first Bucky as Cap arc after the 18 month death of Captain America story.



True Believers #4 (of 5). Since Payback is in a coma for most of this issue, it's a good time for some flashbacks.



Secret Invasion #7 (of 8). The least interesting parts of these event books is when all of the characters finally go at it at the same time. This issue has too much of that.



Criminal #6 (Icon). Bad Night part 3 of 4. Jacob and Iris together. No way. Poor Jacob.



Vertigo:

Air #1. A story set in the world of airlines with flight attendants, sky marshals, and a very frequent flier all post 9-11.

Image:

I Kill Giants #1. A story of a fifth grader who might just kill giants. Or is she just a dreamer who plays Dungeons and Dragons. Black and white art with gray tones.

Top Shelf:

Sulk #1. Jeffrey Brown doing what he does best. This time it's 64 pages of Big Head stories. Issue #2 will feature a cage fight called Deadly Awesome. I can't wait!

This week there were no less than four great books: Hulk, Samurai, I Kill Giants and Sulk. I wanted to point out two clear winners. First is Hulk, this issue features a Jeph Loeb story with Mr. Fixit. What is great is the art by Arthur Adams. My copy has the Michael Turner cover. How many more Turner covers can there be? Secondly, is Sulk by Jeffery Brown. His stories are off the wall and his artwork is so much sharper and more detailed than just a few years ago.

So this week I have a duel Pick Of My Pile. Hulk #7 and Sulk #1.

K.R.C.

D.L.

Pick Of My Pile for the week of 10-15-08

Hello Chums,



Here are my picks:



Marvel:



The Age Of The Sentry #2. More ret-con of The Sentry into the Marvel Universe.



Uncanny X-Men #503. Empath, taken out by Pixie?



The Mighty Avengers #19. A Captain Marvel story. Boring.



Secret Invasion Frontline #4 (of 5). More street level invasion from Ben Urich.



Ultimate Origin #5 (of 5). Nice story and art. Wrapped up?



Astonishing X-Men #27. Nice looking art. Story eeh. We'll see.



IDW:



Star Trek Romulans The Hollow Crown #2 (of 2?). The finish of a decent story. I think?



Not a real solid book this week. However, the Ultimate Origin conclusion was pretty good and it is The Pick Of My Pile.



K.R.C.



D.L.

Pick Of My Pile for the week of 10-08-08

Hello Chums,

A nice buying week overall. Here's my picks.

Marvel:

Stephen King - The Stand - Captain Trips #2 (of 5). The second brilliant issue (of the first limited series) based on King's best book.

Stephen King - The Dark Tower - Treachery #2 (of 5). More Dark Tower with Jae Lee art.

The Twelve #8 (of 12). Nice old school looking art by Chris Weston.

The Inhumans Secret Invasion #3 (of 4). Black Bolt is missing and Medusa will do whatever it takes to find him.

Marvel Zombies 3 #1 (of 4). I was very bummed out Kirkman and Phillips weren't doing this third installment, however this first issue was very good.

Avengers / Invaders #5 (of 12). This story would have been bigger had it taken place in a world without a Skrull Invasion.

Dark Horse:

B.P.R.D. The Warning #4. I thought I knew what was going on here. Maybe not. Nice Davis art though.

DC:

Batman Strikes #48. An issue I didn't get pulled when I had a subscription. This issue must have been so popular this month that they couldn't fill their subscribers needs. And it couldn't be reordered either I guess.

IDW:

Star Trek - Mirror Images #4. More of Kirk maneuvering to steal the Enterprise from Pike in the Mirror Universe.

Although I really liked Marvel Zombies 3 #1, The Pick Of My Pile this week is Stephan King - The Stand - Captain Trips #2. This limited series has been great so far and is really setting up something special for the limited series that follow.

K.R.C.

D.L.

Pick Of My Pile for the week of 10-01-08

Hello Chums,

An incredibly small week this week. Let's get right to it.

DC:

Batman Strikes #50. The last issue of this animated style series. I hope next series is more like the first.

Marvel:

Punisher War Journal #24. (Secret Invasion) The start of a nice Punisher versus Skrulls story line.

March On Ultimatum Saga (free). A text heavy, thirty page over-view of the Ultimate Universe. Not up on your Ultimate Spider-man, Ultimate Fantastic Four, Ultimate X-Men or Ultimates? No problem. Read this wordy monster and get caught up quick.

The Pick Of My Pile this week is non-other than the free March On Ultimatum Saga. Although this issue is text heavy, each page has two or three panels of nice art from today's top artists. The best free issue in quite awhile.

K.R.C.

D.L.

Summer Movie Spectacular

Hello Chums,

Welcome to my Summer Movie Spectacular. Why is it spectacular? Did you see the line up of movies this summer? It was pretty spectacular. I saw fifteen movies this summer. That I'm quite sure is my all time high. I decided I would rate these movies best to worst. Or as this case would be worst to best. So let's go!

#15: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Whatever, Indy 4. This movie should never have been made. 1950's?, Aliens?, no Nazis?, drag races?, Greasers?, sword fights from moving vehicles?, surviving a nuclear bomb in a refrigerator?, son swinging from vine to vine with monkeys ala Tarzan? NO SEAN CONNERY??? This movie could NEVER live up to it's own hype. The WORST movie of the summer. PERIOD.

#14: Star Wars The Clone Wars. I hold George Lucas personally responsible for the two worst movies of the summer. This was another movie I was looking forward to that was a real let down. This movie had almost no story and consisted mostly of battles. Now I know the movie is called Clone Wars so there should be battles. But how about some story? This movie was incredibly BORING!

#13: Wanted. A decent movie but it should not have been called Wanted. To be called Wanted it needed to actually be the Wanted story, which it was not. Maybe they should have read the COMPLETED story before they did a movie, not just the first issue of a six issue story. Oh, and casting was terrible.

#12: The Happening. Not a bad movie, but clearly not one of M. Night Shyamalans best. Even though it was rated "R" it had very little punch to it. His last two movies are nowhere near as good as his first four or five.


#11: The Hulk. Even though the visuals were okay and the story was okay, I couldn't connect to it. I'm just not a big Hulk fan. This movie was way better than the first one but I have had a enough of The Hulk. It's time to do some other (Marvel) characters.


#10: Sex In The City. I'm not a fan of the show. I've only seen a hand full of episodes in passing. Hey, I took my wife to it for her birthday. It was easy to follow and yes it was better than The Hulk.

#9: Get Smart. Well cast and funny in places. However, the story was a little lacking and dragged in the middle. More action is needed for a sequel.

#8: Hancock. I'm not a Will Smith fan. I'm not even sure I have liked a movie he has been in. Until Hancock. It's a good movie, nice effects, well acted and a great cast.


#7: Wall-E. The trailers make this look like a funny story about a lonely robot. But it is so much more. It's another Pixar hit. Watch it and enjoy.

#6: The X-Files I Want To Believe. I know what your thinking: Nobody liked this movie. I know. However, I saw it after it had been out for awhile and my expectations were very low. This movie made sense to me. It takes place five or more years after the shows end. Both Mulder and Scully are out of the FBI now and have a life together. But something has to happen to mess it up.



#5: Kung-Fu Panda. From the opening dream sequence, this movie is a a lot of fun. Great story, nicely animated, good voice actors and plenty of action. What more could you want from a cartoon? Can we still call them cartoons?


#4: Hellboy and the Golden Army. Guillermo Del Toro movies continue to get better and better. I thought the first Hellboy movie was better than Blade 2. And I thought Pan's Labyrinth was better than Hellboy. But this is his best yet. If this continues how good will the Hobbit be?


#3: Batman The Dark Knight. As much as I liked the first Tim Burton - Michael Keaton Batman movie, this is quite possibly the best Batman movie ever. I think it lived up to it's hype, which is something most (all) movies never do. This is the only movie that I have seen twice on the list. After seeing it the second time I realized it does have a couple of slow spots toward the end. However, the overly talky areas of Batman/Dent, Joker/Two-Face do move the story along.


#2: Iron Man. What's not to like? Great Casting? check. Great Story? check. Great Special Effects? check. Okay the Iron Monger ending was a bit weak. But I can't wait to see it again. Bring on the sequel.


#1: Speed Racer. THE BEST MOVIE OF THE SUMMER!!! This movie has everything. Great casting, special effects, and a story staying true to it's past while looking like something from the far future. The colors are like nothing you have ever seen. The Wachowski brothers (? siblings) have made this movie the Tron of the new millennium. Go Speed Racer! GO!

If you liked the movies of this summer, enjoy them now. Remember good stuff always leads to bad stuff. It 's around the corner people, get ready for it. If it's good enjoy it right now because it's about to suck.

Hey, go see a movie in the theater.

K.R.C.

D.L.