Attack on Titan Volume 7

Bought at Barnes & Noble, Middletown RI USA.

Title: Attack on Titan
Issue: Volume 7
Date: 2013
Publisher: Kodansha
Creator: Hajime Isayama
Letterer: Steve Wands
Editor: Ben Applegate

With the abnormal female titan immobilized, the survey corps tries to force the titan to release it's human controller, but the titan fights back with new powers that the survey corps has never seen before.

This leads to an absolutely epic battle between the female titan and Eren in titan form that goes on for over 30 pages of this volume. The artwork is spectacular in this sequence, and the aftermath does a good job of conveying the emotional toll of the outcome on the survey corps.

There's also the setup for a major new plot complication in the final pages, as well as significant continued deepening of titan lore.

Rating: 7.5/10

Attack on Titan Volume 6

Bought at Barnes & Noble, Enfield CT USA.

Title: Attack on Titan
Issue: Volume 6
Date: 2013
Publisher: Kodansha
Creator: Hajime Isayama
Letterer: Steve Wands
Editor: Ben Applegate

This was action from start to finish when an abnormal female titan, possibly a human in titan form wreaks havoc on the Survey Corps expedition. The result is a frantic battle/chase sequence that keeps the tension high for the entire issue. Eren has to decide whether to trust his teammates or go against orders. The one break from the action we get is a flashback sequence that gives a bit more insight into how Eren's transformation power works.

The character development in this issue is subtle because it happens in the midst of all of the action, but it's effective. The artwork on the chase and fighting in a forest setting is great, although the scene transitions can be a bit abrupt.

Rating: 7/10

Attack on Titan Volume 5

Bought at Barnes & Noble, Enfield CT USA.

Title: Attack on Titan
Issue: Volume 5
Date: 2013
Publisher: Kodansha
Creator: Hajime Isayama
Letterer: Steve Wands

In spite of having won the day in humanity's first major victory against the titans, Eren finds himself imprisoned and put on trial for his life. There are many among the powers that be who feel that Eren would be most useful to humanity if her were killed and dissected. Fortunately, Erwin Smith, Commander of the Survey Corps has a different idea.

Eren finds himself on a major expedition outside the walls in the hope of recovering vital information about the Titans, information that my be found in the ruins of Eren's own home.

In addition to some key plot developments for Eren, we also get to see Eren's training comrades make their final choice of whether to join the Survey Corps or the Military Police. This issue also deepened the mystery of the Titans, kicking things off with an encounter with a titan who could speak, and ending in a battle with a dangerously intelligent abnormal titan. In between, the character of Squad Leader Hange, who is driven to learn all she can about the titans, to the point of conducting gruesome experiments on captured titans.

Although Mikasa and Armin continued to be mostly in the background, this volume did a great job of adding complexity to the titan concept, and ended with some excellent action sequences.

Rating: 7.5/10

Attack on Titan Volume 4

Bought at Double Midnight Comics in Manchester NH USA.

Title: Attack on Titan
Issue: Volume 4
Date: 2013
Publisher: Kodansha
Creator: Hajime Isayama
Letterer: Steve Wands

Volume 4 of this series resolves the cliffhanger from the third volume as humanity gains its first, very costly, victory over the Titans. From there, the story flashes back to Eren in training.

A lot of new characters are introduced here, and there is the potential for lots of really fun interactions as the story moves forward. There were also some good insights into the training process and the dynamic between the recruits. Most of the best recruits want military police duty, which means the fighters most capable of bringing down titans are the least likely to face them.

Armin is a major part of the opening scene, but he and Mikasa fade into the background a bit as the new characters get the spotlight. There were places where it was a little bit hard to keep straight who everyone was, but the new characters had enough interesting details and quirks that this should become easier as the story progresses.

Rating: 6.5/10

Attack on Titan Volume 3

 

Bought from the used book shelf at the Merrimack Public Library in Merrimack NH.

Title: Attack on Titan
Issue: Volume 3
Date: 2012
Publisher: Kodansha
Creator: Hajime Isayama
Letterer: Steve Wands
Editor: Ben Applegate

Through some unknown mechanism, Eren has somehow become a titan, or, at least, has the ability to change into one. Now he has a new problem: His fellow soldiers want to kill him. It's up to Armin to convince them that Eren is still loyal to humanity and that his new abilities can help in the war against the titans.

But a hastily-thrown-together plan to seal a breach in the wall and take back one of the attached walled "towns" runs into immediate problems when Eren's untested powers prove uncontrollable.

This third chapter raises a lot more questions than it answers, and plunges the story into a new cliffhanger. Armin gets the best moments here, and this was a nice spotlight for him. It also introduces a couple of intriguing new characters from the military hierarchy, including the unorthodox Commander Pixis.

The pacing continues to be great, and the complexity of the worldbuilding continues to be built up steadily.

Rating 7/10

Attack on Titan Volume 2

 

Bought from the used book shelf at the Merrimack Public Library in Merrimack NH.

Title: Attack on Titan
Issue: Volume 2
Date: 2012
Publisher: Kodansha
Creator: Hajime Isayama
Letterer: Steve Wands

The story really picks up in the second volume, with a major backstory reveal showing the tragic circumstances of how Mikasa and Eren first met as children and how Mikasa became part of Eren's family.

From there's it's back to the action as a large group of titans swarm a military supply depot, trapping some soldiers inside, and leaving those outside without the ability to replenish the gas they need for their vertical movement gear.

Mikasa, unaware that Eren may already have been killed in action, leads a desperate attack, but help suddenly appears in a most unexpected form.

This was nonstop action with lots of surprising twists and some good character development, particularly for Mikasa.

Rating: 7.5/10

Attack on Titan Volume 1

Bought from the used book shelf at the Merrimack Public Library in Merrimack NH.

Title: Attack on Titan
Issue: Volume 1
Publisher: Kodansha
Creator: Hajime Isayama
Letterer: Steve Wands

Far in the future, the remnants of humanity live in a single city, behind a series of protective walls designed to keep out the titans, nearly indestructible man-eating giants that have overrun most of the world.

When a wall is breached after nearly a century without attacks, a group of young recruits must join the suddenly desperate battle against the titans, which have now produced a colossus capable of breaking through the city's walls.

This was a good introduction to the scenario and I enjoyed the developing relationships between the characters, especially the dynamic between the fiercely protective Mikasa, and the ambitious Eren.

The action sequences are great, the titans more horrifying than you might anticipate, and there is a reasonable attempt to make sense of a scenario of people fighting against human-eating giants.

Rating: 6.5/10

Xenoglyphs Volume 1

Writer Omar Spahi contacted me on twitter and asked me to give his Xenoglyphs graphic novel a look. There is currently a Kickstarter to fund the complete series running here.

Title: Xenoglyphs
Issue: Volume 1
Date: October, 2014
Publisher: OSSM Comics
Writer: Omar Spahi
Artist: PJ Catacutan
Letterer: Steve Wands
Editor: Barbara Randall Kesel, Alex Wilson, Siike Donnelly

Trade paperback (I read the ebook version) collecting the first six issues of the Xenoglyphs comic series. The publisher is currently running a Kickstarter campaign to fund the complete series.

This was an interesting take on the idea of the heroes traveling the world to bring together some set of magical artifacts. In this story, the magical artifacts (the Xenoglyphs of the title) are scattered around the world, and the heroes are dedicated to keeping them scattered. It's the villain who's trying to bring them together.

Staff-wielding adventurer Steven James and his techie friend Dom Jenkins are Seperators, part of a legacy of protectors who have helped keep the Xenoglyphs hidden for centuries. The Xenoglyphs give their wielders elemental powers (with nine elements in this system), and could grand godlike abilities if brought together.

A villain calling himself Anubis is out to track down the Xenoglyphs, starting in the midst of the Arab Spring demonstrations in Egypt. Steven and Dom have arrived there to try to protect the Xenoglyph, and soon encounter Jennifer, another Seperator, who goes against Seperator tradition to make an alliance with them.

This story had excellent pacing, with an overall entertaining Indiana Jones kind of vibe. The worldbuilding was accomplished smoothly, and the action never slowed down. Fight scenes were fun and plentiful with all the characters getting their moments to shine. The villain had a great look and came off as suitably menacing.

I could have done with a few less cliches. At this point I cringe at phrases like "chosen one" and "master of evil". I would be happy to never again see a scene where the male hero warns a female character who has already proved herself to be a capable fighter to stay out of a fight out of concern for her safety (and by "concern for her stafety" here, we mean a combination of stupidity and sexism).

But that being said, there was a lot to really like here. Good dialogue, generally appealing characters, and even a couple of surprise plot twists and hints of future plot twists, especially toward the end of this collection. I think there is the potential for this to go in some really interesting directions as it continues, and in spite of a couple of bits that felt tired, this was generally a fun ride.

Rating: 7.5/10

Batgirl and the Birds of Prey: Rebirth #1

Second of the five recent comics I picked up at Newbury Comics in Braintree MA during my quick trip back to the US.

Title: Batgirl and the Birds of Prey: Rebirth
Issue: #1
Date: September, 2016
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Julie Benson, Shawna Benson
Artist: Claire Roe
Colorist: Allen Passalaqua
Letterer: Steve Wands
Editor: Dave Wielgosz, Chris Conroy
Cover:Yanick Paquette, Nathan Fairbairn

I had mixed feelings on the amount of time this issue devoted to origin-recapping. It's part of DC's "Rebirth", so it wasn't unexpected, and there were some insights that I thought were pretty good. But in the end, yet another retelling of the events of The Killing Joke felt unwelcome and I enjoyed this story more once I was past that part.

The story itself has Batgirl, having been operating for a while now in her return to the Batgirl identity (since the New 52), discovering that someone else has taken over the identity of Oracle, and is providing the information that Oracle used to deal in to the bad guys.

Black Canary gets recruited for the case, and Huntress soon returns, although for the moment she's not exactly acting as one of the good guys. There was also a lot of references to plot points that I wasn't familiar with as far as Huntress goes, but there was also enough direction to the main plot here that I didn't have a problem putting the backstory aside and just going with the flow.

The revelations at the end did a nice job of setting the stage for some big plot points to follow.

The book has a nice look to it, and it makes a good effort to incorporate a lot of the continuity and flavor that has been put into Batgirl over the last few years.

Rating: 6.5/10

Batman: The Dark Knight #8

Another Batman issue from the backlog.

Title: Batman: The Dark Knight
Issue: 8
Publisher: DC Comics 
Date: June 2012
Writer: Joe Harris
Penciler: Ed Benes
Inker: Rob Hunter, Jack Purcell
Colorist: Jeromy Cox
Letterer: Steve Wands
Cover: David Finch, Richard Friend, Jeromy Cox
Editor:  Rickey Purdin, Mike Marts

A subway train full of bodies. They weren't killed by some supervillain. They killed each other. Is it something about Gotham that just drives people mad?

Mad... As a... Hatter?

This is not a spoiler. The Mad Hatter is on the cover. So are Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee. Well, so is White Rabbit, and she's not actually in this issue, so apologies if the Mad Hatter thing was a spoiler.

Very little in this issue makes any sense, except for Jim Gordon's advice to his shrink: Don't ride the subways. Actually, Gordon has a nice little subplot going on here with overzealous I.A. detective Forbes.

But other than that, the story here was routine if you avoid thinking too much about Hatter's plan and methods. Otherwise, the story just becomes, well, maddening.

Rating: 5/10

Steed And Mrs. Peel #0

Title: Steed And Mrs. Peel
Issue: 0
Date: August 2012
Publisher: Boom! Studios
Writer: Mark Waid
Artist: Steve Bryant
Colorist: Ron Riley
Letterer: Steve Wands
Cover: Joshua Covey, Blond
Editor: Matt Gagnon, Chris Rosa

The A-word is nowhere to be found in this book, but this is a new adventure featuring characters from a certain classic British TV show that happens to share its title with a certain Marvel Comics property.

Personally, I'm a huge fan of the show, which makes this one of the very, very few times that I will say that about a TV adaptation. So I went into this with a lot of trepidation, and the cover did not help. Absolutely awful (apparently, there are actually 8 variant covers, this was version B; I haven't seen any of the others, but they would have a hard time being much worse).

Fortunately, the book itself proved to be pretty good.

The interplay between Patrick MacNee and Diana Rigg on the show was consistently brilliant, and definitely a challenge to translate into the comic medium. Writer Mark Waid did about as good a job as could be done, with several scenes that were absolutely spot-on. He also got a lot of the show's style right. The situations are quirky. The villains are not always entirely competent, but their schemes are convoluted to near-ridiculousness.

Steve Bryant's interior art was good. He doesn't always capture Emma's easy grace, but that's more a function of the difficulty of using images of real actors.

Fight scenes are handled nicely with good attention to the details of the show's choreography. Loved the bit where a villain is dispatched by a combination of (judo!) chop from Emma and being tripped up by the handle of Steed's umbrella. Classic. Emma overpowering and swapping clothes with a henchwoman was pretty much pure fanservice. That is not a bad thing.

The story stands alone, but ends with a brief lead-in to the ongoing series.

About as good as I could have hoped for. Mr. Steed and Mrs. Peel, you were most definitely needed.

Rating: 8.5