Articles tagged with: Comic Book

Y The Last Man is a comic book series of 60 issues (already ended) about a virus that kills al male living beings on Earth except a 25 years man and his monkey. He will try to search for his girlfriend, who is in Australia, while the world evolves about the concepts of "no males".

Loving apocalyptic stuff, I got all the comics and decided to read them non-stop (at least not reading other comics meanwhile). At first was a condition, then became a need, because I've loved this comic.

Touches many points, most of them psychological, from the search of love to what motivates the desire to live or what we do, but also some scientific ones like how will people survive if no more animals are born, how workforces will assemble in male-prominent jobs if suddenly they dissapear...

Homosexuality, machism/feminism, racism, drugs, wars,... A lot of topics are covered, most of them with a rational and possibly true happening.

The search that the main character tries to accomplish with the many many unexpected events that happen to him has many turnarounds, and the writing is (for being a comic) quite good. He starts as an innocent, a bit dumb guy that has to grow forcibly because of all that happens, making things harder most of the time.

My only cons about the comic are two. First, there are (very few) chapters with spin-offs that I would have left out as they add background but distract from the main story. And second, is not a bad thing itself, but all the journey is a sad story. Surviving woudln't be easy and people would be forced to do terrible things, but after finishing the comic I ended up quite sad.

Mankind should be better, value more life, and this book reflects and depicts this need as hard as it is.

 

I really like this comic and surely will read it again in the future. Highly recommended for everyone.

Posted on 2011-01-02

Coming from Frank Miller, I expected a hard and dark comic, but this Batman characterization caught me by surprise.

All Star Batman & Robin is not the typical slight hero adaptation. It is a radical view. A madman caped crusader. A dark knight that enjoys not only fighting criminals or corrupt police agents, but delivering pain to them.

This batman ransoms Robin after watching his parents die, leaves him at the bat-cave to eat rats to survive, punishes him...

This batman is hated by the Justice League, disrespects Superman and Green Latern, kills the criminals or leaves them heavily wounded and suffering...

It is left at almost the same level than The Punisher, not killing innocents but using extreme ways to fight crime, up to the point of being considered a criminal by many.

It is the first "almost evil" batman... and I like it :)

The comic itself is mostly the story of how robin appears, and probably the setting for the upcoming second volume where batman will probably fight Joker, Catwoman and other typical villains.

Really recommended reading!

Posted on 2010-03-15

This time I must give my thanks to my friend Jorge for letting me this comic.

The story goes about an initially simple case for Batman, which turns out to dark magic powers, zombies, and the inner fears of the caped crusader. As usual no spoilers so short description, but it's an unusual theme, specially for Batman.

This Batman is almost normal: His foes hit him (quite a lot actually), he almost uses no bat-gadgets, he doesn't knows what to do in some situations... he even has a primal feeling that is unusual on him... Also, this is a really dark and spooky theme. Really violent crimes, a retired Jim Gordon, and a dark succession of events that I won't spoil.

The comic is painted pretty well, giving an evil decadent look. Sharp edges, long and edged figures, dominance of dark colors... As I said, a different setting.

The fight of science versus magic, of humans versus "others", of martial arts versus something that doesn't feels pain, puts Batman in interesting dead-ends.

This comic is like watching Fight Club. Once you've seen it once gets less appealing, but the uncommon theme is very welcome for this superhero.

Posted on 2010-02-14

I bought this comic and read it as a friend recommendation, because I'm a fan of Batman, but not to the extent of buying any of his comics. But as my friend said that "this must be the comic used as inspiration for Batman: The Dark Knight movie for how the Joker is depicted" (and that is my favourite Batman movie by far), I couldn't resist reading it... And yes, this must have been the inspiration.

An apparently "cured" Joker is released from Arkham Asylum and, as you would expect, soon starts to wreak chaos at Gotham, especially to the criminal organizations. In fact, Batman appears just in the last pages, the whole comic is dedicated to the clown arch-enemy. And how well it is represented: pure chaos, dementia, craziness, violence for the simple reason of violence itself, revenge... a madman that can't be bargained or reasoned with... A Joker that just wants to create chaos, and enjoys causing it.

We also have a dark and decayed Gotham, with some classic enemies ruling part of the city's underground activities, and no clue of how is Batman going. The drawings and specially the painting give the comic a creepy look, and both language and images are not for children. Kills, tortures and sexual related acts appear.

Also, the title is very appropriate: Batman is a secondary character. The narrator isn't the Joker either, though.

A must read if you enjoy Batman comics, and x2 if you also enjoyed the 2009 movie.

Posted on 2009-12-25

In Spain I've found a one issue compilation, but I'm going to talk about the first 6 comics of Gears of War (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5 and #6).

They serve as a nexus between the two videogames, or sort of, because the truth is that they don't add too much.

We're given small hints of the four characters, both of their motivations and their past, but nothing ‘revealing', just small details.

The scenarios are mostly new, but as in the game, with a similar theme and the same post-apocalyptic aura.

There are no new enemies, but almost all from the videogames appear. My disagree with this is that some of them are too forced inside the comic, just appear for a few pages and do almost nothing apart from "hey, I'm another foe from the videogame, just in case you forgot this is GoW!".

That said, the comic is not bad. It has fantastic drawings, the locust are frightening and Marcus looks even more badass than in the game.

It's just the feeling of "really I'm not being told anything, I'l just watching a collection of references to a game with pretty drawings"... But maybe it's only my perception.

Posted on 2009-10-03