Ramon Bachs

Access a version of the below that discusses the series in full and includes illustrations on my blog.

There's some okay stuff here—I particularly liked the appearance of the Mole Man, the original nemesis of the Fantastic Four, who kidnaps Kid Kaiju to get his help resurrecting his army of monsters. It's always a neat move to make an old, somewhat pathetic, villain into a figure of sympathy, and Cullen Bunn does it well here. But the big conspiracy of monsters largely left me cold. Elsa is present, but contributes little, and seems pretty watered down from her characterization in Nextwave and Marvel Zombies (though I did like the bit where she becomes queen of some insect monsters). Some of the artists are pretty bad.

One other big issue is that Kei summons five monsters into existence to be a team of his own... but while five big monsters might look okay (I don't think of the series's myriad artists ever had the knack of making me interested in monster fights), their lack of meaningful characterization (they are, after all, monsters) means you have a lot of characters that it's just not possible to actually be interested in.

Elsa Bloodstone: « Previous in sequence | Next in sequence »… (mere)

This collection looks at how M Day has affected some of the non-flashy mutants - people who could fly or had gills or had green skin or could play basketball really well due to their mutation. Some died after they lost their mutations, some were devastated by the loss, and some were actually happy that they had a chance for a "normal life" now. And Sally Floyd, jaded newspaper reporter, is ready to tell their stories.

She's up against Congressman Sykes, who tries to disguise his hatred for mutants under "concern" for the safety of Americans. There's a good undercurrent here about whether feeling safe is worth giving up your civil rights (or making others give up their civil rights), which was definitely a sign of the times (the Patriot Act, for example). And there's a serial killer who is going around killing former mutants. And Sally herself is slowly self-destructing after the death of her only child, Minnie.

I thought that this story was really well done. I liked the character of Sally - she's brash and says what she's thinking, even though it tends to get her in trouble quite frequently. And she's one of the few people who are willing to defend mutants and ex-mutants, especially since Sykes is tapping into a well of anti-mutant emotion. And there's a good cross section of characters here whom she interviews. Overall, it's a much more well-rounded picture of what M Day would have meant to the "average" mutant in the Marvel Universe.… (mere)

This is a collection of four snapshots from the life of Jango Fett, from his childhood to his ascension over the Mandalorians to his downfall at the hands of the Jedi and subsequent escape. I used to be quite fascinated by the characters of Jango and Boba Fett, and though I've been sort of oversaturated on the Mandalorians as of late, I'm still interested. The book is fairly light fair-- enjoyable, competent, and not much more than that. (Characters wearing Mandalorian armor are a bad choice for basing a comic book around, however, because they all bloody look the same!) Incidentally, the cover art for all four constituent issues, fortunately collected here, is gorgeous.… (mere)