Mighty Thursday #3

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Joe Hill’s The Cape

By Jason Ciaramella (Writer); Zach Howard (Illustrator); Nelson Daniel (Colourist); 2012

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Summary from Goodreads

Every little boy dreams about putting on a cape and soaring up, up, and away… but “what if “one day that dream were to come true? Eric was like every other eight-year-old boy, until a tragic accident changed his life forever. The Cape explores the dark side of power, as the adult Eric – a confused and broken man – takes to the skies… and sets out to exact a terrible vengeance on everyone who ever disappointed him.Read More »

Movie Review – Batman: The Killing Joke

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IMDB Summary

As Batman hunts for the escaped Joker, the Clown Prince of Crime attacks the Gordon family to prove a diabolical point mirroring his own fall into madness.

KillingJokePoster

Batman: The Killing Joke is the highly anticipated animated adaptation of the famous 1988 one-shot graphic novel of the same name. Originally written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Brian Bolland, the story tells what many consider to be the definitive origin of The Joker, exploring the character’s psychology and drawing upon the similarities between him and Batman. This adaptation is written by Brian Azzarello and directed by Sam Liu.Read More »

Mighty Thursday #2

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The Incredible Hercules: Against the World

By Greg Pak & Fred Van Lente (Writers); Khoi Pham, Reilly Brown, Eric Nguyen, & Bob Layton (Illustrators); 2008

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Summary from Goodreads

From Hulk to Herc and still Incredible! WORLD WAR HULK is over, the man-monster Hulk defeated and imprisoned following an earth-shaking battle that left both allies and enemies struggling to pick up the pieces. Having sided with the Hulk, legendary demigod Hercules and boy genius Amadeus Cho are now outlaws, a situation further inflamed by Cho’s grudge against the super-spy agency S.H.I.E.L.D. and Herc’s feud with his estranged half-brother — Ares, god of war, who isn’t above abusing his new federal clout for the sake of sibling rivalry. It’s Marvel’s mightiest manhunt, guest-starring Wonder Man and the Black Widow – plus an untold tale pitting Hercules against the Incredible Hulk!Read More »

Book Review – The Book of Awesome by Neil Pasricha

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Summary from Goodreads

Based on the award-winning blog 1000awesomethings.com, The Book of Awesome is a high five for humanity and a big celebration of life’s little moments and the underappreciated, simple things that make us happy, from popping bubble wrap to hitting a bunch of green lights in a row, to waking up thinking it’s Monday and realizing it’s Saturday. With wise, witty observations from writer Neil Pasricha, this treasure trove is filled with smile-inducing musings that make readers feel like kids looking at the world for the first time: AWESOME!

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I’m hesitant to admit this, but The Book of Awesome is a book I thought of as little more than fluff. I cynically regarded it as a fun little novelty that was an easy sell to the casual reading masses, but it exposed to me the jaded husk of a man I can sometimes be. While I expected a read that would present forced enthusiasm over little things for a cheap laugh, I instead got something humorously sincere and genuinely relatable.Read More »

Mighty Thursday #1

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The Amazing Spider-Man: Election Day

By Marc Guggenheim and John Romita Jr., 2009

ElectionDayCover

Summary from Goodreads

It’s the climax to a year’s worth of Spider-Man stories as questions are answered and Spidey’s new world is rocked to its core. Who’s the person terrorizing people as Menace? Who’s behind the Spider-Tracer Killings? Who’s going to be the Mayor of New York City? Marc Guggenheim and John Romita Jr. have all the answers.Read More »

Movie Review – Suicide Squad

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IMDB summary:

A secret government agency recruits a group of imprisoned supervillains to execute dangerous black ops missions in exchange for clemency, which inevitably leads to chaos.

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Suicide Squad, directed by David Ayer, is the latest installment in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU) of films, following Batman v. Superman which released earlier this year. There is a very apparent divide in the reception of this film, with a lot of critics receiving it poorly while fans seem to love it and believe critics are being unfair. For my part, I liked it, but it had a lot of problems.Read More »

Mighty Thursday #0

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I’m a great lover of comic books, but unfortunately I have a tendency to read them infrequently. There are also a great many titles I’ve accumulated in my library that I’ve had for a long time yet never gotten around to reading. Some of these are random volumes that I can’t even recall buying, while others I specifically wanted to read, yet let that desire fall to the wayside after purchase.

Mighty Thursday is my effort to remedy this, where every week I will choose a comic book volume — either off my shelf or newly purchased — and review it. Most of the time this will be one I’ve never read before, but sometimes I will reread a title for the fun of it.

The only requirement I have for these new weekly posts is the medium itself, so while a lot may be focused on the numerous superhero trades I’ve accumulated over the years, I will not be excluding books that fall outside of the genre. Comics are a wonderful art form and I want to explore them more regularly.

Regular posts will begin next Thursday.

Short Story Review – Something Happened Here, But We’re Not Quite Sure What It Was by Paul McAuley

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Summary

“Something Happened Here, But We’re Not Quite Sure What It Was” by Paul McAuley is a complex sf story about politics and xenophobia when human colonists on an Earth-like planet are faced with the possibility of reaching out to alien cultures, especially when a big organization that has previously done harm is in charge of the operation.

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While a little long-winded, I have to admit it was the title of this story that grabbed me more than anything else. While I was aware it was a science fiction story, I love the more terrifying implications of a title like this. I love obscurity I can wrack my brain over, even if I won’t get clear answers. This is easier said than done, however, and unfortunately this story did not quite hit the mark.Read More »

Video Game Review – Virtue’s Last Reward

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Virtue’s Last Reward (VLR) is a 2012 visual novel adventure game developed by Chunsoft for the Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita. The game is the second installment in the Zero Escape series, following 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors (999), which was released in 2009. While I have not formally reviewed 999 before, I have written about it quite glowingly. Being a visual novel the game primarily features lengthy narrative sections broken up by “Escape Rooms,” which are environments where the player character Sigma must investigate and solve puzzles in to progress.Read More »

Book Review – Science Fiction: A Very Short Introduction by David Seed

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Summary from the inside cover:

Science Fiction has proved notoriously difficult to define, but has emerged as one of the most popular genres of our times; not only in literature, but also in drama, poetry, and film. David Seed explores this often unconventional genre in relation to themes such as science and technology, space, aliens, utopias, gender, and its relation to time past, present, and future.

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Science Fiction: A Very Short Introduction by David Seed is part of the extensive Very Short Introductions collection published by Oxford University Press, containing nearly 400 volumes on a wide array of different subjects. This volume — 271 — discusses the science fiction genre, focusing on its key trappings, such as voyages into space, technology, and alien encounters.Read More »