Daredevil Reborn

The first person who made me sit up and take notice of Daredevil, was Brian Michael Bendis,before that I wrote Matt Murdock as the blind man who can see, but, having read Bendis' long lasting arc of the man without fear, I was soon turned into a Daredevil Fan.

So then, Daredevil Reborn, the story which leads on from the Shadowland arc, and shows us all what Mr Matt Murdock has been up to since last we saw him, when he kicked himself in between the legs so that he could evict the unwanted tennant of the Hand.

Now then, Matt Murdock; Former Lawyer, Former Superhero and current vagrant.

If you didn't read Shadowland, the crossover comic from Marvel in 2010, I would recommend reading it now, namely for the facts of, I found it to be an interesting read and it shows that any character is fallable, and also it was quite well written and serves as the basis for Daredevil Reborn.

The story takes place some time after Shadowland, and serves as the way to get Matt Murdock from loner and vagrant, moving on from town to town without spending much time anywhere, back into the role of Daredevil, the man without fear and superhero of Hell's Kitchen.

This trade paperback reminded me alot of Green Lantern Rebirth, the Geoff Johns 6-issue mini series that DC produced to get Hal Jordan back to being a Green Lantern and away from Parallax and the Spectre, the trade paperback was alright, a lot of people didn't like it because of the fact that there wasn't a lot of action and it was mainly an introspective on Hal Jordan, and I feel that this is going to go the same way.

But, although I do like both of those story lines, and how they manage to get their respective characters back on track, I felt that Daredevil Reborn was a little bit rushed.

The overall storyline was very good, though I feel that flushing out the character of Calavera, and also making Matt Murdock's soul searching more of a character focus compared to him doing detective work.

How could they have improved the story line?

An idea that I had when I was reading this trade paperback was that you could have the entire story with Matt doing his soul searching in a leafy suburb of somewhere like...I don't know, San Diego, while he feels he is going insane because of what happened during Shadowland, with a mutant character hired by....Owl? Fisk? Putting subtle mental suggestions into Murdock's head to make him slowly go off kilter, like what happened when Mysterio tried it on with him.

This would make his mental stability and him coming back to Hells Kitchen and his mantel of Daredevil more of a definitive and long lasting ending, rather than him suddenly turning around to the blind child that "He had been running from his demons, he understood that now".

I can understand what is meant by this and why the comic went in this direction, but there was a possibility here to make a comic book trade that was more of a psychological commentary on superheros who are just normal people and even super powered individuals, this comic book could have had more of a deep and meaningful look into the psyche of Matt Murdock and how becoming Daredevil has changed his personality and his view on the world for the better or for the worse.

But that is what we have to wonder, should we be dumbing down the comic books that we read? Or should we be asking for something that has less tits and violence and has more; political intrigue, psychological depth or covers things that people don't want to necessarily think about E.G. sex slavery, prostitution etc, which I feel I am just naming arc's from Garth Ennis' Punisher MAX series and EX Machina.

I feel like I am rambling on about this but I think that we as a group of people who read this medium should have more choice in terms of the subject matters that we read, because if I want to read something that covers politics, I have to read EX Machina, if I want to look into the seedy underbelly of society, I either go out around Manchester or I read Punisher MAX, and I want for us to have more choice other than to read the same old same old.

Ultimately, I recommend Daredevil Reborn and I really enjoyed it, I just wanted to make a point that I feel is going in the comic book business at the moment, also I pretty much glossed over the artwork and I feel that I should comment on that, the cover's by Jock were fantastic as was the artwork, and they functioned really well in Daredevil and I feel that this artwork would be great for any non-powered superhero

The Pros and the Cons

Pros
-Great Artwork
-Good Storyline
-Interesting plot twists.


Cons
- I feel that Diggle missed out on something but that's me and that is in hindsight.

If you liked this you might also like.
-Green Lantern: Rebirth.
-Hellblazer: Tainted Love
-The Losers

Transformers: More than meets the eye Trade 1

I never watched Transformers when I was growing up, in fact the first bit of transformers I was introduced to was when someone I knew borrowed me a VHS (Fuck I feel old) of the original animated film in which Hasbro had decided to kill off most of their toy line to make way for new toys and miniatures.

Since I started reading comics I never had a thought cross my mind that went along the lines of "I think I will read a Transformers trade paperback today" namely because I never really got the appeal that the series made to people, because I was always under the impression that the only reason why the TV series was made alongside the toys was because Hasbro wanted children's money and devised the TV series and toys so that children could play with them  and act out the scenes on the screen.

What I didn't realise was that at 21 years of age I would be so enamoured over a trade paperback, one concerning the trials and tribulations of the people of Cybertron, after the war which had devastated their world, without Optimus Prime and Megatron.

When I started reading this trade paperback, I was forced to by a friend of mine when I was staying on his sofa, whilst this is not the best way to start reading a comic book, I still found the comic book to be highly engaging, darkly witty and packed with information, plot and characterisation.

 From what I have concluded, having read the trade paperback cover to cover at least 5 times, is that I like the new creative direction that James Roberts, Nick Roche and Alex Milne have taken the Transformers universe in, namely because they gave the characters in this story more personality than they have ever had, even Ultra Magnus' lack of a personality actually works like a personality.

The death of Optimus Prime, which is at the start of this trade paperback, is also very intruiging, and shows us what the other people on Cybertron think of the Autobots and the Decepticons, namely in the way that means you get a lot of political intruige and backstabbing from other characters.

The artwork in this comic series is fantastic, in fact the artist gets so much personality out of
the characters, I actually think that there is more character and personality in the faces of robots than in some human characters.

I fully recommend this comic and feel that everyone should read this because of the fact that this comic series shows that any comic series can be revived by thinking about what makes the majority of people shy away from the product that you are trying to sell to them, in this case, a convaluted mess of back history that was cut away by ditching the 2 people that made it hard to get into.

Pros and Cons for this 

Pros
-Fantastic Storytelling
-Amazing artwork
-Interesting characters with inruiging personalities and flaws
-A good way for new fans to get into Transformers.
-The comic has lots of little details in the background that you may find after reading through it again.

Cons
 -Some characters look very similar making it difficult to differentiate.
- A couple of plot points are slightly fragile, but apart from that Grade A.

If you liked this then you might also like.
-Last stand of the Wreckers (Another James Roberts trade, he was co-writer on it.)
-Ex Machina (A good trade, has a lot of political intruige and has a number of characters with believability.)
-Captain Britian and MI13 (We only got 3 trades before it got cancelled *fist shake* but stellar, great cast, personality and belivable story arcs.)

Hellblazer: Original Sins

John Constantine: the laughing magician, the last of the Newcastle Crew, lead singer of Mucous Membrane, con man and an all around Bastard.

Hellblazer has been one of the best and one of the longest running comic book series that DC has produced, only being beaten by the big 3 (Batman, The big blue boyscout and Wonder Woman), it has had some of the best writing, and is by a large gap definitely one of my favourite comic book series'.

Original Sins is written by Jamie Delano, and chronicles issues 1 to 9 of his (mis)adventures through Thatcherite Englad.

Constantine (Con-stan-TINE, not teen) is a character who speaks very close to my heart, he's British (Always a good start for me) a realist, loner, chain smoker, drinker and a keen user of the silver tongue, all of which make me want to pick up the trades that I have and watch the shit hit the fan.

Original Sins as a trade paperback sums constantine up very well in my opinion, it gets to the heart of the character, it shows you what makes him tick and gives us his first (and also one of his longest lasting) antagonist, Nergel, who shows how adept he is at controlling people, even someone as crafty and as unpredictable as Constantine.

It also shows us what lengths Constantine is willing to go to to save his own skin, and also save others, which can be seen in issues 1+2, with the demise of Gary Lester.

 The artwork and colouring in this trade feel a little dated at the start (though what do you expect it was done in 1988) but it still holds up well, there aren't points when I'm reading it and I start to question the artists mental stability when it comes to anatomy (See this image of Captain America by Rob Liefeld)

The internal monologue that John gives the reader is both witty and darkly cynical, which to be honest, if you don't use those 2 words to describe him then you're not doing it right, but it also gives us a glimpse into his own slightly cracked psyche.

Final review section

Pros
-Interesting and believable characters
-Well rounded story arc's
-Fantastic supporting cast with presonal flaws and foibles
-Great writinga and long lasting artwork that still holds up by todays standards.

Cons
-.....it ends?
-.....it costs money, that's definitely one
-.....you can't have very good sex with it?

If you liked this, you might also like

-Sandman Mystery Theatre
-The Sandman by Neil Gaiman
-Starman, mainly because Jack Knight has the same "I'm not a hero" thing that Constantine does.

Avengers Dissassembled

Everything that has happened in the Marvel Comic's universe for the past few years; the Civil War, House of M, The Superhero registration act, all of these occurances can be traced back to Avengers Dissassembled.

The Plot

I am a huge Brian Michael Bendis fan, not just because he got me into Daredevil, or because he tried to help bring Moon Knight back into the public view, but because of the fact that his stories have an ability to affect me and because of the way that he can humanise even the most intimidating and powerful human/alien being.

If you were to try and summarise this Avengers story in 1 sentence, I think that the best way to describe it is "Scarlet Witch goes crazy, here's how everyone reacts."

And a great deal of respect to Bendis with this because he actually makes characters act believeably in this kind of a situation, where the only point where people actually realise how fragile Wanda Maximoff's mental state is, is when Dr. Stephen Strange (The Sorcerer Supreme of Earth) turns to them and says that 'this is her fault and this is why', especially when he goes through some of Wanda's backstory, some things that even her best friends didn't know, and shows them the harsh truth.

Of course there are big fights in this trade, but I always think that a comic should have a deeper meaning than "Oh look Parallax is on the horizon lets go kick him." and this is one of those comics where if you were to remove all of the fight scenes in the trade, then it would still work as a story, a story where a group of friends are freaking out about what is happening around them, only to be told by the one person they were hoping could stop it all, that one of their closest friends and confidant's had done all this without even realising.

The Art

David Finch is one of my favourite artists, alongside Steve Dillon, Alex Maleev and Leandro Fernández, and the artwork in Avengers Dissassembled is possibly one of the best pieces of art I have ever seen, I found myself becoming more enthralled with the story, not just because of the plot, but also because of Leandro's art work.

Opinion

After having read through the first 2 parts of this review you could make the assumption that I couldn't find anything wrong with this story line...which isn't actually true.

Whilst I am a big fan of Bendis' writing and Fernández's art work, I think that the way that Bendis constructed the story could have done with a greater dealer of suspense compared to the explosions, gunfire and general death that are present almost from the offset.

Fernández's art work was fantastic as always and the fight scenes were masterfully done in regards to how gritty and brutal he made the fighting feel, though his way of making superhero's and superheroines and even villain's seem like they could quite their job and walk into FHM, Maxim or GQ magazine irks me a little.

Final Statement Review

Pros
-Great Art
-Intruiging story line
-Nice plot twists.

Cons
-Every person is a model
-Not very much in the way of suspense or drama

If you enjoy this you may also enjoy -

-Avengers the Initiative.
-House of M
-Daredevil by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev