X-Men #1: Free Comic Book Day 2008

Another 2008 Free Comic Book Day offering, this one from Marvel. From the random stack of unread comics.

Title: X-Men
Issue: 1 (Free Comic Book Day 2008 Edition)
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Date: May, 2008
Writer: Mike Carey
Penciller: Greg Land
Inker: Jay Liesten
Colorist: Justin Ponsor
Letterer: VC's Joe Caramagna
Editor: Nick Lowe, Will Panzo

Megan Gwynn, AKA Pixie, is back home in Wales after a year at Xavier's School. She's trying to fit back in, but the fact that people keep mysteriously vanishing from her small town is making things rather difficult for her.

It's not long before she's facing down a full-fledged demonic invasion. Fortunately, the X-Men are there to back her up.

This was a really great introduction to Pixie, who I had not previously been familiar with. She's a fun blend of magical and mutant powers, and her personality really shines in this story as she fights the bad guys on her own first, and then alongside the full X-Men team.

The X-Men had some good lines, and there was a quick exchange between Pixie and Emma Frost that I thought was an excellent use of both characters.

The story is self-contained, and provides a nice introduction for new readers. Its biggest weakness is the villains, who are generic, and who barely put up a fight in the final battle scene. The artwork in that scene was a bit confusing in places, although I thought the art in the rest of the book was quite good.

This was a book that accomplished its purpose as an introduction to the X-Men series, and did an exceptionally good job of introducing Pixie.

Rating: 8/10

Dan Dare / The Stranded / Ramayan 3392AD Reloaded

This is a 2008 Free Comic Book Day promo that I picked up at this year's FCBD.

Title: Dan Dare / The Stranded / Ramayan 3392AD Reloaded
Date: 2008
Publisher: Virgin Comics
Writer: Garth Ennis, Mike Carey, Shamik Dasgupta
Art: Gary Erskine, Siddharth Kotian, Jeevan Kang
Inker: Jyotsna V. Domse
Colorist: Parasuraman A., Anand Balusamy, N.S. Sathish Kumar
Letterer: Rakesh B. Mahadik, Sudhir B. Pisal, B.S. Ravi Kiran
Cover: Bryan Talbot, Marc Silvestri
Editor: Charlie Beckerman, Stuart Moore, Ron Marz
Dan Dare Created By: Frank Hampson
Ramayan 3392AD Reloaded Created By: Deepak Chopra, Shekhar Kapur

Flip book, plus an extra story in the middle.

Dan Dare arrives with a crew of marines on a colony world where a series of grizzly killings has taken place. The monster responsible conveniently shows up about two minutes after Dare sets foot on the ground. Unfortunately for our heroes, this beast isn't alone. The plot appears to be Aliens with a much less interesting adversary. Still, the pacing was good, and there was enough intrigue going on to keep things interesting.

Flip over the book and you get The Stranded, which appears to be about superbeings secretly living among us. Some of them are fully aware of who they are and are equipped with an array of super-high technology, while others are "sleepers" with no knowledge of their true nature. The opening bit focuses on a pair of human characters, and I'm assuming that at least one is a sleeper, but there's actually very little plot that occurs. They're just established as the bookish guy and the athletic and aggressive girl who are engaged. The action then abruptly moves to a woman of the other group (the ones who are aware of what's going on). She's chatting with a former mentor, now reanimated in a rat body. They establish that someone is killing sleepers, but are interrupted by a team of bad guys and it turns into a running fight for the remainder of the story. The best aspect of this was the alien/futuristic technology, which had a great look to it. Story and characters came off as generic.

In the middle of the book is Ramayan 3392AD Reloaded, one of a series of titles from Virgin comics that (loosely) adapts Hindu mythology. This features a pretty standard gladiatorial combat scenario with a rather non-standard opponent. We only get a couple of pages here, but it looked like an interesting change of flavor from some of the more western-based fantasy.

Rating: 6.5/10

Vampirella: Revelations #0

Title: Vampirella: Revelations
Issue: #0
Date: July, 2005
Publisher: Harris Comics
Writer: Mike Carey
Penciler: Mike Lilly
Inker: Bob Almond
Colorist: Jay Fotos
Letterer: Ed Dukeshire

Stop me if you've heard this one. A bunch of vampires walk into a bar...

Actually, this $.25 full-format preview book starts out at a vampire bar, with a group of the usuals doing what they do best: complaining about the anticoagulants in the beverages and trading stories about Vampirella, during which the art team gets to show off some interesting variants: Vampirella as monster, and knight, and (sure to be everyone's favorite) as anime-style magical girl.

Then the real Vampirella ruins all the fun by showing up and staking everybody, with that classic of weapons, the repeating-stake-pistol-crossbow. Oh, and one character has something interesting to say about Vampirella's past, so Vampirella... wait for it... kills him anyway! Then goes off to figure out what the heck he might have been talking about.

This, apparently, is supposed to convince me that I should be reading the Vampirella: Revelations mini-series. Some of the artistic bits were interesting. The story? Not so much.

Rating: 4/10