Girls Vol. 2 - Emergence Review

    

Alright, so if you haven't read these first two volumes yet, there are probably going to be some spoilers ahead! The book starts right up where the last one left off and some pretty big shit goes down in these first couple of pages. This is so smart on the writers part because they find a way to isolate the characters, and create that non escapable feeling of claustrophobia. Also it eliminates a large quantity of people in the town making the cast of the book large, but not overwhelming. 

For a large part of this book the cast is split into three groups. One is the survivors from the bridge incident who are now hunkered down in the largest house in town and they mostly just sit around and interact with each other.. The other is a group including the Sheriff who head to the north exit to see if they can escape there. The last is the Pickett father and son duo who basically serves as the comic relief.

So the first group of people find out that one of the survivor guys slept with a bunch of these girls, and in turn that Ethan was the first one to do so. Then everyone freaks out and begins to persecute these two dues. Now the one guy who slept with them did it in the road after a shit load of people died and some of the girls even murdered people. That guy's kind of fucked up, and he deserves to be yelled at. Now Ethan on the other hand didn't really do anything wrong... I mean he picked up some girl who was hurt and clothed her and gave her a place to stay for the night. She came on to him and seduced him. There's not really anything wrong with that in my eyes, but maybe i'm a bit bias because i'm a guy, but whatever. But other than that it's kind of like I said, they don't really have a lot to do. The dialogue is great, so I didn't have a problem with it, but I can see someone who is more driven by action being a bit bored until the later half of this book. But regardless of whether you like the action or dialogue more, the climax of this volume is really fucking cool, and i don't want to say more than that, but it's creepy and you're not sure what exactly is going on, or who's going to survive. 

The second group led by Wes, the Sheriff, heads to the north and when they realize they're walled in there too, they begin to search to see how far this wall goes. I'm not really sure why this was done, because they don't really have a lot to do. I mean I didn't have a huge problem with it while I was reading it, it's just in retrospect. I guess it allows tensions back at the house to grow between everyone without a source of authority, but other than that the coolest thing that comes out of it is a fight with a bear... 

These last two characters are insinuated to be kind of villainous, but mostly they come off as incompetent. That being said it is really fun to watch them fuck off and get messed up. I laughed out loud several times during these parts and are the funniest parts in the series thus far. After a while this group meets up with the second and there's a bit of confrontation, but it's resolved pretty quickly. This all builds towards a bit of a conclusion for the book, but it's more a cliff hanger than anything. 

I read right through this volume, and loved almost all of it. The mysteries of this series are so intriguing that I found myself rushing to the end of every chapter. It might not grab everyone this way, but by this volume you should know if it's for you or not. If you like what you see, you can Search Amazon.com for Girls Vol. 2 Emergence, or you can click the box below. 

Thanks for reading

James

The Sword Vol. 1 - Fire Review

Alright, so I've been on a bit of a Luna Brothers kick lately if you couldn't tell. I enjoyed their other books quite a bit, so I figured why not start reading the recently finished "The Sword"? So I went into this without any preconceived notions. I had no idea what this was about, just that it could be hyper violent at times, and I've got to say that so far I've liked what I found. Basically this story is about a girl who is a paraplegic who's family gets attacked and murdered because this group of people thinks that her father is someone who he claims not to be. These three people who attack them apparently have some kind of magic/mutant powers. They leave her for dead, and she discovers this sword deep beneath her house, and it heals her entirely. Well upon discovering that she's alive, these people send a group of people to kidnap her and get their sword back, which they were after in the first place. From this point on things start going downhill for the main character, Dara. She discovers that this sword is some kind of ultimate weapon when she kills all the dudes sent after her, and then runs from the police with ease.

My biggest problem with this book so far is the fact that she tries to turn herself into the police to get their help, and it's awfully predictable to assume that they're not going to help at all, and will instead probably fuck her over at some point. I think it would have been much more fun to have her be assisted by the government, but instead that shit gets all messed up too. It seems like an easy cop out, no pun intended, to have this character be on the run. I have hope that there's some creative stuff done with it later, because if not it might aggravate me. There's also these long scenes at the beginning of every issue that are like two or three pages long where these villains talk to one another. To me these just seem like needless over extended recaps. Why tell the audience what your villains are doing every step of the story? So there are scenes where shit goes down that could go either way, but you know what's going on because you heard the villains' plan. It just seems a little awkward for the reader to be in on what's going on, and the characters be clueless. During the scene or two where you actually get to see the sword in action it does kick a lot of ass. It's very cool watching someone who's not really sure about what they're doing murder several people because of an instrument that's in her hand. It's like any slight movement she makes would end up in slicing right through people, or leaping over buildings. That was by far my favorite part, which is surprising because i'm not usually into that kind of over the top action, but here it's done very well and I can't wait to see more of it!

So in the last chapter of this volume Dara meets up with her friends who she previously abandoned to turn herself in. They're all on the run now with not too much more than this super powerful sword. This dude Justin had her dad's creative writing class a few years before and apparently he told his class of his travels in his previous life as this character Demetrios. He then relays some of these tales to Dara. Now this is basically where the book goes into backstory mode and, i hope, gets it all out of the way. There were four bad guys who each control an element and they used their powers to rule, but to keep each other in check they forged a sword using each of their powers. Demetrios was given this sword by the other three to kill the most powerful one. Afterwards he left the other three alive, but constantly reminding them that he could fuck their day up. My problem with this is that I can't tell whether this is borrowing strongly from The Last Airbender, or whether the writers just chose the not that original route for this story. I'm hoping they do something a little more creative with it in the later books, but they're even called Water, Earth, and Air...

I definitely have to say I'm not sold yet. I can't decide if this is just another version of a story I've seen dozens of times, or whether it's a great reimagining of those stories that's going to top them all. I'm going to keep reading until it gets bad, because the parts I liked I did like a lot. Maybe I just liked Girls better because you have no idea what the fuck is going on from start to finish, where as this seems to be almost holding your hand the whole way through. If you like what you see, and you'd like to check this book out for yourself you can Search Amazon.com for The Sword Vol. 1 Fire, or you can just click the box below.

Thanks for reading
James

Girls Vol. 1 - Conception Review

Alright, I'll start off by saying that the covers on these books make them come off as some kind of softcore porn. They are not. This is a legitimate survival horror story, and a pretty good one too. The story starts out with this sexually frustrated character named Ethan. Well throughout the first part of the book he keeps trying lay the charm on some ladies, and he keeps getting shot down. Hard. Well in the first issue he kind of losses his shit and basically goes off on a chauvinistic rant about how all women are bitches. Now maybe this is a little fucked up to say, but I liked this guy from the get go. Not because he's a woman hater of course, but because he's a real dude with real frustrations. Well on his ride home he finds a naked woman injured in the street. He tries to do the right thing and help her, but she doesn't want to go to a hospital, so he takes her back to his place. Once she's back he makes it clear he has the most honest of intentions, but she kind of seduces him, and they get it on. Well the next day he goes to the police station to get the sheriff to find a solution to this situation. Now all of this is set up for when this book takes a dive into the really creepy and uncanny. And it's kind of hard to go into detail about that stuff, or even really the premise of the book without venturing into spoiler territory. So... When they get back to Ethan's house they find this mystery girl in the bathroom with five or six full grown eggs hatching with exact replicas of her coming out of them. These girls then go on a rampage and start trying to murder all the ladies they come across. 

This story strongly resembles a Zombie story, to me. The only difference being that instead of zombies, you have naked murderous girls. Which to some people might be scarier. There's some seriously weird shit here too. At one point there's a giant sperm at one point, and the way the book ends just adds to the creepy factor. Don't let all that stuff discourage you though. Underneath all of the awkward imagery, is a really interesting story. I read through this volume in under two hours, because I literally could not wait to find out what happened next. I can't explain it, but the way everything is handled made me get really into it, really fast. Now I can say this though, if you don't identify with a character quickly, you might have trouble caring about the shit that happens to these people, because just because I liked the main character doesn't mean you will. That being said i definitely think it's worth at least a glance. 

I definitely enjoyed this volume, and I'm so intrigued to see what happens next. This is definitely a weird book, and probably not one I'd recommend to first time comic readers, but it is definitely a perfect example of how comics aren't just about Superheroes in capes, and zombies and ninjas. It's amazing how something so simple in premise can be so intriguing and satisfying at the same time. If you like what you see, you can Search Amazon.com for Girls vol. 1 conception or you can click the box below.

Ultra - Seven Days Review

Alright, so I've been wanting to read some stuff written by the Luna Brothers for years, and just haven't gotten around to it until now. When I Originally saw this book, the cover is kind of somber and dark, and it's called "Seven Days" and I thought the premise was "What if this super woman only had seven days left to live" upon reading it I discovered that it's actually about her having seven days to find true love. Being a guy, I kind of felt like I'd been duped. I mean it literally starts with these three chicks, that you don't find out are superheroes until a ways into the book, that are kind of smashed that go to see a fortune teller. But once I got passed the idea that I was reading a comic book version of a romantic comedy, and not really that original of one either, I kind of started to dig it. So basically the main character, Ultra, is being coerced by her to friends to go and try to find her true love once they receive their fortunes. I don't really want to spoil how it all plays out, but it does tend to take a few twists and turns that if your girlfriend sat you down and made you watch this as a film, you'd call that shit right out, and then look like a jackass for being wrong. This is done really well, and it keeps you on your toes as to where the plot goes. 

One of my favorite aspects of this comic though, is the actual superhero parts. Basically in this big Metropolis style city, named Spring City, there are these talent agencies basically. One for superheroes, and one for heroines. And these talent agencies work directly for the police. So basically every super hero works as a police officer, and has on duty times, and off duty times, where they can be called to deal with certain situations, or if there's a big deal going on they might form a task force. It's a really streamlined way to handle the situation of what happens when super heroes sleep, when do they sleep, when are they off duty, are they saving people 24/7? all those things are handled with one system, and the best part is, is all of those things are told well, and used in the dialogue. So it's not just exposition at any point where they're saying "this works this way, and this works this way," it's all woven very well. My only beef with this is there is one scene later on in the book, and this is kind of venturing into spoilers, but all of these superheroes are in one spot for an awards show. While I did really like this scene, i don't see why every criminal and super criminal in the city isn't staging the biggest heist ever during that fucking awards show, because they're all busy getting gussied up and then accepting awards and shit. It didn't bug me that bad, but it did make me grin thinking about it. 

Now I'm going to go into full blown spoiler mode for a second, but this story is about her finding her true love. And it doesn't pan out the way it looks like at first. Then in around part six or seven, of eight, there's a sub plot where one of the main character's friends tells her she's gay and in love with her. Now maybe this is just me, but I loved this idea and I wanted them to run with it so bad. I guess it's just the idea of this super powered, cute lesbian couple flying around the city holding hands and whooping ass together, but whatever it was in my brain that clicked, that was the story I really wanted to read at that point, and it gets kind of dropped for something a little more sappy. While I didn't hate where they went with it, I'd be lying if I said I didn't prefer the way it could have gone. 

This is a great book if you want to read a romantic comedy with super hero action mixed in. It's a very "Sex and the City" look at Super Heroines and their interactions with each other. If that sounds cool, then definitely check this out! If not... stay away, because that's what most of the book is. The dialogue is great, but the action is few and far between. I personally liked it quite a bit, and didn't have a problem with it at all. If you like what you see you can Search Amazon.com for Ultra - Seven Days, or you can click on the box below.