Jinx: A Cursed Life #1

Bought from cover artist Jay Kennedy, who had a table at Zombie Hideout in Springfield MA USA for Free Comic Book Day 2025.

Title: Jinx: A Cursed Life
Issue: 1
Date: July, 2023
Publisher: Archie Comics
Writer: Magdalene Visaggio
Artist: Craig Cermak
Letterer: Jack Morelli
Colorist: Ellie Wright
Cover: Jay Kennedy
Editor: Jamie Lee Rotante, Vincent Lovallo, Stephen Oswald

This is from Archie's horror line, putting the familiar Riverdale gang into horror scenarios. Jinx, rumored to be the daughter of the Devil, just wants to be a punk rock musician and for everyone to leave her alone. But when Archie shows up seeking help for a demonically possessed Jughead, Jinx and her friend Danni spring into action. After a sufficient bribe, that is.

This felt a bit more like dark comedy than horror, and it was having some trouble figuring out if it would rather lean into the comedy side of things or the dark. Demonic Jughead was presented as a serious threat, even if rotting-meat hamburgers was a big part of his gimmick, but he ended up getting defeated relatively easily once Jinx started using her not-all-that-well-defined superpowers.

The best parts of this were the characterization of Jinx and Danni, who were both great and full of snarky dialogue. Archie was fun too in his supporting role. This provided a good introduction to this version of Jinx, but didn't lay the groundwork for much ongoing story.

Rating: 5.5/10

Sonic The Hedgehog #253

The last in my short series of kids' comics, representing most of the comics in my five-year-old son's small collection. To cap off this week, I bought two comics for the Kiddo yesterday, this one and the first issue of Avengers Assemble (which I reviewed yesterday). I read both to my son tonight and he enjoyed both of them. He seemed to particularly like the bits where Sonic was spinning around and bouncing off of objects. These scenes elicited a chorus of "Bonk! Bonk! Bonk!", so I know he was having fun.

While I was at Newbury Comics yesterday, I also picked up a couple of new comics for me. Those will be up for review next.

Title: Sonic the Hedgehog
Issue: 253
Date: November, 2013
Publisher: Archie Comics / Sega
Writer: Ian Flynn
Penciler: Tracy Yardley, Lamar Wells
Inker: Terry Austin
Letterer: John Workman
Colorist: Matt Herms
Editor: Vincent Lovallo, Paul Kaminski
Cover: T. Rex

This is the variant cover by T. Rex.

Unlike the other kids' comics I've reviewed this week, Sonic is a single chapter of a long-running ongoing story with no backup stories. And it's a pretty complex ongoing story.

Seriously. We're talking alternate realities and parallel universes. This is apparently part 1 of something called "Countdown to Chaos" but it didn't feel like the first part of anything. It did, however, feel plenty chaotic.

Sonic and Tails are trying to hit the quantum equivalent of a reset button to get their reality back to normal. They are getting somewhat inconsistent help from Nicole, an A.I. who may hold the key to reassembling reality, but who has been rather frazzled by the recent reality-alteration, and so is of less help than she might otherwise be.

Nicole has determined that Sonic needs to make contact with the freedom fighters who are opposing the dictatorial Dr. Eggman, who is also dimensionally displaced, but he is adapting quickly to his new situation in which he commands powerful armies and rules most of the world.

In spite of the need for a scorecard for all of this, the character interactions are pretty good, and Eggman's antics provide some nice comic relief.

This was entertaining in spite of me having not much idea what was going on.

Rating: 6/10