Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Issue Review: Supergirl 24

Inside the I'noxian collective, Kara's mind, no longer connected with her body, goes back to the time when she was a little girl.  But she knows that Cyborg Superman betrayed her, and she wants revenge.  As Zor-El, Kara's father and formerly Cyborg Superman, realizes what he has done, and finally remembers who he is, Brainiac attacks. Zor-El decides to go back to being Cyborg Superman, and to give Kara her body back.  However, Kara, enraged against what the I'naxians have done, breaks free on her own and starts tearing apart the planet.  A floating disk in the distance pulls Kara's body into it. Cyborg Superman is reconstituted and fights Brainiac.  Meanwhile, Kara, naked, awakens "nearby" surrounded by more floating disks. Delacore, the lead I'naxian, tells her to get away, and that her family wanted her to find happiness.  The I'naxian collective miniaturizes itself and escapes. Kara gets onto her space-bike and flees the scene, only to be stopped by the giant space oracle from several issues ago.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Issue Review: Thor God of Thunder 14

Alfyse, queen of the Dark Elves, seeks refuge from Malekith by hiding out in the realm of the dwarves.  Meanwhile, her champion, Sir Wormsong, challenges Malekith to battle. They fight, but Malekith uses sorcery and kills Wormsong.  Meanwhile, Thor returns to Asgardia to discover that the Council of Worlds is putting together a strike team to go after Malektih, and they want Thor to lead it. Thor is joined by Sir Ivory the light elf, Screwbeard the dwarf, Oggmunder the giant, and Ud the troll.  Lady Wazira of the Dark Elves, whose arm was cut off last issue, insists she be allowed to join, and uses a twig to magically repair her arm. Together, the team heads to the land of the dwarves, only to find that Malekith has already gotten there, and battle ensues. Malekith's force is driven off, but not before he beheads the queen and all her courtiers.  Thor swears revenge.

Monday, October 14, 2013

Issue Review: Ghosted 4

King, Anderson, and Trick stand around a table in the haunted Trask Mansion discussing King's new plan -- to get one of the team possessed by a ghost, and then take the ghost out of the house, thereby completing their assignment for "catching a ghost."  As the team argues, Jackson shows up with a raw neck.  He'd been hanged last issue, but the ghost woman in the red dress freed him, telling him she wanted him to help her escape and find revenge. Meanwhile, the rest of the team searches for Joe in the video room, but finds him gone.  As they look, Joe contacts his brother Jay via the monitors, claiming he's doing so from beyond the grave, and tries to warn him about the house.  Trick leads Edzia, King, and Jackson to the hidden room where he got a glimpse of hell, and Edzia tries to summon a spirit -- and succeeds.  Trick becomes possessed by an evil demon, and King knocks him out cold.  The team carries him upstairs to get him outside before dark, but Anderson stops them from leaving.  As she and Jackson argue, the sun goes down.  Finally, Jay and his video team run outside against Jackson's orders,  and an army of ghosts appears and attacks them, seemingly killing them all.  Then the ghosts enter the house, and Jackson says that their gig was never just a robbery... it was a prison break.

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Issue Review: Red Sonja 4

Dark Anissia patrols the outside of the quarantined land Patra, and when she discovers one of the citizens trying to escape, she executes him.  Then she bathes in his blood and takes on the name Red Anissia, to represent that she has taken the place of Red Sonja, the land's former protector.  Meanwhile, the two young girls who have appointed themselves Sonja's bodyguards, Ayla and Nias, tend to Sonja and give her an Elixir made by the king's son Timath, that will supposedly cure the plague ravishing Sonja's body.  Sonja is blind, so the girls cover her eyes with a cloth to prevent the sun from damaging them.  Then they carry her back toward Patra.   As the girls seek food, Toda the Tormentor and his minions find them and capture them. Sonja hears the commotion and even though she is blind, she manages to shoot them with her bow and arrow based on sound, and their stink.  Toda tries to strangle her but she cuts off his hands. Then she pulls off her blindfold, apparently able to see again, and shouts that she is going to defeat Annisia.

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Issue Review: Thor God of Thunder 13

A team of dark elves from Svartalfheim sneaks into Niffleheim, the land of the dead, and frees Malekith the Accursed from his eternal imprisonment.  Unaware that this is happening, Thor and his friends, Sif and the Warriors Three, are on Asgardia, where they celebrate the election of Volstagg to the senate.  They drink and toast one another, until a dark elf in attendance screams that Svartalfheim is burning.  Thor and his friends immediately sober up, and head out via the rainbow bridge to the realm of the dark elves.   There, they find a village slaughtered and Malekith holding an elf woman hostage.  Thor demands she be released, and Malekith cuts off her arm and throws her at Thor.  Then he disappears.  Thor uses lightning to cauterize the wound and prevent the elf-woman from dying. Meanwhile, Malekith summons those elves loyal to him and begins the great hunt.

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Issue Review: Batgirl 24

Barbara Gordon, wearing a ninja-suit disguise but not her Batgirl suit, holds her boyfriend Ricky, who is starting to bleed out as a result of a gunshot wound from Barbara's father.  The rest of the police tell the gang members to surrender, and most of them do, but Barbara refuses to be captured.  She smacks the cops around long enough to escape.  After she gets away, Detective McKenna finds her, but McKenna seems to know who she is (whether that means McKenna knows the masked girl is Babs or Batgirl is unclear, as is whether McKenna knows that Babs is Batgirl). McKenna tells Barbara that Knightfall is behind everything. After getting some much-needed sleep, Barbara goes to the hospital to see Ricky, and learns that he is in a coma. She finally decides to go see her father, but before she can get there, Knightfall's minions invade his house and capture him, preparing to kill him. When Barbara arrives and recognizes what's going on, she decides to become Batgirl one more time, to save her father.

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Issue Review: Rocket Girl 1

A teenage cop named Dayoung from "the future" goes back in time to 1986 to stop a time-stream crime by a company called Quintum Mechanics.  In "the future," she argues with her boss to send her back in time to stop Quintum, and he agrees.  In "the past," 1986, she appears in the lab where Quintum Mechanics, newly formed by a few scientists, is testing their "Q-Engine." This is the machine that will alter the future, according to Dayoung.  Before she can really explain anything, however, her gear picks up a call on the police band, and she flies off in her rocket suit to investigate.  She collars the criminal, but the 1986 cops try to arrest her too, and she has to rough them up.  Then the scientists from Quintum catch up to her and pull her into a cab, to get her away before more "present day" cops show up.


Thursday, October 3, 2013

Issue Review: Lazarus 4

At the Carlyle Family compound, James and Bethany, who are monitoring Forever's vital signs, receive an alarm signal.  They quickly realize that she's been attacked. Jonah and Johanna monitor progress as their Carlyle soldiers land and prepare to finish Forever off.  But Eve's healing capacity is greater than the soldiers expect.  As they line up to execute her, she escapes, and between her and the Morray Lazarus Joacquim, they dispatch all the Carlyle troopers except the chopper pilot.  Eve gives Joacquim her bike, since his car was destroyed, and they part ways.  She takes the chopper back to Jonah and Johanna's place.  Back there, Johanna orders their servant Mason to hit her repeatedly, to make it look like Jonah attacked her.  Then she orders Jonah to flee.  When Eve arrives, Johanna claims that Jonah was acting alone in betraying Eve, and that when Johannah found out about it, he beat her and fled.  Forever sends Johanna to the Puget Sound HQ of the Family, and reports everything to Malcom, their father.  She then heads back to the compound in California for a checkup with Bethany and James.  When she gets to her room, there is an e-mail waiting from an unknown sender, saying that Malcolm is not her father, and the Carlyles are not her family.

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Statue 6 - Supergirl - New 52 Covergirls series

Yesterday, my comic-book shop left a message for me.  The brand new Supergirl statue from the DC New 52 Covergirls series had come in, and they wanted to know if I was still interested, and if they should put it aside for me. As anyone who has read this blog could predict, I told them of course!  I hadn't planned to head over to the comic shop today, actually. Even though it is New Comic-book Night, only one book on my pull list was due out this week (Lazarus #4), and I figured it would cost me more in gas to drive there and back (now that I live 40 minutes from the shop) than the cover price of $2.99.  Since I had more issues due out next week, I figured to just wait and pick up Lazarus a week late.

However, knowing that the statue was there, I decided it was worth the trip.  This statue was announced about 5 months ago, and I've been dying to get it ever since.  It's only the second statue ever made of Supergirl in her "New 52" costume. And although that's not exactly my favorite version of her costume, given the display I am planning to make, with one shelf devoted to each of Supergirl's four major incarnations, I figured this would spruce up shelf #4 (the current one).  That's not to say I have all the figures I need yet.  So far, I only have one action figure for original Kara (the "Crisis" uniform, as people call it, with the head band and the red shoulder stripes), and one for Matrix Supergirl (it's not explicitly called that, but it is the proper costume for Peter David's version). I don't have any yet for the second Kara (the one with the bare midriff) -- that is my next assignment.  However, the other thing I like about this statue is that it's a full-sized one, not just a bust or waist-up figure.