Articles tagged with: Comic Book

Marneus Calgar is a 5 issues comic in which we get to know the origins of this Ultramarines chapter master. Meanwhile directing a battle against chaos forces, Marneus explains his youth and how he got chosen to became a Space Marine to an Adeptus Mechanicus ally, combining flashbacks with "present action".

The quality of the drawings is excellent, with no problems on depicting some gory scenes. As for the story, on one side the origins are quite interesting, I won't spoil the surprise but it is quite unexpected what we learn, specially for the Ultramarines chapter begin so based on laws, code and rules. On the other side, the situation becomes quite absurd, a too talkative chapter master telling a story to an adept which sometimes seems to be more interested in the actual war than Marneus itself. It feels almost absurd that he would go and tell a very profound secret to a random unknown ally, even more so during a battle, no matter how incredible he is calculating strategies to defeat the enemy.

I applaud the desire to create genuinely new content (even if coming from known characters), and a really grim and dark tone more akin to the Warhammer 40,000 setting, but the scenario and way to tell it feels too much forced. That said, it is interesting and seems that Games Workshop is really trying to push the lore component forward and make it way more complex than until now.

Posted on 2021-04-04

Alien vs Predator Omnibus consists of two compilations: I & II, each with around 450 pages.

The first volume includes seven compilations, exploring from a classic human-colony-gets-attacked-from-both-alien-species or a futuristic human predator hunter, to quite a few stories showing us more details about the predator race (don't want to enter into spoilers territory). They feel fresh, different and some continue ideas and characters presented on previous ones. I really liked this volume.

My problem came when I started reading the second volume. At least half of it consists of the series "Aliens vs. Predator: Deadliest of the Species", a futuristic tale involving Aliens and Predators, yes, but way too bizarre for my taste. I tried to follow it but goes too much into dreams and other storytelling techniques that, combined with an uninteresting story (to me, at least), made me skip all of it. The remaining contents are a few more series, some of them really brief (4 issues with few pages per issue), so you'll get mostly short stories. Some of them are interesting but overall don't justify purchasing the whole book to ignore half of the contents...

Posted on 2019-12-21

Alien vs Predator vs The Terminator is, apart from a long title, a curious three-way crossover, which on itself could be curious (hybrid terminator-alien), but the presence of an Ellen Ripley that continues the infamous 4h Alien movie trend of Ripley & family clones with alien DNA makes everything feel too much.

The main story not bad (how a Terminator laid low until could create a next generation hybrid soldier to try to recreate Skynet and so on), but apart from the aforementioned Ripley things, it looks like 4 issues were too few so story had to be packed so much that in time spans of hours (or as much as a few days) too much happens (don't want to spoil anything, but no matter how hard working a machine is, some stuff makes no sense).

While no match for a classic AvP comic story, a different reading, but I wouldn't say it is amazing.

Posted on 2019-12-01

Predator Omnibus spawns 4 volumes: I, II, III & IV, each one around 400 pages big. I got the four of them, but this review covers the first three volumes.

The reason of the incomplete review is simple: I got tired of reading so many similar Predator stories: Predator hunts humans, Predator hunts predator, Predator hunts animal... Although I sincerely don't think a Bear would be a match for our favourite alien, it's at least a different take, because when you read once and again and again and again the very same story just changing the setting, it becomes not only repetitive but actually boring.

Some ideas feel fresh, like crazy predators, or the small series of detective Schaefer, but other many just present the exact same plot and developments just with different visuals.

I might finish the fourth book in the future, but I've had enough Predators "alone" for a while. I'd rather read the great Alien vs Predator series, where there's much more imagination and creativity (and a few surprises).

Posted on 2019-11-01

Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War is not only a series of videogames but also a comic book that I recently read, but also a 4-issues comic that ties in between the second and third installment of the mentioned games.

New to the scene Sergeant Olivarr and returning from the previous Dawn of war games, sergeant Tarkus, a fan favourite. Tasked with locating their chapter master, Gabriel Angelos, after he goes missing from a battle against the xenos threat of the ork greenskins. But with the Eldar also on the scene its not going to be easy as they make their journey to him, paved in bolter shell and blood.

Set after the events of Dawn of War 2, we learn that Gabriel Angelos has dissapeared while fighting with orks, and two sargeants are searching for him, Tarkus and Olivarr (a new character created for the comics). While trying to find him, problems will arise not only with the greenskins but also with the Eldar, setting everything up (more or less) for the third videogame. Other characters from the game series appear, and and there are glimpses of some of the units that the latest DoW features, but not as much as the cover images would imply.

The drawing and coloring is great, in all issues except for the third one, which is more plain and simpler than the others. There is action but the plot is quite simple and without any impressive twists.

Not a bad comic but neither impressive, even if you fancy the videogames it really doesn't adds much.

Posted on 2018-07-16