Red Sonja: Worlds Away Volume 1 Review

Comic book fans you've seen me review alot of stuff from both Marvel and DC but I thought that I would review something a little bit different oh it's still a comic book just not from either of those two companies. The character of Red Sonja was technically a Marvel creation but she was based on both Red Sonya of Rogatino and Dark Agnes de Chastillon so if you see author Robert E. Howard get credited there technically not wrong but anyways here is my review of Red Sonja: World's Apart Volume 1.

The story is Sonja is in the middle of a fight with villain Kulan Gath who as far as I can tell is someone who can use magic but anyways both he Sonja and a little boy suddenly find themselves in modern day New York and Sonja has to find a way to not only defeat Gath but find her way home. As you might have worked out by the name of this post this story is so huge that when the omnibus came out it got split into three volumes and so the story isn't fully resolved yet. I can say tho that taking these characters and putting them in a more modern setting to me is never a good idea all you have to do is look at the live action Smurfs movie to see how bad of an idea that is but it oddly works in this volume.

Volume 1 collects the first seven issues in this recent storyline and honestly I think that kicking this story of with an issue 0 to me makes sense. It makes sense because you can hook in new readers who might not want to go back and read several other series just understand this one page so by effectively rebooting this world you can get new readers in there and for me issue 0 does a good job of that because it gives you pretty much all of things that you'd expect from a Red Sonja book and it does kind of add a mystery for new readers because it doesn't explain her backstory.

You comic book fans won't no this but i'm kind of a Red Sonja fan I won't like go and buy every issue when it comes out. I will however check out several issues if i'm bored and I do know that one of the best Red Sonja writers is one Gail Simone. So for me reading these issues is odd because of the fact that i'm hearing a new writers take on the character and thus there voice is the one that comes across when I read it.

The new writer in question is one Amy Chu who really hasn't written anything of note but i'm sure she will in the future. At least she will if the writing in this volume is anything to go by because it's honestly really good Sonja is still the strong willed character that we remember but now there's kind of an added innocence to her which while it can be annoying at times and seem out of place for this kind of story it does work.

The artwork for this volume was done by Carlos Gomez who's work can also be seen in the recently released Star Wars: Age of Republic Special. Now here I would usually say that the artwork is bad but it's honestly not if anything it's alot better then the artwork seen in alot of comic books today and to me that's a really refreshing thing to say because I do hate saying that someone's artwork is bad so to see a book where the art is actually good is for me a great thing to say.

One of the things that I actually really hate about this book is that we have a lot of fish out of water scenes with Sonja. Which do make sense in terms of the story but they also don't need to do that many scenes one or two of those scenes would have worked but here they do it quite alot of times and ti got to the point where I would just skip those panels because I knew what the punchline would be because i'd seen it a few pages earlier.

It's scenes like those why taking characters that are from medevil times and placing in modern day is always a bad idea. Those kind of stories never work at least in my opinion because all they do is come across like your trying to be cool by referencing things that a modern day reader would understand instead of doing what's best for the actual character. Like I said before tho this idea does work for this character but they still use the fish out of water stuff way to much and it would have been better served if they didn't do it.

This volume does do something interesting and that's tell us that Sonja is never speaking English or at least what we'd say is English. To me that's a really interesting idea even tho it's something so small and gives Max one of the new characters this world a way into the world of Red Sonja because for a huge portion of this volume he's the only one that can understand her and it also gives the new character Holly who works at a museum a way into the world for the exact same reason.

We also get another new character called Spike and that pretty much rounds out all of the new characters for this volume there is a character called Jay but plot wise she adds nothing. It's also thanks to Spike that we get a less revealing outfit for Sonja which you can see in the above picture the only thing is she literally only wears this outfit for that one panel so it kind of makes that reveal pointless since she goes back to her regular outfit in the very next page and that's a shame because this new outfit actually looks good on her.

I have to admit that the action in this book is honestly really good it's alot better then what I thought it would have been. Yes the action does boil down to who can hit who the hardest but with the magic aspect that really does make things seem more fresh because if it was just Sonja hitting someone that could get boring pretty fast but because they mix it up by adding in the magic element it stops the action from feeling boring at least in my opinion.

Overall this wasn't a bad volume the story does show alot of promise and considering that I just watched and reviewed the freaking dreadful Barb Wire movie I really needed to watch or read something good. That said tho there are alot of issues that keep this volume from being perfect so it gets a 7 out of 10 from me.

Justice League: Secret Origins Review

DC fans I thought that since my review of Superman: The Last Son Krypton went down a treat that I would review something else that's animated and features the man of the steel. So after racking my brain for all of five minuets I remembered that there was a three part series opener for the Justice League animated series and since I plan of taking another look at THAT live action movie soon anyways now is a good time for me to review Justice League: Secret Origins.

The plot of this epic three part episode is there's an alien invasion secretly happening on earth and it's something that both Batman and Superman cannot handle on there own. I'll admit that in terms of origin stories which is this basically is this is as epic as it gets and lot of that comes down to the fact that we've had a lot of time to get know both Batman and Superman so if they face a threat that they can't handle then we know it's something bad.

Starring in these episodes is George Newbern as Superman , Kevin Conroy as Batman , Susan Eisenberg as Wonder Woman , Carl Lumbly as J'onn J'onzz , Michael Rosenbaum as The Flash , Phil LaMarr as Green Lantern , Maria Canals as Hawkgirl , Susan Sullivan as Hippolyta and Kevin Michael Richardson as Imperium Leader. Yeah this cast pretty much reads like a who's who of DC alumni and that to me makes alot of sense since it makes the team up feel more special.

It helps that the acting from all of the actors is also really freaking solid which given that one of them is the legendary Kevin Conroy is not really a surprise since he's always great as Batman. I'm shocked that they didn't get Tim Daley back to play Superman since he's the voice that alot of people would have grown up listening to on the animated series but George is solid as the character. In all honesty there's not that much I can say about the acting that hasn't already been said because it's that good.

Now like with my review of The Last Son Of Krypton i'm not going to say who did the animation in this episode because i'm honestly thinking about reviewing the whole Justice League animated series so it's obviously going to be the same company. That said tho I did find the animation in this opening set of episodes to be pretty good it's not as good as the animation seen in Batman: The Animated Series but that series was so good that nothing could even come close to it.

What I found to be really awful is the CGI opening i've always hated this opening and alot of that is because of the fact that the CGI seen in it is just freaking awful. I've seen better CGI in cheap direct to DVD films and I know that they were limited by what was available at the time but if something's bad we should still call it out for being bad.

I said this before in the review but this is how you do a Justice League origin story you give them a threat that only all of them can take on. What you don't do is exactly what they did in the live action movie were either Batman , Superman or Wonder Woman could have defeated the bad guy here the villain is something that requires all of these heroes to work together and that's exactly what you need in a Justice League origin.

Now this is the second or third time that i've watched all three of these episodes and everytime I watch them I always get caught up in how good they are. For me this isn't just a great JL origin story but it's a rather solid origin story in it's own right and i'm not honestly sure why that's the case since there have been a lot of solid origin stories throughout the years so why this one stands out is honestly something that I can't really answer.

For me what really stands out about these episodes is how well the action is and that's not something I get to say during a premier set of episodes. Here tho the action is at it's best during the third episode when you get to see the league fully working together because it shows you how powerful they really are and it gives you a reason to want to see them succeed and that for me is a truly great thing and one that i wish other JL movies and shows did.

Overall this wasn't a bad start to the series it does everything an origin story should do and then some but it does it's fair share of problems like the fact that even tho this is meant to be one story it still feels like three episodes and so with that in mind these episodes get a combined rating of 7 out of 10 from me.

Doom Patrol "Pilot" Review

DC fans the company is back with a new series for there popular streaming service and well you all know what that means yours truly is here to bring you my thoughts on the pilot episode. I will say that this pilot isn't what I expected and in this case that's a good thing so here are my thoughts on the pilot episode of Doom Patrol.

The basic premise of this episode is actually hard to describe because there really isn't a story because all we see is how the team got there powers and came together. That perhaps is the episodes weakest point because while it is good that we get what is basically on origin story there's nothing that ties the scenes together and so we have no reason to even begin to care for the characters but I have to admit that it is good that the show is about a bunch of characters who could very easily be bad guys.

Starring in this episode is Diane Guerrero (not related to Eddie) as Kay Challis / Crazy Jane , April Bowlby as Rita Farr / Elasti-Woman , Alan Tudyk as Eric Morden / Mr. Nobody , Matt Bomer and Matthew Zuk as Larry Trainor / Negative Man , Brendan Fraser and Riley Shanahan as Clifford "Cliff" Steele / Robotman and James Bond himself Timothy Dalton as Niles Caulder / The Chief. Now you may have noticed that there are two credited actors for both Robotman and Negative Man well that's because two different actors play them in both the flashbacks and voice work there's played by Matt Bomer and Brendan Fraser but in physical form there played by Matt Zuk and Riley Shanahan.

As for what I thought about the acting in the pilot episode it's pretty much the type of acting you'd expect from a pilot. All of the actors are still trying to figure there characters out and other such things so you can't really fault the actors if the acting in a pilot episode isn't as good as it would be in later episodes but with that said when the acting is good it's really good with the likes of Tim Dalton and Diane Guerrero being the best performers in this episodes.

What I thought was a good move on the part of the show was that they made Robotman the main character in this episode. To me that works because he can then also act as the audience and ask all of the plot relevant questions now I don't know if there going to keep with this in the later episodes but I hope they do not only because his character seems really interesting but because for a show like this there should be a character that acts as the audience.

I've not heard of the team of characters that this show is based on so i have no idea if the characters in the show are the acting as they would in the comic books but after viewing this episode i'm not really inclined to go and check out the comics. Mostly because I don't want to be let down by the books because this episode really isn't that bad.

This show is a spin off of Titans not like you'd know it because visually they look nothing alike it's almost as if this show was made after they saw how good Titans was shaping up. Which if your creating a spin off show is not a goof thing at all since it's meant to be the same world as an already popular show so you'd think that they would make the effort to make the shows look the same but nope they don't at all.

Overall if this episode is anything to go by then this series does indeed show alot of promise but only time will tell if this series will be worth watching or not and yes I will try my best to watch every episode but i'm not making any promises and yes there will not be a rating for this pilot episode.

Wonder Woman: The Lies Review

Wonder Woman fans instead of reviewing another movie I thought i'd do something a tad bit different and review a comic book. This arc was the first arc that actually got me into reading Wonder Woman comics and well I thought that since there's no new Wonder Woman media products out now would be the right time to take a look at it so here is my review of Wonder Woman: The Lies.

The plot of this story arc is a jungle god is kidnapping women which means it's up to Steve Trevor to stop him and Wonder Woman is going around wondering why she can't find her way home. In all honesty the plot of the arc is pretty straight forward since it's the first arc in a still ongoing series not all story threads are tied up which is also the problem since you could loose alot of readers before those threads are tied up so it would have been great and served the story well if they got talked about in this arc.

The issues that make up this story is Wonder Woman Rebirth and issues 1 ,3 ,5 ,7 ,9 and 11 altho it is debatable if issue 11 is apart of the story. I say that because on Amazon the description has every issue i've listed except issue 11 plus that issue barely has anything to do with the overall story and more acts as a prequel to the next story arc but I myself do consider it part of this story since it does kind of resolve Diana's plot and if you've seen that issue you'll know why I said it kind of does.

When this arc was first being released DC did something that they havn't done both before and I think since and that's start to story arc's at the exact same time. So in the above listed issues we have the lies and in the others there Wonder Woman: Year One which i've not read in a long time so I can't say if it's any good and I wouldn't read that storyline when it was first released since I was more interested in this one.

This story arc was written by Greg Rucka who has written so many comic books that if I was to name them all i'd be here all day just listing them all. In terms of what I thought about his writing in this story tho it's honestly pretty good i'll admit i'm not expert when it comes to judging others writing but here I got the feeling that the writer is really trying to make this storyline as good as it possibly could be.

The artwork is done by Liam Sharp who is currently doing the artwork for The Green Lantern and I have to say that I hope his art improves in that book. Since in this one it's not that good don't get me wrong it's still impressive but I feel like it could have been so much better. He could have put more energy into the drawings to make them feel more alive and less flat and uninteresting but if you like the art then more power to yeh.

This story lione also reintroduces us to Cheetah who here is Barbara Ann Minerva and is also a friend to Wonder Woman. I have to admit that making these two once enemies now friends is a really interesting angle and one that really could have been explored in this story line but they don't do anything with it it just gets brought up once or twice and that's it and that really is a shame because it would have made for a really interesting story.

I would talk about the action in the book but there honestly isn't that much and even when there is some it's not for long like it only lasts a few panels and that's it. For a Wonder Woman book that does actually make sense because the character is about spreading love at least in my opinion but also I do think that there should have been a few more action scenes just because it's not only what alot of readers are used to but it also would have been a great way to hook in new readers.

Overall this will confuse some new readers since they don't go into detail about Wonder Woman's backstory but it could interest them to go and find out more about the character. That said this is a very enjoyable read I had a good time reading it so this story arc gets a 7 out of 10.

Superman: The Animated Series Review

Ladies and gentlemen they said that it couldn't be done they said i'd be foolish to even try such a feat but as of right now i've watched and reviewed Superman: The Last Son Of Krypton AND Superman: The Animated Series. I admit I doubted if I could even keep my word and even make this review but here we are so let's not waste any time here is my review of the awesomely underrated Superman: The Animated Series.

The premise of this show is Clark Ken aka Kal-El is an alien from the long dead planet of Krypton who after being sent to earth to avoid his own planet's destruction becomes the hero known as Superman. Yes I know that the summery I just gave could also be used to describe alot of Superman media but due to the fact that the show has no story to speak of this is the only one that makes sense. Speaking of making sense it makes sense to me that this show be episodic since this was made in the mid nineties and superhero weren't that big back then so it makes sense that something superhero related not have an overall story arc.

Starring in the series is Tim Daly as Clark Joseph Kent / Superman / Kal-El and Bizarro , Dana Delany as Lois Lane , David Kaufman as James "Jimmy" Olsen , Clancy Brown as Lex Luthor , Lauren Tom as Angela Chen , Mike Farrell as Jonathon Kent and Shelley Fabares as Martha Kent. Now I wouldn't mention this in my Last Son Of Krypton review so I can mention it right now the acting from the people playing Superman and Lois is honestly some of the best acting seen on the show I really believe that they are friends who secretly love each other.

Before you all start wondering how I managed to watch this series plus the premier movie and still review both. Well the answer is simple I havn't watched every episode of the show I instead went on Wikipedia and selected a handful of episodes and thus i'm basing my review just of those episodes and those episodes alone. I also want to say that i wouldn't recommend doing what I did just because it takes alot out of you so i'd only attempt it if your crazy , insane or both.

Now I actually cannot find any company listed as doing the animation so i'm just going to assume that it was done by Warner Bros Animation. With that said the animation in the series I thought was really good but it's not as good as the animation that was seen in the Batman animated series but then again anything is going to look bad compared to that masterpiece of a show but for a Superman show the animation is as good as you'd expect it to be.

Technically this show ran for two seasons I say technically because a third season of the show did indeed air but it was when the show was combined with Batman and became The New Batman/Superman Adventures. So I personally say the show is two seasons long but i'd understand it if people count The New Batman/Superman Adventures as the shows third season heck i'm even including some episodes from that season in this review.

Superman: The Animated Series originally ran from September 6th 1996 until February 12th 2000 which was when it was apart of The New Batman/Superman Adventures and it aired on Kids WB. There actually aren't that many episodes to this show at all in total including the season from New Adventures there's only fifty four episodes which might sounds like alot but it's really not so you guys could very easily watch this entire series in a week and still have time to review anything else.

One of the many things that the Batman animated series is known for is for being really dark which is fine for batman because he's a dark character. So it won't shock any of you to learn that Superman: The Animated Series is the complete opposite to that show in that it's very light in tone and is filled to the brim with hope and that right there is perfect for Superman because he's a hopeful character so it would seem out of place if he was dark brooding for twenty two minuets.

I will say that out of the two shows I and I think many others prefer Batman not only because it's alot more closer in tone to the comic books but also because it's the best adaptation of that character and yes that includes the Chris Nolan films get over it people. That said tho I don't think that this is the best adaptation of Superman I think it's a great adaptation of the nineties version of the character but if you guys want to see a great version of the character as a whole that check out the 1978 Superman movie it's alot better then the DCEU Superman in every way possible.

Now I mentioned this very briefly at the end of my review of The Last Son Of Krypton but the score for the series was done by the late and great Shirley Walker who also famously did the score for Batman: the Animated Series as well as Todd McFarlane's Spawn animated series. Does it really need to be said how great her score is she's a legend so of course it's going to be great I only wish that they used the iconic Superman theme tho and that the actual intro and the intro theme for the show was a bit shorter but that's just me personally.

We have ti talk about the action seen in the series in my own opinion the action that was in the animated Batman show was far better however that's not to say that the action seen in this show isn't good it's just that I preferred the action in the Batman show. I preferred it because we know that Superman isn't going to die or go to jail so there's no suspense there when a fight scene starts where as in Batman is a fight scene does start there's always a slight chance that Batman could die.

Overall this is a fun show and it's one that i'm glad that I watched but at the same time I prefer the animated Batman show more because of the fact that that show was a great adaptation of that character. Like I said this is a fun show and if you have young Superman fans in your family then there's no harm in showing them this show in fact i'd honestly recommend it more for little kids since they'd get alot more out of it so with that in mind this show gets an 7 out of 10 from me.

  

Superman: The Last Son Of Krypton Review

DC fans if you know me you know that I like to take at least a weekend to do a full series review well I thought that for this weekend i'd try something a little bit different for you see not only am I going to be reviewing the animated series i'm also going to be reviewing the premier movie all in the same day. Since this is a huge task for any mortal being i'm not going to be watching every single episode or watching all the movies so here is my review of Superman: The Last Son Of Krypton.

The plot of the movie is it's basically the whole origin of Superman that's really it there's nothing that links these scenes together. To me that makes sense in this case since this movie was originally the first three episodes of the show edited together so while it does feel like the plot of the movie was an afterthought it makes perfect sense once we remember that small fact. I can say tho it would have been really cool if there was more of a flowing narrative.

Starring in this movie is Tim Daly as Kal-El/Clark Kent/Superman , Jesse Batten as Baby Kal-El , Jason Marsden as Teenage Clark Kent/Kal-El , Clancy Brown as Lex Luthor , Christopher McDonald as Jor-EL , Malcolm McDowell as John Corben/Metallo , Corey Burton as Brainiac , Tony Jay as Sul-Van , Finola Hughes as Lara , Mike Farrell as Jonathan Kent , Shelley Fabares as Martha Kent , Dana Delnay as Lois Lane , Kelly Schmidt as Lana Lang , David Kaufman as Jimmy Olsen , George Dzundza as Perry White and Lauren Tom as Angela Chen.

Now since i'm also going to be listing alot of these actors in my review of the series i'm not going to mention how good they are here just because i'd be repeating myself. So i'll say that they are good in this movie the rest of the cast tho I think do deliver but alot of them don't have enough screen time so they can't really make much of an impression so i'm hoping that alot of them return in the series just because I want to get more of an impression on there characters.

I'm also not going to be naming which company did the animation for this film since it's obviously going to be the same company that did the animation for the series so there wouldn't be much of a point in me saying who did it twice in the same day. I will say tho that the animation is far better then what I was expecting it to be Superman has never had a good history when it comes to animated shows outside of the 1940's shorts so I was expecting the animation here to suck big time but no it was actually really good.

Like I said this movie is just the shows first three episodes but it's actually not the only set of episodes from this show to get the episode to movie treatment. The other one is The Batman Superman Movie: World's Finest which I do also plan on reviewing but at a later date and I mention this because it makes me wonder why a full length animated Superman movie set in this continuity was never made it would have been so freaking cool to see these characters in animated form on the big screen.

There is a lie on the poster for this movie because the poster states quite clearly that it's feature length. That is not even close to being true the movie is not even an hour long they couldn't even animate original footage to make it at least an hour and fifteen minuets long. I have no idea why they chose to add this lie to the poster since all you'd have to do is how long the film runs for and you'd know it's not even close to being feature length.

Another issue I have with the film is the fact that say set up Brainiac is the main antagonist of the film but he's only in like the first twenty minuets and he doesn't even show up again until the very end. If your going to spend that long setting someone up as the main villain then you better make that person the villain or at least have a more interesting character as the villain which this film doesn't do so I have to ask why didn't they just make Brainiac the villain.

Both this film and the series are set in the DCAU which for those that don't know stands for DC Animated Universe and was pretty much the only universe that alot of us nineties kids grew up even caring about. While later episodes would outright feature characters from the animated Batman show here tho the dark knight only gets a small reference and as a show set in a universe it really does work and since Batman was the most popular superhero show at the time it makes sense that they would reference the character

Action wise the film does have some really well put together action scenes and it's in those scenes that I feel the animation is at it's best. Helping to keep the animation for being repetitive is the fact that we get to see the big blue boy scout use his superpowers alot. Altho what would have been cool was if we had scenes early on showing how he found out about those powers since this is after all an origin story so it would have made sense and it would have helped get the run time close to feature length.

Overall this wasn't a bad movie to kick of the series but it's also one that I found to be very lacking it stays true to the Superman mythos. Yes I do know that Shirley Walker did the music but since she also did the score for the show i'm going to hold of until I write my review of the show to comment on the music and so this film gets a 5.5 out of 10 from me.

Superman/Shazam!: The Return of Black Adam Review

DC fans i'm going to be straight forward with you all here by the end of i'm gonna say tomorrow your going to be sick of seeing posts from me. Since i've not only got this review but i've also got another one in the pipeline and I might have another one as well as for this I want to say film it's something that i've not seen and given what's coming out in a few weeks it's also rather fitting so here is my review of Superman/Shazam!: The Return of Black Adam.

The plot of this I still want to say film is Black Adam returns to earth looking for Captain Marvel and while that's going on Billy Batson has an interview with Clark Kent. In terms of plot there's really nothing outside of what I described and for something that's twenty two minuets that's to be expected but at the same time this movie tries to also be an origin story and those need more time in order to be told right.

Reprising their roles is George Newbern as Kal-El / Clark Kent / Superman and Jerry O'Connell as Captain Marvel and they are joined by Zach Callison as Billy Batson , James Garner as Shazam and Arnold Vosloo as Black Adam. I have to admit I was shocked when I found out that Steven Universe was in this thing and I was even more shocked to discover how good he was in it the same goes for the whole cast.

I'll admit that for a long time every time Bill;y spoke all I heard was Steven because i'm so used to hearing Zach as Steven that it's really hard for me to picture him voicing anyone else. It's great that they brought back someone who many consider to be THE voice of Superman and i'm willing to bet that those people will also be happy when Justice League Vs The Fetal Five comes out later on this year.

The animation for the film was done by Moi Animation Studio who of course did work on the Avatar franchise as well as many other projects. As for what I thought about the animation seen in the film it's really freaking top notch stuff to me the animation seen here is close to the quality of animation that can be found in most anime shows and films that's how good it is.

This is far the final film in the DC Showcase line which for those who don't know was a series of short films that would be released alongside there direct to DVD animated movies. This film also has the pleasure of being the longest of the line being twenty two minuets with all the others being around fifteen minuets in length. I have to wonder tho why don't DC bring this ling back since it's a great way to tell stories that won't be able to hold a feature film.

While watching this film I got alot of Mad Max Fury Road vibes from it and given that I freaking love that film you can bet that's a good thing. I was getting them because this movie is one long action scene and I thought that was a really interesting way to tell the origin of Shazam / Captain Marvel. At the same time I do wish this thing was longer because then we would have had more time to get to know Billy as it is tho we don't have that pleasure so we have no reason to want to see him succeed.

Speaking of the action it was honestly really good and to me alot of that comes down to how well animated the action was. Thanks to the great animation the action in my own opinion leaps on the screen yes it does boil down to who can hit who the hardest tho but they do mix it up every once in a while by having Superman use his powers and that to me helps make the action seem less boring and more excitable.

Overall this was a good little short film and it's something that I want to see DC doing more of since it would also give lesser known characters a chance to shine. However it is still a flawed short film tho so it score a 7 out of 10 from me.