I thought that I'd start actually writing in this part of my blogosphere again as I have been drawn back into that oh so murky world of comics once again.
Why? You may ask. Well you may ask it, but it doesn't mean I'll answer you..but as we're starting again here as it were, I'll be nice. But only this once, ye hear!
Yeah I'm one of those people. No, not the ones with an ipad...no the ones with a tablet. A couple of months ago I sold my (piece of crap) 360 and some games and was able to buy a sony tablet for about £50 with the trade in value. I had messed around with comics on my iphone a couple of times, reading Snyder's 'Court of Owls' arc from Batman...which was pretty good, but the screen was too small.
Enter the tablet:
While it looks very smart there, I have to say it's not so smart in person. However reading on it is a revelation. The screen is about the size of a trade paper back...so everything is at the standard comic book page size. Double page spreads require you to turn the tablet sideways to actually be able to read them, but otherwise it's perfect. The other major selling point is that because it's digital you don't have hardcopy floppies (single issues) taking up space..which believe me is a major selling point. As someone who collects to read rather than reads to collect, I am more than happy with the compromise.
The Providers:
While there are a number of providers of digital comic books on the market, the main one is Comixology. Why? Because they had the technology, and they could rebuild hi...because they were able to sell their display technology to Marvel and then DC, which in turn allowed them (a la Steam/Valve) to act as a market place for both companies. Others soon followed, with only Dark Horse (who have their own tech and market place, and much better pricing) keeping out of it.
The end of retail comics?
No, not by a long shot. Retail in America is still far more pervasive than digital, as many collectors still prefer hardcopy when you can just nip down the road for it. In response both comixology and dark horse are becoming more of a 'back issue' market place, with very aggressive sales (again like Steam) every week. Geeze, just earlier when I went to look for the logo picture they were having a sale on Age of the Apocalypse era Xmen book, as if they knew my weakness..$10 disappeared damn quickly. Another point to make is that all books are sold in $$ which means for chumps like me who deal in ££, while the cover price is decent ($1.99 issues are roughly £1.20, nearly half what they would be in the UK) unless you buy in bulk you're going to be hit with £1.85 conversion charge (at least i am each time) So a $0.99 sale book becomes $3.99.
So, the digital market place has games, music, movies, books and comics. With the rise of 3d printers who knows what else we'll end up with..but I digress.
After banging on about why I came back to comics (and thus this blog) perhaps I'd better actually review something. Now this will more than likely be out of date and way behind, because that's who I am generally..ask anyone who knows me, they think I was born in the 1920s...anywho he's the first review:
Note: I will try to keep spoilers to a minimum, but some may find their way in and I apologise in advance.
Uncanny X-Force: The Apocalypse Solution (covers issues #1-4 of UXF)
written by Rick Remender with art by Jerome Opena
I will start off by noting 3 important things:
1. I am a massive fan of the original Cable era X-force (and new mutants before hand)
2. I am a massive fan of Remender's Fear Agent
3. I am a massive fan of Jerome Opena's (sorry about the missing accent there Jerome) art.
So it'll be pretty obvious that I am a fan of what they are both doing on this book, ne? In brief, the premise of the book is the 'xmen' black ops (tell me about the numbers mason) group. Cyclops, leader of the xmen at the time, had created a black ops team to..well kill people who need killing..but hid it from the rest of the X-men. Eventually the team was discovered and Scott decided that it wasn't such a great idea. Wolverine didn't agree and went about collecting his own team - thus Uncanny X-Force was born.
From a narrative point of view, Rememder has not only started his run with the big guns (you don't get much bigger than Apocalypse, especially now that Magneto is one of the good guys, and not Xorn) but he has also managed to create a story that builds upon decades of x-men lore. Naturally at the forefront of this is Angel/Archangel with his connection to Apocalypse (back in the 80s, Archangel was Apocalypse's Death - which involved a lot of genetic tampering and brainwashing...Warren didn't take it well) but we also see the return of fan favourite (okay, just me then) Fantomex from Morrison's run on Xmen. Rounding out the group with have, obviously, Wolverine (on his days off from the Avengers, Wolverine and the Xmen, his only Wolverine title, shit he's probably in the Power Pack as well...) Deadpool and sex on legs Psylocke. It's nice to see Psylocke as a main character again, as well as rekindling the relationship with Warren which was such a major factor in the 90s storyline..no crimson dawn tattoo though. For those who remember the 90s, she was the one who calmed Sabertooth while he was a guest of the Xmen, it looks like she's pulling the same duty now with Warren who can change from Angel (wimp) to Archangel (awesome) at will...though the Archangel persona want's to kill everyone.
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| Opena's Art work is exquisite. |
As for the story itself, well, it was great fun and has major implications...but the star of the show was always going to be Fantomex and he killed it (literally). His power of misdirection is at the heart of the story, be it when he uses it to trick the..sigh FINAL HORSEMEN (only to be awakened when everyone else has failed...final level boss GO!) into thinking they had won or right at the end, which I won't spoil as it really is that good.
I would write about the artwork, but I think it speaks for itself. Dean White (the Colour artist) does a fantastic job of making the characters 'pop' from the backgrounds, while not taking anything away from the scenery itself. I often find that colourists don't get enough praise for their work, but Mr White has done a fantastic job here.
So all in all a solid effort and a great start to a solid run which will be finishing sometime next week.
Score: 5 snikts out of 5
Next time - Green is a great colour, but that hat......
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