Giant-Size Action #0

I got a whole pack of these flip book from Red Giant Entertainment during Free Comic Book Day. Here's one that features Nikola Tesla.

Title: Giant-Size Action
Issue: 0
Publisher: Red Giant Entertainment
Date: May, 2014
Writer: Benny R. Powell, Terry Keefe, David Lawrence
Artist: Nigel Raynor, Bong Dazo
Colorist: Jay David Ramos, Michael Bartolo
Letterer: Benny R. Powell, Zach Metheny
Cover: Studio Hive
Editor: Brian Augustyn, David Lawrence

Flip book.

First story is Tesla: The Future Is Mine, featuring Nikola Tesla, in some steampunk flavored historical action. The story features appearances by Pierre Curie and Mark Twain, but the main character is really Mathilde Poincare (the scientist/mathematician Henri Poincare is never actually mentioned, but it would make sense in story terms for Mathilde to be his daughter).

Tesla (who is not actually all that appealing a character here) manages to pretty much end up as the damsel in distress, hanging off of the Eiffel Tower only to be rescued by Mathilde in a scene that's a lot of fun. Mathilde is intriguing. Tesla has potential. As does this story.

Flip the book over and you get: Wayward Sons, an urban fantasy that seems to be influence by a hodgepodge of mythology. It opens with a father and son practicing swordplay. When the son's magical powers manifest themselves, the father takes the son to meet a young woman with psychic abilities of her own.

Then there is a random encounter with a minotaur. No, really. A minotaur just kinda shows up and they fight it. Alanis the female "Wayward Son" (why the gender-specific title if the main characters are one man and one woman?) pulls out a bow and proceeds to go all Katniss Everdeen on the minotaur and it's off to the next stop on the quest to defeat whatever big evil is out there dropping minotaurs into people's living rooms.

This was harmless fun. It had good pacing and tolerable dialogue, and the potential to get more interesting as it continues.

Potential is kind of the watchword here. It will be interesting to see if either series lives up to that potential.

Rating: 6/10

Giant-Size Adventure #0

This is the first of the official Free Comic Book Day books that I'm reviewing this year.

Title: Giant-Size Adventure
Issue: 0
Publisher: Red Giant Entertainment
Date: May, 2014
Writer: Kevin Juaire, David Lawrence, Chris Crosby
Artist: Wilson Tortosa, Sebastian Cheng, Tina Francisco
Colorist: Katrina Mae Hao
Letterer: Zach Metheny
Editor: Brian Augustyn, David Lawrence

Flip book.

First story is The First Daughter, featuring the teenaged daughter of the (fictional; near-future) President of the United States as a superheroine.

Tasha's alien mentor/advisor sends her to Long Island and the site of a long-abandoned lab where a time-traveling menace is about to reappear.

But in the midst of the fight, Tasha discovers that she while she may be the First Daughter, she is not the first First Daughter to don a costume and fight monsters. In fact, thanks to some convenient memory-wiping, there have been a whole succession of First Daughters, even in the case of presidents who where believed to have never had children.

This sounds pretty goofy, but the shear awesomeness of Abby Lincoln just about makes up for it.

This was a fun book that didn't take itself too seriously, avoided sexualizing the female lead character, and presented an interesting character in the alien mentor, who showed enough hints of manipulation to make the reader question his status as a good guy.

Flip the book over and you've got Magika, a fantasy story about a world that closely resembles ours, well, aside from ogres and the like. Niko, a boy from Earth, has been living in Magika long enough to have made some friends. But when one friendship gets strained, Niko is led into a confrontation with a clan of apple-ogres.

This was a fun book, with gorgeous artwork, and the beginnings of some good character interaction.

Rating: 7.5/10