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mysteriousmre's Reviews (1.22k)
3.5 stars
Vikings VS Aliens. A simple premise elevated by great pacing and fun characters. A solid start to a new series!
Vikings VS Aliens. A simple premise elevated by great pacing and fun characters. A solid start to a new series!
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The IDW Collection Volume 12
Kevin Eastman, Dustin Weaver, Tom Waltz
Easily one of the better volumes. The main plot written by Eastman and Waltz is well paced and has a ton of great twists and turns as the EPF invades the Triceraton/Utrom haven on Burnow Island, and the side stories are all phenomenal.
Ian Flynn is the standout writer here. His story focused on Michelangelo finally standing up to his father is *hands down* one of the most powerful stories this series has ever had. Everyone here feels in character and it feels great for someone to finally call out how Splinter's actions the past few books have completely flown against the morals he taught his sons. Flynn's story in TMNT Universe also expands the world by having Leonardo explore the Astral Plane and how it functions. The way artist Daniel Nelson illustrates Leo's focus and how otherworldly the Astral Plane is is fantastic and I really hope this is how the Plane is depicted from now on.
Ben Bates and Dustin Weaver return for another hilarious romp with Bebop & Rocksteady Hit the Road. Weaver stays as the story's main artist and the action scenes he composes are kinetic and easy to follow. We also get an interesting new character in the form of Agent Ravenwood, a far more capable and empathetic agent of the EPF who I hope sticks around. The EPF has mainly been an antagonistic force and having a character who prefers to handle things peacefully is a welcome change.
Lastly we have Sophie Campbell return to write and draw a Leonardo focused story that aims to set up Karai's return to New York. It's full of great action between Leo and Koya and promises a bombastic finale for the 100th issue of TMNT.
All around this is a great collection that fleshes out the world and characters, but also has some great turn-your-brain-off action. If you've fallen off this series since TMNT #50, this isn't a bad place to pick it back up.
Ian Flynn is the standout writer here. His story focused on Michelangelo finally standing up to his father is *hands down* one of the most powerful stories this series has ever had. Everyone here feels in character and it feels great for someone to finally call out how Splinter's actions the past few books have completely flown against the morals he taught his sons. Flynn's story in TMNT Universe also expands the world by having Leonardo explore the Astral Plane and how it functions. The way artist Daniel Nelson illustrates Leo's focus and how otherworldly the Astral Plane is is fantastic and I really hope this is how the Plane is depicted from now on.
Ben Bates and Dustin Weaver return for another hilarious romp with Bebop & Rocksteady Hit the Road. Weaver stays as the story's main artist and the action scenes he composes are kinetic and easy to follow. We also get an interesting new character in the form of Agent Ravenwood, a far more capable and empathetic agent of the EPF who I hope sticks around. The EPF has mainly been an antagonistic force and having a character who prefers to handle things peacefully is a welcome change.
Lastly we have Sophie Campbell return to write and draw a Leonardo focused story that aims to set up Karai's return to New York. It's full of great action between Leo and Koya and promises a bombastic finale for the 100th issue of TMNT.
All around this is a great collection that fleshes out the world and characters, but also has some great turn-your-brain-off action. If you've fallen off this series since TMNT #50, this isn't a bad place to pick it back up.
Banner and Hulk journey back to the testing ground that started it all in an attempt to fight off the infection they gained from absorbing Sasquatch’s power in the previous volume. The story is decent, but its a very slow burn with a pretty significant cliffhanger that makes this book feel more like a part 1 than a complete story. The side characters explored here are all interesting (and I look forward to seeing them interact with Hulk more in the next volume), but I wish we had a better sense of just what this infection is and how Hulk intends to fight it. There’s a lot of details that I feel could have been fleshed out more.
Speaking of flesh, while the story feels incomplete, the artwork continues to be top notch with lots of body horror and gory monster designs. If this last volume didn’t convince you that this is a horror book, this one will! Hulk’s dissection immediately brought Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing to mind, and the new design for Absorbing Man is horrifying.
Here’s hoping the next volume sticks the landing and all this build up was worth it.
Speaking of flesh, while the story feels incomplete, the artwork continues to be top notch with lots of body horror and gory monster designs. If this last volume didn’t convince you that this is a horror book, this one will! Hulk’s dissection immediately brought Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing to mind, and the new design for Absorbing Man is horrifying.
Here’s hoping the next volume sticks the landing and all this build up was worth it.
A ton of short, but fun, stories of the team combatting ghosts themed after different holidays like Halloween, Dia de los Muertos, and Christmas. Funny and horrifying while setting up the last major arc. Looking forward to the series finale!
While this volume retreads some moments from the first Ghostbusters movie, it’s good to see all the secondary characters and some explanations regarding where they’ve been and what’s going on in their lives. Tiamat is set up to be a truly terrifying opponent, and im truly interested in what this undead god of chaos has in store. The series is still fun, and I have high hopes for the big finale.
Volume 3 of Immortal Hulk reveals the big bad of the series, the anti-thesis of Marvel's One Above All: The One Below All. Didn't see that coming.
I also didn't see myself reading up on basic concepts from the Jewish Kabbalah or Zoroastrianism in order to better appreciate a Hulk book.
But here we are.
Logically speaking, the gamma bomb that hit Bruce Banner and created the Hulk should not have worked. The radiation should have killed Banner outright, or at least given him cancer. Not turn him into a giant green monster. Ewing uses that fact to open up the possibility that Hulk's origin and existence is something more supernatural than science fiction. Its an interesting take that opens up a plethora of potential stories moving forward with the Jade Giant.
The One Above All in Marvel's continuity shares a lot of features with the Judeo-Christian God, so it would stand to reason that The One Below All would be some version of Satan or the Devil, but Ewing instead takes inspiration from the Qliphoth Thumiel from the Tree of Death (the anti-thesis of the Jewish Kabbalah's Sephiroth Kether from the Tree of Life). Instead of being a singular force, The One Below All needs a partner to be its most powerful and influential. And that's when things get CRAZY (yes, I'm well aware this is already A LOT to digest. I'm gonna come back to that feeling in a sec. Just stay with me folks).
Enter Brian Banner. The Hulk's abusive father who has his own history with gamma radiation and every reason to hate our protagonist. Ewing pulls a ton of key figures from Banner's past to fill you in on what Hulk's status quo has been the past few years, then uses their presence to let us see these characters through this new supernatural lens. It's a really cool reimagining of the Hulk character and mythos, but its more than a little overwhelming. And that's honestly the best way to describe Volume 3 of this series:
Good, but overwhelming (Told ya I'd come back to it).
One of the most consistent criticisms I've heard about this book are the portions of text dedicated to talking about the earliest conceptions of evil in the Jewish Kabbalah and Zoroastrianism and ultimately I agree. My main criticism of the previous volume was that I didn't get a good sense of just what Hulk was facing, and I wish some of this information had been there. I love Ewing just going on an explaining his inspiration for these new characters and this new context for them, but its a lot to digest. I don't blame readers for turning their brains off and skimming through those parts. Volumes 2 and 3 are two halves that are unbalanced and it hurts the quality of the story overall.
But man is this just a cool story. Hulk versus the literal embodiment of chaos and destruction. Who'd have thought we'd ever get a story like this that makes sense? The execution leaves something to be desired, but for all its flaws I'm still coming back for Volume 4. This is the most interested I've been in the Hulk in years.
I also didn't see myself reading up on basic concepts from the Jewish Kabbalah or Zoroastrianism in order to better appreciate a Hulk book.
But here we are.
Logically speaking, the gamma bomb that hit Bruce Banner and created the Hulk should not have worked. The radiation should have killed Banner outright, or at least given him cancer. Not turn him into a giant green monster. Ewing uses that fact to open up the possibility that Hulk's origin and existence is something more supernatural than science fiction. Its an interesting take that opens up a plethora of potential stories moving forward with the Jade Giant.
The One Above All in Marvel's continuity shares a lot of features with the Judeo-Christian God, so it would stand to reason that The One Below All would be some version of Satan or the Devil, but Ewing instead takes inspiration from the Qliphoth Thumiel from the Tree of Death (the anti-thesis of the Jewish Kabbalah's Sephiroth Kether from the Tree of Life). Instead of being a singular force, The One Below All needs a partner to be its most powerful and influential. And that's when things get CRAZY (yes, I'm well aware this is already A LOT to digest. I'm gonna come back to that feeling in a sec. Just stay with me folks).
Enter Brian Banner. The Hulk's abusive father who has his own history with gamma radiation and every reason to hate our protagonist. Ewing pulls a ton of key figures from Banner's past to fill you in on what Hulk's status quo has been the past few years, then uses their presence to let us see these characters through this new supernatural lens. It's a really cool reimagining of the Hulk character and mythos, but its more than a little overwhelming. And that's honestly the best way to describe Volume 3 of this series:
Good, but overwhelming (Told ya I'd come back to it).
One of the most consistent criticisms I've heard about this book are the portions of text dedicated to talking about the earliest conceptions of evil in the Jewish Kabbalah and Zoroastrianism and ultimately I agree. My main criticism of the previous volume was that I didn't get a good sense of just what Hulk was facing, and I wish some of this information had been there. I love Ewing just going on an explaining his inspiration for these new characters and this new context for them, but its a lot to digest. I don't blame readers for turning their brains off and skimming through those parts. Volumes 2 and 3 are two halves that are unbalanced and it hurts the quality of the story overall.
But man is this just a cool story. Hulk versus the literal embodiment of chaos and destruction. Who'd have thought we'd ever get a story like this that makes sense? The execution leaves something to be desired, but for all its flaws I'm still coming back for Volume 4. This is the most interested I've been in the Hulk in years.
