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Posted in Comic on May 5th, 2009
Customer Reviews & Opinions
Outstanding
The way the art and story of this novel combine to form a uniquely immersive and powerful story is amazing. This book is symbolica and provocative. The images in it will stay with you long after you’re done reading.
Posted in Comic on May 5th, 2009
Posted in Comic on May 5th, 2009
Posted in Comic on May 5th, 2009
Customer Reviews & Opinions
One of the best Batman stories EVER
Wow. This book is stunning. Let’s see… Great Story, Good humor/tragedy, No bad language/unneccessary gorey violence, and it showed you can have mature themes/plots while still being kid-safe! TAKE THAT, DC! I have a good idea… instead of releasing garbage like Bruce Wayne: Murderer?, how about making Batman Adventures into an ongoing series?
Forever to Bruce Timm and Paul Dini!
One of the Best Comics You’ll Ever Read
This is the original origin story of Harley Quinn, written years before she made the transition from cartoon character to mainstream DC comic book character. The Batman: Gotham Knights episode “Mad Love” was based on this graphic novel, and they are almost identical in both design and dialogue. There are a few key differences and additions to the story which were not shown in the animated episode however. For example, the ending is basically the same, but worded differently. (Personally, I prefer the wording in the cartoon, but no matter.)Despite all the character changes, interpretations, and adaptations that have been made from Paul Dini/Bruce Timm’s original vision of Harley, accept no substitutes. The original IS the best. This is Harley as she was meant to be characterized. And you will be hard-pressed to find a comic book written and drawn as vividly and engaging as this one; I own hundreds of comic books, and this is one of my very top favorites. Definitely one of Paul Dini/Bruce Timm’s best works, and a testiment to why Harley Quinn became the character so intriguing that she did the impossible and made the crossover to mainstream DC continuity.
Remarkable
Timm and Dini are the masters and this book further proves it!Sometines scary, sometimes racy but just plain fun.
Joker’s “main squeeze” gets to tell her story!
Based on one of the best of the animated Batman episodes, “Mad Love” tells how Harley Quinn, chief henchwoman and paramour of the Joker, got her warped start. Once, a respected psychiatrist at infamous Arkham Asylum, Dr. Quinn becomes infatuated with her “patient”, The Joker”, turns her life topsy-turvy, and allies herself with “the clown prince of crime”.After falling from The Joker’s favor, Quinn plots to capture Batman, the one that she blames for her “rift” with The Joker. Her “solution” to a backfired Joker prank is priceless.
For fans of both the series and the legend of Batman, this is a visit that one must make.
Posted in Comic on Apr 28th, 2009
Posted in Comic on Apr 28th, 2009
Posted in Comic on Apr 26th, 2009
Series creator Joss Whedon writes Buffy Season Eight #10 with veteran Buffy artist Cliff Richards serving as guest penciller.
Joss Whedon, the man, the myth, the legend, writes the comic with the same genius as he did the show. -Janet Evanovich, New York Times bestselling author of Hard Eight
Customer Reviews & Opinions
Dear Mr. Fantasy
This is the one in which a woman’s husband wrote in to Joss’s contest and asked that he immortalize her within the pages of Dark Horse’s BUFFY SEASON EIGHT. She, Robin, was slowly losing her grip, and her devoted husband feared that the only thing she was going to be able to understand sooner or later was seeing her own face in the pages of her favorite comic. From what I understand, she is drawn wearing one of her own favorite dresses. I haven’t heard the follow up but I hope that this brings Robin some much needed peace and happiness. Good for Joss for reaching out to help a fellow sufferer on our benighted planet.While in Scotland Xander continues to question Dawn on why she is so big, and Dawn reluctantly tells him the truth–finally!–far away from home Robin guards a ramshackle bungalow shack that is one of the portals to another world. As Willow and Buffy traipse up and down a series of wonderfully drawn steps to nowhere, it becomes apparent that whatever this place is, it is a place in which fantasy reigns, and soon the girls find themselves imagining some heated daydreams featuring all their favorite imaginary playmates. I love the one where Buffy imagines herself as a marquise or something at a grand ball, pictured between two handsome and eerily similar men in period dress. “Little Women Christian Bale,” she commands, “you and I will waltz obscenely close in plain view, while Reigh of Fire Christian Bale, you will saddle the horses.” In another panel superblond Daniel Craig wades up to Buffy in the same skyblue skintight speedo he wore in CASINO ROYALE and offers her his sunblock. “That’s a little generic,” Willow sighs. Her own tastes, we find, run to “Television’s Tina Fey.”
Between Buffy and Willow some old resentments, dormant for many months, come blazing back to life in the exciting “Anywhere but Here.”
“You Don’t Volunteer To Be a Minder, Buffy. You Get Chosen.”
*This item is the same as Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 #10 Jo Chen Cover Edition The only difference is the cover. This cover is the variant, which makes the rarer of the two. The ratio of regular cover vs. variant is 4:1*“Anywhere But Here” is the most fully realized Buffy: Season Eight comic released by Dark Horse. It offers a solid, twenty-five page story that reads as if it were an entire arc. It’s not perfect (the way they defeat the villain is a bit lame), but it’s just so crammed with story and dialogue that it did more than I could have ever expected a one-shot to do. The structure of the story (what with Buffy and Willow’s ‘fantasy’ sequences and, later, their visions of the future/past) is a bit experimental but, unlike the previous one-shot (The Chain) this actually worked. Well.
There were a lot of revelations (How did Dawn become a giant? Can we get a look at Kenny? How does Buffy have money for all these high-tech thingers? Where the blip is Kennedy?) as well as references to past events, all of them with new plot twists attached on the end. Also, a spin is finally put on the Willow/Kennedy relationship, giving it the spice it lacked during the televised run. With Dawn finally revealing how she was “embiggened” and Buffy reeling from Willow’s revelation of why she doesn’t bring Kennedy around, this series continues to heat up like a tea kettle that Giles has left on for too long.
Cliff Richards handles the pencils for this one-shot and he does alright here, but I don’t like how he shades by simply drawing lines across the character’s faces. Also, when he depicts a character with a shadow across their face, he simply draws a hard line down the center of their faces. It just doesn’t look real. That being said, he is good enough that his art doesn’t take away from the enjoyment.
I also have to mention–and I know you’ve heard this before, but it’s a must I mention this–how nice it is to see a fan of this show, Robin Balzer, immortalized in the pages of this comic. Robin and Jerrod, congratulations on this. Robin was chosen well (in real life, as well as the character!) and I think it’s awesome of Dark Horse and Joss to reach out to the fans like this. It warms a guy’s heart, no?
9/10
Posted in Comic on Apr 26th, 2009
With Joss Whedon serving as Executive Producer and Georges Jeanty (The American Way) as series artist, Buffy Season Eight continues to entertain longtime Buffy fans and newcomers alike.
* Buffy Season Eight continues!
* Top-ten seller Buffy #1 went immediately back to press-three times-to satisfy demand . . . totaling over 150,000 copies!
Customer Reviews & Opinions
BKV Brings His “Faith Arc” to a Close
This issue had a lot riding on it. As it is the climax of “No Future For You,” it had to be more intense, more poignant, and overall better than the first three issues of this arc. It also had to live up to Issue #4, the issue that ended “The Long Way Home” arc. This issue, despite how good the other three were, is the last statement that this arc is going to make, so it had to be the most powerful. Does it deliver?Yeah, it does. Starting with a flashback to her days with the Mayor (who voice Vaughan nails), this issue makes a poignant parallel between his (the Mayor’s) relationship with Faith and Roden’s relationship with Gigi. What I like about this part of the issue is that Faith is shown to have recognized that the Mayor was wrong–and, yes, evil–but the relationship is never portrayed as anything but genuine. This sharply contrasts with Roden’s relationship with his evil slayer, but Faith still relates to Gigi despite her mentor’s true feelings about her. What it all comes down to here, though, is the unavoidable fight between the two rogue slayers. It’s an emotional and bloody battle that Vaughan handles carefully, giving the characters some great one-liners, a few teary moments, and some really cool combat scenes (especially when Roden comes into the picture).
While this plot comes to a startling finish, things are just starling to boil over back at Buffy’s place. Her anger at Giles (shown in the last issues) for not informing her about the mission comes to a head here, spawning surprising results. This issue seems to focus on both endings and new beginnings, opening the door for many, many stories in the future. And, like the slightly inferior Issue #4, this arc closes with a bang: The Big Bad is revealed. His short little exchange with a minion of his “Lieutenant Molter” changes everything we knew about this arc. His motives put a new, disturbing spin on the events of the Faith vs. Gigi fight, and it is shown that there is a traitor within Buffy’s ranks. Oh, and for everyone complaining that Joss is taking to long to give us answers to the mysteries in the first arc, one of the biggest questions gets answered in this issue: “Who is the person floating in Issue #1?”
Brian K. Vaughan did a wonderful job on both this issue and the entire arc. Introducing the theme of how slayers relate to their surrogate “watchers” (Faith to the Mayor, Gigi to Roden, Buffy to Giles) into this issue, he ends this issue with real emotional resonance. The ramificatons of “No Future For You” will change the Buffyverse forever, and I can’t wait to see what follows.
9/10
Posted in Comic on Apr 26th, 2009
Customer Reviews & Opinions
Faith And ‘B’ Goin’ At It
In a recent interview, Brian K. Vaughan told us how hard it was for him to write characters like Buffy and Willow. He said that he was more interested in–and better at–writing darker characters like Faith. Well, whatever initial problems he may have had writing for Buffy certainly don’t come across in this issue, because her quips while fighting Gigi (yes, that does happen here, and YES, it is awesome) are some of her best dialogue since… a long time.The blend of seriousness and comedy is at its best in this issue. I’ll lay it out for you. We start with a serious Faith/Gigi conversation, then go to a light-hearted Faith/Gigi conversation. Then, we get a light-hearted Buffy/Willow conversation that begins to turn really serious, and then POOF (you’ll get my “POOF” if you read the issue), we get a kick-ass fight, and then a really, really serious Faith/Buffy confrontation. This is the issue that finally puts on the table all of the things we were hoping Buffy and Faith would get into in Season Seven. I won’t spoil anything, but it ain’t pretty.
This issue also gives us a lot more to chew on that #7 which was, for all intents and purposes, a bridge between #6 and #8. Here, we get an awesome thing about Faith to speculate on, a revelation about how Faith currently sees how her relationship with The Mayor was, and a killer cliff-hanger that will leave us scratching our necks for more like Tyrone Biggums. Vaughan also brings up an issue that we fans have been debating for a long time, since the show was on air. Buffy and company have always been against killing humans… but what happens when humans are the main players in the war against good? Buffy takes a very surprising, sensible, and different stance on this than I would have expected, and the inclusion of her new views (not even a panel) will give us something to talk about until the issue is opened up further.
As for the art, not only does Georges seem to be improving on his likenesses of both Faith and Giles, but this issue also marks the first time he nails Buffy’s mannerisms. Her ‘movements’ are spot-on, and she’s coming off as the Buffy we loved in Seasons 1-5, not the Buffy we were frustrated with in 6 & 7. However, we also get bad ass Buffy in action, which Georges seems to be getting better and better at. While the fight scenes in #4 were pretty good, Georges blows that all away with the spectacular Buffy vs. Faith scene. His most interesting character design has to be Gigi; the girl can go from beautiful to scary in a panel–and I don’t mean that in a bad way. On the not-so-good side, Georges seems to be getting lazy with Willow. I know she isn’t essential to this issue, but she is one of the main four characters in the series, so I don’t think it’s asking too much to request more detailed and accurate Willow-faceage next issue. And since I liked to end on a plus, I have to add that it’s pretty cool that Georges didn’t make the tub scene all boobalicious or gratuitous. He kept the integrity and respect that the series always maintained.
For those who love to debate, this issue will scatch you in areas that #7 couldn’t. For those who missed bad ass fight scenes, this issue will tickle your pickle. For those who are fiends for spot-on characterization, this issue will salt your fries. For anyone who likes all of the above, your areas, pickles, and fries will all be taken care of by this issue.
9/10
Posted in Comic on Apr 26th, 2009
Why Buy A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 #7: No Future For You Part Two (Dark Horse Comics)?
Faiths out to kill a Slayer.
Lady Genevieve Savidge is one of the most dangerous women on the planet. If shes left unstopped, the British heiress will usher in the apocalypse. Faith has accepted Giless offer of an early retirement package for this gig–but the wetworks will have to wait till shes infiltrated Savidges mystically protected estate.
The blockbuster Season Eight continues with multiple Eisner Award-winning writer Brian K. Vaughan (Y: The Last Man; LOST), the stellar art of Georges Jeanty (The American Way), and Buffy creator and Executive Producer Joss Whedon.
Joss Whedons Season Eight Continues!
Customer Reviews & Opinions
Gettin’ British With It
Expectations were high for this issue. The first part of this arc was nothing short of perfect, so everyone was wondering if BKV could keep the goodness up. He can, and he did. The story unfolds, throwing both Faith and us faithful readers into the center of action; an uppity British party. Basically, the plot is that Faith has to try to kill another slayer, a rich young Brit–and the hostess of the party–named Gigi. But nothing is ever that cut and dry in the Buffyverse, is it? The issue starts off with a flashback to the scene in “Graduation Day Part I” where Buffy fights Faith (then, the current ’slayer gone bad’), thinking it’s going to be a battle to the death. We, for the first time, get Faith’s perspective on the fight, and–as the issue goes on–the connections between the flashback and the major drama of the issue become clear. Gigi isn’t just an ‘evil slayer.’ She’s a person, quite like Faith was when she was ‘bad.’ Can Faith step into Buffy’s shoes and kill a girl who is following the same path that she, Faith, wound up recovering from?That’s still up in the air. A lot happens in this issue, but the plot is still left on a cliff-hangy note. One of BKV’s strengths is his pacing. I loved Joss’ “Long Way From Home” arc, but the thing that I’ve noticed most about why “No Future For You” is simply a better arc is the fact that it’s paced well, from page-to-page and even issue-to-issue. As a seasoned comic writer, BKV knows just when to end a page to keep the reader turning, but not too fast. His panelling allows you to appreciate each page to the fullest, without simply skimming over any images. It’s the perfect balance of a fast-paced story and a story you want to take your time to read.
On the other hand, there are a few things I would have liked from this issue, but didn’t see. I expected more Giles, thinking he might be playing Dixon to Faith’s Sidney Bristow. But no such luck. Even though our favorite Ben-killing-Watcher gets a spot on the cover, he’s only in one panel of the issue. Faith gets even more screen time in this issue than she did in the last, simply because there aren’t that many other characters there to share it with. The variant cover, which depicts Faith, Buffy, and Gigi in formal wear is also misleading; Buffy only appears in the flashback. Xander and Andrew are no shows. What we do get is a marvelous exchange between Dawn (still breakin’ scales) and Willow, which brings me right back to the show. Their dialogue (and before I forget, Faith’s internal dialogue as well) is spot-on, and quotable to death. Especially Willow’s “gay wiccan jewess” and “itty bitty things” lines. Simply amazing.
About the art… Many people have criticized George’s depiction of Faith. Admittedly, some of Faith’s Issue #6 facial expressions looked a bit bull-doggy. But this issue, art wise, is a vast improvement on what I thought to be already great art. Georges visibly gets more comfortable drawing the characters page-by-page (especially with Faith and Willow) and he continues to kick ass in drawing the newly introduced characters. The action here isn’t made up of the best comic action sequences I’ve seen (that honorable title goes to Franco Urru’s fight scenes in Spike: Asylum) but Georges is an all around competent artist, and we should be glad to have him involved.
So all in all, I loved the issue. It’s–in retrospect–as good as Issue #6. It’s easier to rank #6 higher, because the perfection of it was such a surprise. This time, we expected it. And all I can say is that BKV delivered.
9/10
