Comic Reviews
The Amazing Spider-Man #616 - Spider-Man rescues Keemia from Sandman. This was a great Spider-Man issue. There's some funny bits (like lying to Keemia while trying to run away from her). Sandman's new powers at logical and lead to a nice display of his internal conflict. Peter questions his effectiveness as Spider-Man. It could have used a little bit more of Peter Parker to balance things out, but a satisfying end to the Sandman two-parter.
The Boys #38 - This is the origin story of The Female, finishing off the origins of all The Boys except for Butcher. It's nice knowing where they come from and all the telling of the origins fits the characters' personalities, but it will be nice to see the series moving forward again. This is the half-way point, so I hope it picks up steam in the next 35 issues.
Guardians of the Galaxy #21 - The story features rifts in space and the Universal Church of Truth, which is nice. It's plot lines that have been ignored for a long time while Secret Invasion and War of Kings played out in the rest of the Marvel U. Still, there is little time given to all the recent losses the team has suffered. It's a little hard to care about the book right now, but I'm going to give it a bit more to see if gets on track.
The Stand: Soul Survivors #3 - The story keeps on rolling along. Some character development and some fight scenes. It's consistent, though it's not really adding much to the novel. Pretty much nothing new.
Stumptown #2 - This is a good detective book. The art is pretty, the story is well told, and the characters all have 3-dimensional personalities. This might end up there with Alias in series that I like. I just wished it came out a little faster.
Conan The Cimmerian #17 - I'm pretty lost as to what's going on with the series right now. I can't remember the previous issue at all. Conan's rescuing a king for some reason. There's the aftermath of a battle that he's brooding over. I think that's the problem: Conan used to get into scrapes and has lost friends, but there was this sense of adventure in the stories. Lately, they've been slower and more contemplative.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - This is a TPB of the first 15 TMNT stories collected in a Cerebus-like "phonebook" that Andy lent me. The first issue is brutal where the turtles hunt down and straight up murder Shredder. It quickly gets all sci-fi with aliens and portals and alien worlds and such. When the book focuses on the guys running around NYC, it's much better. The art is a little clumsy at times, but the composition of the action scenes is great. It is fun seeing the origins of all the things I know about the Turtles like April, mousers, Krang, and the like. There's a couple of stand out issues like where the TMNT meet Cerebus or when Donatello fights along side Jack Kirby. Still, without the phenomenon that the TMNT have become, I don't think this would have become such a classic as it is now.
Groom Lake - A story about alien abduction written by Chris Ryall and drawn by Ben Templesmith. There's some funny and/or disgusting moments at the beginning of this series, such an alien that smokes two cigarettes at a time and is fascinated by our genitals, explosive alien experimentation, and bored security guard, a heartless black ops agent, and a clueless young man thrown into the mix. The jokes work, the artwork is appropriately grotesque, but the story doesn't quite gel before the abrupt ending.
Order of Tales - The Hand of Stone - The second volume of Evan Dahm's prequel to Rice Boy. It's a nice fantasy world with more detailed b&w artwork contrasting Rice Boy's relatively simple surreality. The characters are whisked through a few imaginative locations and meet many people with conflicting agendas. There's a nice emphasis on stories and libraries and knowledge over fighting. There's still the mystery of who Rog is and why Bottle Woman is important, and I'm excited to see Dahm finish the story off. I don't normally like fantasy, but this is good stuff.