Adam Graham's Blog: Christians and Superheroes - Posts Tagged "star-trek-comics"
Comic Reviews: Star Trek, Batman 66, Indestructible Hulk
Star Trek #35:
In this issue of Star Trek, the Enterprise encounters a planet that is literally changing all the time with its terrain and climate changing rapidly. It's a pretty interesting concept require some good art. The story kind of peters out at the end with Spock having to struggle to keep control of his mind. I think we've seen this plot before.
Rating: 2.5 out of 5.0
Peter Cannon Thunderbolt #3:
This book has some good moments, particularly the fight scene with Master Tiger as Peter Cannon begins to get some incite that tempers down some of the self-righteousness in the prior two issues. The book has its stupid parts such as a "Reverend" being part of a big military cabal of what the writer imagines to be evil people trying for some sort of ultramilitaristic end.
Still, the Master Tiger stuff carries the book and the power of the twist ending makes this an above average comic book that's worth a read.
Rating: 3.75 out of 5.00
Batman'66 #36:
After several multi-parters in a row, we get a self-contained story in Batman '66 #36 as the Dynamic Duo end up facing off against the Minstrel. The Minstrel burgled Wayne Manor, not knowing that Wayne was Batman and stole the Shakespeare, not knowing that it contains the key to the Batcave, leaving our heroes locked out of the Batcave.
The Minstrel isn't a memorable villain but Jeff Parker makes this a fun issue anyway with answers to questions like how the Batmobile accesses the Batcave but not every other car. Also, we get to see our heroes in two costumes that are even more retro. They look they were out of one of the 1940s Movie serials, plus a makeshift Batmobile. Overall, this is just another solid issue in these great run.
Rating: 3.75 out of 5.0
Iron Man Vol. 1 #54
This is another one of those issues where Submariner and Iron Man go at each other. In this case, the cause is Iron Man's armor being hijacked by a woman known as Madam MacEvil, one of the silliest named villains ever.
Madam MacEvil, who would later be known by the more awesome moniker of Moondragon premiers as an impatient woman who wants to capture and enslave the Submariner and her solution is to take over Iron Man and send him into the ocean (where the Submariner's strongest) to fight him.
The surprising thing is that the Sub-mariner does shows some restraint (explaining how Tony Stark could survive the event) The story is goofy but actually pretty fun and featured pencils by Bill Everett, the creator of the Submariner.
Rating: 3.25 out of 5.0
Mr. T and the T-Force #5:
The change in direction from the first four issues in Issue 5 is stark. Issue 2 had Mr. T fighting a giant Aztec and then finding drug-induced demons after being force fed drugs. This comic is much more mundane as we have three separate plots going at once. There's some action but nothing like we saw in previous issues. Don't get me wrong. There's plenty of Mr. T being a good guy in an urban setting, and the writing is decent but just so.
Rating: 2.75 out of 5.0
Justice League Adventures:
There's a crisis in several different cities involving women with a magic sticks and an evil mastermind behind it all. This leads to the Justice League going of by twos with Batman and Superman, Flash and Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern and Hawkgirl pairing off. It's interesting to see how they work and how the Martian Manhunter comes into it. This isn't a spectacular comic, but has some good character moments and would rate higher with a better villain.
Rating: 3.25 out of 5.0
There's a crisis in several different cities involving women with a magic sticks and an evil mastermind behind it all. This leads to the Justice League going of by twos with Batman and Superman, Flash and Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern and Hawkgirl pairing off. It's interesting to see how they work and how the Martian Manhunter comes into it. This isn't a spectacular comic, but has some good character moments and would rate higher with a better villain.
Rating: 3.25 out of 5.0
Indestructible Hulk #17:
After the fall out of another event, we're presented with this miniseries which begins with Bruce Banner at last trying to realize the goal of the whole series. The whole reason Banner agreed to work for S.H.I.E.L.D. was so that he could actually use his genius for good while Hulk could help S.H.I.E.L.D. smash when necessary. However, "Hulk destroys, Banner builds" is not a reality, but a somewhat meaningless mission statement. However, after radioactive fall out of a battle with Thanos leaves anyone with any relation to the Inhumans undergoing a serious mutation. Banner is the man to solve it but Tony Stark (Iron Man) and Hank Pym (original Ant Man) try to take over his lab, give him twenty-four hours to solve it, come back before the twenty-four hours are over along with Hank McCoy (Beast) and immediately prepare to take over and hand his work over to a newbie scientist leading to a massive hulkout that foreshadows a potentially cataclysmic event.
I have mixed feelings on this. I don't like my heroes acting like jerks and you have a lot of that in this book which seems kind of cynical, throwing in a civilian selling phony radioactivity suits for an extra dose. On the other hand, there's something to be said for this story and the way our characters react. We'd like to think that in crisis people would rise above this nonsense but Waid suggests that some people particularly Tony Stark and Bruce Banner may just be themselves only more. In this case, Tony Stark has had issues with Bruce Banner for a while and doesn't trust him and is a bit of a jerk anyway, so he's not going to trust Banner with so much on the line. Banner, as previous issues have shown, is getting frustrated by how everything's going and is on his last nerve. Hulking out is not a conscious decision. While it would have been nice for either of these two (particularly Stark) to care a bit more about the other 6 billion people on the planet, I think the issue was a good concept, and was nicely foreshadowed by what came in Issue 16.
Rating: 3.75 out of 5.0
In this issue of Star Trek, the Enterprise encounters a planet that is literally changing all the time with its terrain and climate changing rapidly. It's a pretty interesting concept require some good art. The story kind of peters out at the end with Spock having to struggle to keep control of his mind. I think we've seen this plot before.
Rating: 2.5 out of 5.0
Peter Cannon Thunderbolt #3:
This book has some good moments, particularly the fight scene with Master Tiger as Peter Cannon begins to get some incite that tempers down some of the self-righteousness in the prior two issues. The book has its stupid parts such as a "Reverend" being part of a big military cabal of what the writer imagines to be evil people trying for some sort of ultramilitaristic end.
Still, the Master Tiger stuff carries the book and the power of the twist ending makes this an above average comic book that's worth a read.
Rating: 3.75 out of 5.00
Batman'66 #36:
After several multi-parters in a row, we get a self-contained story in Batman '66 #36 as the Dynamic Duo end up facing off against the Minstrel. The Minstrel burgled Wayne Manor, not knowing that Wayne was Batman and stole the Shakespeare, not knowing that it contains the key to the Batcave, leaving our heroes locked out of the Batcave.
The Minstrel isn't a memorable villain but Jeff Parker makes this a fun issue anyway with answers to questions like how the Batmobile accesses the Batcave but not every other car. Also, we get to see our heroes in two costumes that are even more retro. They look they were out of one of the 1940s Movie serials, plus a makeshift Batmobile. Overall, this is just another solid issue in these great run.
Rating: 3.75 out of 5.0
Iron Man Vol. 1 #54
This is another one of those issues where Submariner and Iron Man go at each other. In this case, the cause is Iron Man's armor being hijacked by a woman known as Madam MacEvil, one of the silliest named villains ever.
Madam MacEvil, who would later be known by the more awesome moniker of Moondragon premiers as an impatient woman who wants to capture and enslave the Submariner and her solution is to take over Iron Man and send him into the ocean (where the Submariner's strongest) to fight him.
The surprising thing is that the Sub-mariner does shows some restraint (explaining how Tony Stark could survive the event) The story is goofy but actually pretty fun and featured pencils by Bill Everett, the creator of the Submariner.
Rating: 3.25 out of 5.0
Mr. T and the T-Force #5:
The change in direction from the first four issues in Issue 5 is stark. Issue 2 had Mr. T fighting a giant Aztec and then finding drug-induced demons after being force fed drugs. This comic is much more mundane as we have three separate plots going at once. There's some action but nothing like we saw in previous issues. Don't get me wrong. There's plenty of Mr. T being a good guy in an urban setting, and the writing is decent but just so.
Rating: 2.75 out of 5.0
Justice League Adventures:
There's a crisis in several different cities involving women with a magic sticks and an evil mastermind behind it all. This leads to the Justice League going of by twos with Batman and Superman, Flash and Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern and Hawkgirl pairing off. It's interesting to see how they work and how the Martian Manhunter comes into it. This isn't a spectacular comic, but has some good character moments and would rate higher with a better villain.
Rating: 3.25 out of 5.0
There's a crisis in several different cities involving women with a magic sticks and an evil mastermind behind it all. This leads to the Justice League going of by twos with Batman and Superman, Flash and Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern and Hawkgirl pairing off. It's interesting to see how they work and how the Martian Manhunter comes into it. This isn't a spectacular comic, but has some good character moments and would rate higher with a better villain.
Rating: 3.25 out of 5.0
Indestructible Hulk #17:
After the fall out of another event, we're presented with this miniseries which begins with Bruce Banner at last trying to realize the goal of the whole series. The whole reason Banner agreed to work for S.H.I.E.L.D. was so that he could actually use his genius for good while Hulk could help S.H.I.E.L.D. smash when necessary. However, "Hulk destroys, Banner builds" is not a reality, but a somewhat meaningless mission statement. However, after radioactive fall out of a battle with Thanos leaves anyone with any relation to the Inhumans undergoing a serious mutation. Banner is the man to solve it but Tony Stark (Iron Man) and Hank Pym (original Ant Man) try to take over his lab, give him twenty-four hours to solve it, come back before the twenty-four hours are over along with Hank McCoy (Beast) and immediately prepare to take over and hand his work over to a newbie scientist leading to a massive hulkout that foreshadows a potentially cataclysmic event.
I have mixed feelings on this. I don't like my heroes acting like jerks and you have a lot of that in this book which seems kind of cynical, throwing in a civilian selling phony radioactivity suits for an extra dose. On the other hand, there's something to be said for this story and the way our characters react. We'd like to think that in crisis people would rise above this nonsense but Waid suggests that some people particularly Tony Stark and Bruce Banner may just be themselves only more. In this case, Tony Stark has had issues with Bruce Banner for a while and doesn't trust him and is a bit of a jerk anyway, so he's not going to trust Banner with so much on the line. Banner, as previous issues have shown, is getting frustrated by how everything's going and is on his last nerve. Hulking out is not a conscious decision. While it would have been nice for either of these two (particularly Stark) to care a bit more about the other 6 billion people on the planet, I think the issue was a good concept, and was nicely foreshadowed by what came in Issue 16.
Rating: 3.75 out of 5.0
Christians and Superheroes
I'm a Christian who writes superhero fiction (some parody and some serious.)
On this blog, we'll take a look at:
1) Superhero stories
2) Issues of faith in relation to Superhero stories
3) Writing Superhe ...more
On this blog, we'll take a look at:
1) Superhero stories
2) Issues of faith in relation to Superhero stories
3) Writing Superhe ...more
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