Ant-Man Prelude #2

From my Free Comic Book Day haul. This is the second of the two books I purchased at the Free Comic Book Day event, as opposed to official FCBD giveaways.

Title: Ant-Man Prelude
Issue: 2
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Date: May, 2015
Writer:Will Corona Pilgrim
Penciler: Miguel Sepulveda
Inker: Bit
Colorist: Jay David Ramos
Letterer: VC's Clayton Cowles
Editor: Mark Basso, Emily Shaw

Set "years ago", this story features an early mission with Hank Pym wearing the Ant-Man suit and infiltrating a Hydra base in East Berlin during the Cold War. This is an official Marvel Cinematic Universe tie-in, so it exists in Marvel movie continuity.

This issue was mostly a showcase for Ant-Man's powers, and we get to see pretty much all of them in use as he avoids various security forces en route to, well, basically him beating up some Hydra goons in a minor bit of tie-in with the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Exactly what is really accomplished when all is said and done is left unclear, so the whole story falls a bit flat at the end. The action is good, but as far as raising interest in the movie goes, there isn't much here that we didn't get a look at in the trailers. It was fun to see Pym interacting with Howard Stark and Peggy Carter, but I would have liked more character development and background, to make it feel like this book really added something to the experience of watching the Marvel films.

Rating: 5.5/10

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