MySpace Dark Horse Presents Volume 4 by Various.
Title: MySpace Dark Horse Presents Volume 4.
Author: Joss Whedon, Taki Soma and Michael Avon Oeming, Gilbert Hernandez, Zack Whedon, Dave Chisholm, Carolyn Main, Farel Dalrymple, Angie Wang, Matt Kindt, Mike Lawrence, Nicholas Kole, Tory Novikova, Alec Longstreth, Kate Beaton, Joseph Lambert, David Malki, Tatsuya Ishida, Chris Onstad, Dave Land and the Fillbach Brothers, Ann Romano, Guy Davis, Mike Mignola and Joshua Dysart, and Mick Harrison.
Artist: Jo Chen, Michael Avon Oeming, Gilbert Hernandez, Jim Rugg, Dave Chisholm, Carolyn Main, Farel Dalrymple, Angie Wang, Matt Kindt, Mike Lawrence, Nicholas Kole, Tory Novikova, Alec Longstreth, Kate Beaton, Joseph Lambert, David Malki, Tatsuya Ishida, Chris Onstad, the Fillbach Brothers, Kristian Donaldson, Guy Davis, Patrick Reynolds, and Douglas Wheatley.
Genre: Fiction, graphic novel, anthology, short stories.
Country: U.S.
Language: English.
Publication Date: December, 2009.
Summary: This volume contains 23 graphic short stories, many already part of or spin-offs of existing canons. In Always Darkest, a part of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer canon, Buffy is plagued with strange dreams, starting from watching her two ex's (Angel and Spike) hook up, choosing each other over her, to being thrilled to marry skinless Warren. In Rapture, in a decimated wreck of the world after all the world's heroes and villains disappear, Evelyn is searching for her lover, and will not let anything stop her, but it becomes a more difficult task when a mysterious entity called "The Word" turns her into a champion with an angelic spear, and it's up to her to figure out its powers. In Dreamstar, a super-heroine who likes to give oppressed countries a fair chance against their oppressors by lending a hand, balances out her super life with a husband, child, and an appearance of an ordinary life. Penny: Keep Your Head Up, a part of the Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog universe, shows how her excessive amount of empathy and interest in social justice, paired with her less than enthusiastic approach to super heroes, gets in the way of Penny's love-life, right up to the point where she first meets Dr. Horrible. In Martha, an old man mentally reminisces, to his granddaughter, about the life in the Wild West, today's over-technological world, and his own dark thoughts, while on a wild, gun and violence-filled run, until an accident brings him face-to-face with his pursuer, and she is the last person he expects. In A Day at the Zoo, Violet visits the Zoo with her class, and finds herself on a quest to deliver Murray the magic llama to Sampson the gluttonous lion before he eats Pepper her pet hamster. In Em and Gwen in: Magic Spell, Emily is frustrated and gets into yet another fight, and when she visits her friend Gwen inside a tree opened by a raven, Gwen attempts to magic away Em's black eye. In Flower Mecha, a young woman whose picnic is spoiled by pollen goes after the perpetrators that spread it with a passion and some super gadgets. In The Giant Man in Paris, a young woman develops a fascination with the famous three-story man that is on his visit to Paris, and gets assigned to be his personal assistant and guide for the duration of his visit. In Tickets, Oliver knows his elderly wife's drowning was not an accident, but when he receives a letter from her a couple of days after her funeral, he realizes where to go, and how to get there. In Piper's Pet, Piper goes fishing for a new pet fish, but the fish he ends up catching is quite far from what he had in mind. In Face of Evil, an infamous pirate that wears a horrible mask, leads a team on a quest for treasure and a key to unlocking the mask, but once the quest is achieved, what's behind the mask is the most surprising thing of all. In R.J. Jr.: The Dragon's Librarian, R.J. is working as a librarian for a very fast-reading dragon, and when he sets out on a quest to get him more books, he gets kidnapped by bandits, though to his luck, they had also gotten their hands on a very resourceful wizard. In The Origin of Man, Darwin floats the idea that men were descended from turtles on his road to discovery of evolution, but receives scorn from the scientific community. In An Early Sunset, the sun is in trouble when it melts a distracted little boy's ice-cream and gets a spider tossed in its face. In The Catch!, a Wondermark tale, a man purchases a "free" machine that is programmed to find anything he misplaces for him, but there nothing is ever entirely free, and there is always a catch. In Street Poetry, a part of the Sinfest strip, a young man and a young woman team up for some street poetry, and when they come to butt heads about divvying up the profits, a small Buddha shows up just in time to remind them of peace and fairness. In The Garage Sale, a part of the Achewood universe, the gang decides to have a garage sale for a little extra cash, and it turns out Beef has the eye for the business. In Bad Blood, a prequel to Werewolves on the Moon: versus Vampires, Ted, Jeff, and Stan, a trio of werewolf friends, get framed for the murder of a werewolf mafia boss. In Gone Dishing, a part of the Goon universe, Ann stops by a shady bar at the same time that Goon and Franky decide to check out the fishy new business moving in on their turf. In The Marquis and the Coachman, a servant of Saint de Massard, hunts devils that escaped hell to possess the living, but has doubts of what he sees and whether or not he commits a larger sin by his devotion. In And What Shall I Find There?, a young Oxford graduate in 1930's France pursues a legend told to him by his uncle during childhood of a painting buried in an obscure church, and since he's not expecting results and mainly does it for the thrill, the horror that he unleashes upon finding the picture is unexpected to him. In Dark Times - Blue Harvest, a part of the Star Wars universe, a fugitive Jedi knight Dass Jenner is trying to get by when he accepts a compelling job from an attractive woman to liberate her town of a gang that had set up there.
My rating: 7.5/10.
My Review:
♥ "Who's your favorite?"
"I don't know. I don't really pay attention to that stuff."
"Mine's Wingspan. He's so awesome. Did you see that disgruntled postal robot he took down the other day?"
"Robots. Pssh."
"The thing was sixty feet tall!"
"If we lined up all the Styrofoam cups Americans throw away each year how any times do you think it would wrap around the earth?"
"Twice?"
"Four hundred and thirty-six times. If we took all the office paper we throw away we could build a wall twelve feet high that stretches from New York to Los Angeles."
"Like to keep the Mexicans out?"
"Every three and a half seconds someone starves to death."
"Whoa."
"There are nine hundred million undernourished people in the world. In Iran a woman can be stoned to death for committing adultery. Superheroes are good for fighting six-foot robots, sure, but how often do you see one of those? Where's Wingspan when a little girl goes to sleep hungry or homeless?"
~~Penny: Keep Your Head Up.