WHAT IS THE BUY PILE?
Every week Hannibal Tabu (winner of the 2012 Top Cow Talent Hunt/2018-2019 City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs Cultural Trailblazer/blogger/novelist/poet/jackass on Twitter/head honcho of Komplicated) takes on an between seven to thirteen reviews (or so) to share his opinions with you. Thursday afternoons you'll be able to get those thoughts (and they're just the opinions of one guy, so calm down) about all of that ... which goes something like this ...
THE BUY PILE FOR APRIL 19, 2019
Nothing #3
For the first time in many moons, there wasn't a single book that combined balanced plotting, effective characterization, and solid visual storytelling well enough to make it home. Darn it!
Shuri #7 was a cute but somewhat forgettable team-up with Miles Morales and Ms. Marvel, tanked by another subpar performance by Graviton, who should really be better than this. The action scenes were a little less clear than they needed to be, too. Nice ideas that got lost in execution here. RATING: HONORABLE MENTION.
Justice League #22 is ambitious as heck, casting every "crisis" we've seen as intentional elements of a meta story of omniversal scale. This issue explains a lot, like a great wiki entry, but isn't much of a story. It leaves the truly big questions of the allegedly final judgment dangling and, right, has zero actual Justice Leaguers here nor considers resolving the challenge they're stuck with. Huge swing, but it's a miss. RATING: HONORABLE MENTION.
G.I. Joe A Real American Hero #261 has outstanding military action with a rescue mission in the desert and sub-par and inconclusive action with Destro and the Baroness Some characterization snuck in for the first, but the balance of the plot was off. RATING: HONORABLE MENTION.
James Bond 007 #6 continues the renaissance of John Lee as a new, much more interesting take on Oddjob, but the rest of the issue was paint by numbers schmooze and gunfire. RATING: MEH.
Transformers #3 is frustrating because it seems like it should be a thing, with sweeping imagery and intricate world buo,ding elements. Unfortunately, it's so ploddingly slow in its plot, basic in its dialogue and unwilling to define anyone as anything, it's all sizzle and nowhere near enough steak. RATING: MEH.
Assassin Nation #2 had some good technical shorthand approaches for characterization and good visual storytelling but a very thin plot and lots of cliches mixed in with the profanity. RATING: MEH.
Star Wars Age Of Rebellion Special #1 is a very depressing look at the lives of characters from the classic trilogy between the big moments from the movies. IG-88 charmlessly slaughters his way through pretty uninteresting people, Yoda ponders tediously and Jek Porkins has a crisis of faith. It's all very Star Wars, in setting and visuals, but yikes, what a downer. Pass. RATING: MEH.
Avengers No Road Home #10 has got to be one of the stupidest endings ever, a hail mary so far past deus ex machina that it's absolutely baffling, with so many things happening in this series rendered moot in an anticlimax of embarrassing proportions. Let us never, ever speak of this again. RATING: NO. JUST ... NO.
Electric Warriors #6 may have established the foundation for a legion of super heroic stories down the road buy its huggy anticlimax, but the all-too-convenient villain hiding behind the curtain and riff off of Justice League 1,000,000 was limp at best and poor imitation at worst. RATING: NO. JUST ... NO.
Thor #12 was disturbing and narcissistic and derivative and needlessly mean to a cadre of fans and, worst of all, Thor-free. Alas, poor Loki. We knew him well ... RATING: NO. JUST ... NO.
WHAT'S THE PROGNOSIS?
Sweet Kwanzaa, it was rough out there. Let's try this again next week.
THE BUSINESS
Missed this columnist at Wondercon? You can catch two panels in their entirety on his website thanks to NerdSoul (who also did a great interview too).
Have you checked out season four of the free web comic Project Wildfire: The Once and Future King? Every week catch a page of the story for the best possible price: "free."
The writer of this column isn't just a jerk who spews his opinions -- he writes stuff too. A lot. Like what? You can get Scoundrel (historical fiction set in 1981 east Los Angeles), Irrational Numbers: Addition (a supernatural historical fiction saga with vampires), Project Wildfire: Enter Project Torrent (a collected superhero web comic), The Crown: Ascension and Faraway, five bucks a piece, or spend a few more dollars and get New Money #1 from Canon Comics, the rambunctious tale of four multimillionaires running wild in Los Angeles, a story in Watson and Holmes Volume 2 co-plotted by 2 Guns creator Steven Grant, two books from Stranger Comics -- Waso: Will To Power and the sequel Waso: Gathering Wind (the tale of a young man who had leadership thrust upon him after a tragedy), or Fathom Sourcebook #1, Soulfire Sourcebook #1, Executive Assistant Iris Sourcebook #1 and Aspen Universe Sourcebook, the official guides to those Aspen Comics franchises. Love these reviews? It'd be great if you picked up a copy. Hate these reviews? Find out what this guy thinks is so freakin' great. There's free sample chapters too, and all proceeds to towards the care and maintenance of his kids ... oh, and to buy comic books, of course. There’s also a bunch of great stuff -- fantasy, superhero stuff, magical realism and more -- available from this writer on Amazon. What are you waiting for? Go buy a freakin' book already!
Got a comic you think should be reviewed in The Buy Pile? If we get a PDF of a fairly normal length comic (i.e. "less than 64 pages") by no later than 24 hours before the actual issue arrives in stores (and sorry, we can only review comics people can go to stores and buy), we guarantee to try and review the work, if remembered. Physical comics? Geddouttahere. Too much drama to store with diminishing resources. If you send it in more than two days before comics come out, the possibility of it being forgotten increases exponentially. Oh, you should use the contact form as the CBR email address hasn't been regularly checked since George W. Bush was in office. Sorry!