Saga Volume 1 Review

Comic book fans you guys have seen me review alot of books featuring mainstream characters but for once I thought i'd dig a little deeper and find something that's not as well known. After many hours of trying to find the perfect comic book to write a review on I think i've found something truly special and it's also something that I myself havn't even read so here is my review of volume one of Saga.

The plot of the first volume is newly weds and new parents Alana and Marko are members of different races which were at war with each other. After the birth of there daughter Hazel the couple decide to escape the planet in search for a better life and do so by looking for something called the Rocketship Forest. In terms of what I thought of the actual story it's not badly told nor is it a bad story it's a pretty simple story and it's because of that that the story works in my opinion.

Now i've done a bit of digging and this is listed as an epic space opera / fantasy epic which to me makes it sound like Star Wars mixed in with Lord Of The Rings. With that being said that's pretty much exact what this first story is and if that's something you think you'd enjoy then this is the series for you. Even tho I like both Lord Of The Rings and Star Wars I don't really think that they should have been mixed together and in all honesty this first story is pretty dull.

I know i'm going to get alot of hate for what i've just said but in order to do a review you have to list both the positive and negative aspects of whatever it is your reviewing. That said there is alot to love about this story for example the lead characters are really likeable which is always a plus because you want your main heroes to be likeable but at they same time they also feel very relate-able.

The book is written by Brian K. Vaughan who's also worked on alot of X-Men books and alot of stuff for DC. I've not read anything that this guy has written and based on this first arc i'm really missing out because this first story is really well written and given how well received the whole series is i'm going to assume that it's the same for the rest of the series as well. What really did shock me was how good the world building is in this first story like I want to get to know more about this world and that's just from reading the first six issues.

The artwork was done by Fiona Staples who's shockingly not worked on that much outside of the ongoing Archie series from 2015. That really is a shame because damn is her artwork beautiful i'm, not even kidding her art work looks so freaking good it's easily the best artwork that i've seen in a long long time and I hope that she gets to work on more high profile books since her art needs to be seen by more people.

How do I put this but alot of not only the images but also the content in the book it self for a more mature audience and the more mature content doesn't actually feel forced if anything it feels very freaking natural and organic. I will say tho that having a lot of mature images doesn't help reviewers like me since now i've got to choose my images very carefully and this is also a warning to adults as well because there's a lot of swearing nudity and scenes of a sexual nature and that's just in the first issue heck there's even planet who's sole purpose is for people to get laid.

Now just to make things a bit more clear for you guys the first volume of this book is the first six issues of the series. One story lasts six issues and thus one volume is only six issues long and given that there's over fifty issues of this series there's going to be a lot of volumes to collect which i'm sure is worth it if your a die hard collector but since that's not me i'm going to tell you right now i'm not going to review the next volume of this series this will be the only review you'll see for now just because reading alot of volumes is alot of work for any sane person to even try.

These two images form part of the reason why i've had to throw up a warning earlier in the review just because I could very easily see alot of people taking issue with the fact that i've used images that not only feature nudity but also gore. Also possibly adding to that fact is the fact that in a rather bold move the front cover shows a young woman breast feeding that's something that's never seen on a comic book cover and I think it's brave of Image Comics to allow a book that has that as the cover to get released.

Now there is a little bit of action in these first six issues and I have to say that the action is honestly pretty decent and I hope that it gets better later on in the series run. Now alot of the comic books i've reviewed all feature characters i'm familiar with for example when you pick up a Deadpool comic even if you've just seen the movies you know what to expect from him here tho I was discovering these characters for the first time and that was honestly really refreshing since it was like I was reading the book when it first came out.

Overall I know that this review didn't do the book as a whole justice and it's only just scratched the surface of what was in the first volume but I honestly feel that i did a good job covering this epic volume because that's the best word I can use to describe it as epic and I hope that this doesn't get adapted into anything this first volume gets an 9 out of 10 from me.

  

  

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo DC Comics Review

Dragon Tattoo fans i'm huge fan of the this franchise while i've not read all of the books outside of the first one I have seen both the original Swedish films and both American ones. The one thing i've not done however is review the comic book adaptation of the first first book and well that's going to change right now and i'm going to warn some of the images chosen in this review might not be suitable for young readers so here is my review of the DC Comics version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

Now in case you didn't know the plot of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is in the mid sixties a young girl goes missing and her uncle believes one of his relatives killed her and so in present day hires a disgraced journalist and a hacker to find out who did it. Honestly for me to give me thoughts on the plot I would also have to dissect the mystery of the story so for once i'm going to give my thoughts on both later on in the review.

Now there is actually two comic books based on this story out there there's one published by DC Comics and another published by Titan Comics and as the name of this review will tell you i'm doing a review based on the DC Comics version of the story. This book is so freaking dark and I think for this story and this world that honestly works and it's one of the many , many , many things that the recent Sony movie got wrong.

Unlike regular comics this was released as a two volume graphic novel which I think was the right choice to make because if they were adapting it in regular comic book form they'd still be releasing issues. This book is very dialog heavy and when I say dialog heavy I really do mean it there's a ton of dialog on every single page and alot of it is important to the plot and that's something that I can see putting alot of people of because I myself skipped alot of it but I could afford to because i've seen both film versions alot.

There's one scene which I hope to god gets included in every adaptation of the story because of how crucial of a scene it is to the character of Lisbeth. If you've seen the above picture and you've seen either the original Swedish film or the American remake then you'll know the scene in question and i'm glad that it's in this comic book version of the story but there are a few things changed like you don't get to see Lisbeth lay down the terms of his release which while not important is still a cool thing to see.

The writer for the book is Denise Mina who would also work on the other two books by the original author Stig Larsson as well as A Sickness in the Family and I have to say that even tho she's adapting work from a great author Denise really does her best to manage this really complicated plot line. The artwork was done by Leonardo Manco and Andrea Mutti now I have no idea who drew what but the overall quality of the artwork in the book is of a high standerd.

Now seems like a good time to talk about the mystery and the story because like I said before there one in the same in this case. I thought that the mystery was honestly really well told even tho i've seen this story dozens of times before it still gets me interested and I like the fact that the author of this adaptation was able to find a balance between giving you clues as to what really's going on and letting the characters breathe and the fact that there's also kind of a mini mystery added as well makes things more interesting at least in my opinion.

Now depending on where your seeing this review you'll have seen my review of The Girl In The Spider's Web and will thus no that I hated how they treated Lisbeth in that story. For me tho nothing beats how she's treated in the original trilogy of books and films because she's treated not as someone who's a female action hero but as someone who has issues getting along with men due to her backstory and she'll go to any length she deems necessary to get revenge on them which is what shew does in this story.

In all honesty Lisbeth is my favourite literary heroine because of the fact that she doesn't take shi* from anyone. She's the kind of person who'll tell you to fu*k off if you annoy her and is somehow still the best at what she does she is everything Rey from Star Wars wishes she could be because while Rey pretends to empower women Lisbeth does it just by being herself and I can't believe that when people bring up strong female characters they don't even mention her.

To say that this is a mature comic book would be a freaking understatement heck even tho there's a lot of mature images used in this post there was alot more that I could have used but chose not to due to how mature they are. Heck even in what I think is a famous scene I only use the end of that scene because it's the only image that i really could use but here's the thing alot of those more mature scenes also add to the overall horror not only of the world that this book is set in but also due to the story.

Overall if you love the Swedish film or the American film or even the original book then you'll love this version of the story however if none of those grabbed you then don't expect this story to grab. Is it a perfect book no i've even listed some of the faults that I found in the book but it's damn freaking close so it gets an 8.5 out of 10 from me.

Pryde of The X-Men Review

Now then comic book fans you'll know that i've already reviewed the original X-Men animated series and well I found out that the series had a pilot episode. This episode is infamous for alot of creative choices especially what accent they give to the ever popular Wolverine but i'll get into that later on in the review because trust me I have alot of thoughts on this so here is my review of Pryde of the X-Men.

The plot of the pilot is Magneto is broken out of prison and somehow tries to take over the world. Yeah the plot of this episode isn't it's strongest suit in fact there's alot about this episode which isn't good. Not helping the plot is the fact that it's so freaking rushed I get that this is a pilot episode and thus they wouldn't know if they were getting more episodes but it would have helped if they picked a story which would fit in perfectly with a twenty two minuet time frame the story they go with here is better suited to being a two or three part episode.

Starring in the pilot is a young Kath Soucie as Kitty Pryde , Alexandra Stoddart as Dazzler , Michael Bell as Cyclops , Andi Chapman as Storm , Ronald Gans as Juggernaut , Alan Oppenheimer as Blob , Neil Ross as Nightcrawler , Earl Boen as Magneto , Pat Fraley as Pyro , Dan Gilvezan as Colossus , Patrick Pinney as Wolverine , Susan Silo as Emma Frost , Fred Flintstones boss Mr. Slate as Professor X and Frank Welker as Toad and Lockheed.

How do I describe the acting in this pilot they got alot of good actors infact alot of them are voice acting legends but tho there not given much to do. The same thing can also be said for the rest of the actors there acting isn't that bad but it could have been better and alot of that comes down to the script I honestly feel that if the script was better then the acting would have been better.

Now let's talk about something that this pilot is infamous for even tho it wasn't first done in this pilot and that's the fact that they give Wolverine who is Canadian an Australian accent. Now this was done because among many things the success of Crocodile Dundee but it doesn't make sense since the character like I said is Canadian so why they chose to make this change is beyond me heck even when the show was in product the Australian fad was dying out anyway.

Now like the animated series this series uses a new mutant to introduce the rest of the crew in this case it's Kitty Pryde. This honestly isn't a bad idea since it's a good way to introduce all the characters in a short amount of time but tho the difference is in the animated series Jubliee wasn't an annoying character Kitty or at least this version of her spends a good amount of the episode whining about anything and everything I honestly just wanted her to shut up for a few minuets.

Now this is something that will please fans of Dragonball and Sailor Moon but the animation for this pilot was done by the great Toei Animation. For a pilot the animation is honestly really good in fact i'd say it's the best part of the whole pilot and alot of that comes from the fact that the budget for the animation was pretty freaking high so they put in alot of effort into making the animation look good it's just a shame that they didn't do that for the rest of the pilot.

This pilot also has narration from the late and great Stan Lee and as much as I love me some Stan Lee he just wasn't needed in this pilot. I don't even know why they chose to have him act as the episodes narrator since it's only twenty two minuets long and there's not that much story so it would be pointless to have him in the episode at least in my opinion.

One thing that was very apparent all throughout the pilot is the fact that it seems alot more dumbed down when compared to the more mature X-Men The Animated Series. On the one hand I can see why I chose to make this more for kids since that's where cartoons where when this thing came out in 1989 but on the other hand by making it more geared towards kids they also ignore some of the more mature undertones that the franchise is known for.

Another change that was made in the pilot is the opening and the opening theme song in my opinion the theme song in the actual series is far better but tho the theme used in this episode isn't that bad. Don't get me wrong it's still pretty bad because it doesn't get you excited for the show at all if anything it feels like a generic 80's kids action show theme and not something worthy of the X-Men so i'm glad that they changed it when the series was eventually made.

Also feeling pretty dumbed down is the action I know that that's a weird thing to say but I say it because of the fact that alot of the time during an action scene when someone goes to throw a punch they'll cut away for no reason. By doing that it makes it hard for me to fully judge the action since you can barely see it and for some reason the show thinks that Cyclops's powers can work through a helmet which if you've read even a single issue of the X-Men comic books or even seen one episode of the animated series you'll know that that's not the case.

Overall in terms of how pilots go this is very rough around the edges you can see where the series would have gone if it was picked up which as well know wouldn't happen with this pilot. That said however it's only something i'd recommend watching if you want tot see what the X-Men animated series could have looked like and so this pilot gets a 5 out of 10 from me.

  

The Haunted World Of El Superbeasto Comic Book Review

Now then comic book fans this wasn't something I planned on doing but after I watched and reviewed the film version of what i'm about to review I did some digging around and I found the original comic book version. So I thought that i'd take this chance to to take a look at the original source material and since this can't be helped i'll also be making alot of comparisons to the movie so here is my review of the comic boo version of The Haunted World Of El Superbeasto.

Now I know what your wondering is the plot to the book the same as the movie well yes and no because while the book does contain a story that is the plot of the movie. It also contains another story and I will say that if you've seen the movie you'll notice alot of differences in the first story i'm not going to give them away but I think that the movie told the story better as for the second one it's about Aliens invading earth and our hero has to try and stop them and it's as wonderfully over the top as you'd expect by now.

Now if your like me and you saw the above picture you'd be thinking that the characters look like there animated counterparts well to quote Dolores Umbridge this is a lie because outside of Superbeasto and Suzi none of the characters look like there animated counterparts. Heck you could even make the very real argument that the comic book version of Suzi doesn't look like the character in the film but in my eyes she looks close enough so it counts.

I'm not going to lie tho some of the designs do indeed work like the comic book version of Dr. Satan actually looks terrifying. Then there are some designs that just don't work at all like the design for Velvet in my opinion she looked alot better in the animated movie because she's meant to be this knockout babe and in the comic book she just looks plain and unattractive to me and that doesn't work with the story at all.

We had two people doing the art for this book for the first story it was Kieron Dwyer and taking over from him was someone called Ej Su. Don't worry if you havn't heard of either of them because I havn't either and i'll admit when I heard that they were switching artist mid run I honestly thought that the art style would change but no they keep it the same all throughout the book which for me is a good thing because the artwork is honestly pretty decent it's not going to win any awards anytime soon but the art is still fun to look at.

As you might have guessed given that his name appears on top of the first two pictures in this review this series was created by and written by director Rob Zombie I don't really think I need to say what he's directed since he's a well known horror director. With that in mind if you picture the almost terrible writing of his Halloween remake and then mix it in with the self awareness of the scream movies then you'll get what the writing of this book is like because while it is written badly you get the feeling that that's part of it's charm.

What struck me about this book is how El Superbeasto was written in the movie he's alot more aloof and goofy where as in the book he is still a bit goofy like he still does get a few jokes but he's also alot more serious. Which at times does indeed work but then there are times where him being very serious goes against what's happening in the book it's almost as if they still wanted to get some jokes out of him but instead of making him a goofy hero they just chose to make him act goofy sometimes and that doesn't work in my opinion.

Now while I was reading the book I couldn't help but make comparisons to the movie and yeah in the first story there's alot of changes in this version of the story some of which work and some don't. One of the things that I think doesn't work is for some literally unknown reason they have Velvet turn evil near the end it comes out of know where and is utterly pointless and another is how Suzi gets introduced in the movie she's introduced with her taking down a bunch of Nazi zombies and here it's just with her taking a phone call in the bath.

I have to say that I prefer the movies introduction to the character just due to how insane and over the top it is where as her it's not a good introduction to this bada*s character. If i'm being honest her character in the comic book is perhaps the most different to that of the movie in the movie she's alot more unstable shall we say where as here I think she's a bit more level headed and that makes it hard for me to say which version of the character I like the most because on the one hand the movie version is alot more fun to watch but the comic book version is alot more interesting.

Now if your expecting there to be as many cameos in the comic book then get ready to be disappointed don't get me wrong there are some cameos but there some cameos but there more from public domain characters so don't go around expecting Jason to show up or to see Micheal get hit by a car. With that being said I might have found an Elvira cameo but i'm not going to include the picture just because there's a lot of nudity in the scene.

There are a few jokes to be found in this comic book but oddly enough there not always from what the characters say alot of the time they come from the word boxes. Which to me does work because alot of what's said in those boxes are really funny like for example in one scene El describes a popular song and then the very next word box says that he's now got the song in question stuck in his head that to me is a really funny joke but for every joke that's funny in the book there's alot more which just aren't funny.

Overall this comic book is pretty bad but then again so is the film and before you all say anything yes I know that the comic book came first. There are a lot of good things to be found in the comic book but there's also alot of things that are bad as well and so with that in mind this book gets a 5.5 out of 10 from me.

   

Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 1: The Long Way Home Review

Comic book fans since I love to spoil you guys rotten I thought i'd give you all another review only this one wasn't one of the books that I mentioned in a previous post. That's honestly because I didn't think of it until right now and that's honestly a good thing since it means that these opinions will be very raw with very little to know research so here is my review of Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 1: The Ling Way Home.

The plot of this book is Buffy and her friends have now formed there own secret army with dozens of other slayers and witches but there's an evil witch out there who wants them dead and will stop at nothing to do it. Ok getting the obvious out of the way early you have to be fan of the Buffy TV show in order to understand what's going on with that said I honestly thought that the story in this first arc was honestly pretty weak and I honestly thought that it would have been better if the storyline here was the whole series and not just the first four issues.

Now not only do you need to be a fan of the show in order to understand certain things said in this book it's also set around a year after the season 7 finale. So this book takes place in the year 2004 I mention all of this because the season 7 finale "Chosen" does kind of play a part in this opening arc since we do see the aftermath of that episode which i'm not going to spoil since it's honestly a really good episode and one that that should be checked out.

What honestly shocked me is that alot of characters who were main characters in not only the final season of the show but also the show as a whole aren't present in this arc. Now granted one of them does make an appearance in the next arc but you'd think that given how popular those characters were in the show that they'd be present at least in the few opening panels. Having those characters not appear does work because the story really doesn't allow for them to be there but a quick line of dialog would have been nice.

The writer for this opening arc is actually show creator Joss Wheadon and that for me is a good thing because who else would know these characters better then the person who created them in the first place. Writing wise it's the kind of writing that you'd expect from Joss and while not a bad thing in anyway it would have been better if more time was given to the characters and more time setting up this new world.

The art for this arc was done by Georges Jeanty who's worked on things such as Batman: Streets Of Gotham Buffy Season 9 and Buffy season 12 among many other things. Now here I would normally say that the artwork isn't that good well here it actually is pretty good OK it's not the best artwork out there all of the characters do look like there TV counterpart which is very hard to do but I got the feeling that he didn't really put his own mark on the characters.

There was one thing that didn't get resolved in this arc and it's something that really did bug the hell out of me. For some Dawn Buffy's sister has been learning magic from one of Buffy's friends and has turned herself into a giant. Now i'll admit I havn't seen the show in a while but from what I recall Dawn was never learning magic and they don't either show or tell us if they turned Dawn back to normal or not I don't know why that second one really bugged me but it did.

Not only does this issue have ties to the end of the show's finale but it also ties it self into season 6 and also the first season with the character of Amy. When I said that you need to be a fan of this series I really wasn't kidding because they'll reference the most obscure thing and even the character of Amy is a little known character i'm not going to reveal what the connection is to season 6 because it's honestly pretty freaking cool.

Again something that they don't explain in this arc but something that might get explained in future arc's is the fact that Willow has been away from the main group for quite sometime. That to me is honestly quite interesting because we know from the show that she's one of the strongest witches out there so it makes you wonder what she could possibly be up to that would require her to be away from her friends for such a long time.

As for what I thought about the action it's the type of action that one would expect from Buffy so if you liked the action that was seen in the show then you'll love the action in this opening arc. I myself tho thought that the action was just an excuse to include jokes mostly because at least once or twice during an action scene someone would tell a joke and while that might work in a TV show here it just didn't work for me.

Overall this wasn't a bad opening arc it does a fairly good job of setting up the main villain for this season but tho it fails at telling a good story and that should be have been more important at least in my opinion so this arc gets a 5 out of 10 from me.

Some Comic Books I'm Going To Review

Comic book fans I thought that i'd do something a bit different today because honestly I couldn't think of a single thing to review. So I thought that i;d tell you some of the comic books that I intend on taking a look at at some point in the future please note that this will include books from alot of different comic book companies so your not just going to find Marvel stuff or DC stuff your going to find stuff from alot of companies so alot of books will be ones that you've never heard of so here we go.

The Jetsons (DC)

Now i've been meaning to read alot more stuff from the Hanna-Barbera beyond line since i', a fan of there work and I did read this when it was coming out. The only thing stopping me from doing it is the fact that I was never that much of a fan of this book I only picked it up to see how they did the characters but it is something that is quite high on my list of comic books to review but it's not something i'll be getting to any time soon.

A Clash Of Kings (Dynamite Entertainment)

Not only am I a huge Game Of Thrones (your talking to a guy who owns all the books plus alot of seasons from the show and have played the dreadful XBOX 360 game) but i've also reviewed the original Game of Thrones comic book. So of course i'm going to be taking a look at this why I havn't done it now is simply because i'm waiting until they've finished the whole book before I even read a single of it.

Elvira: The Shape of Elvira (Dynamite Entertainment)

I read the recent and reviewed the recent Elvira: Mistress Of The Dark comic book which I loved and i've read the first issue of this book and if you've seen the cover and the title you'll have a fair idea of recent film there spoofing. I will say using Elvira to spoof this film to me is pure genius because no one spoofs films better then her and the best thing this series is only four issues long so when ever im able to see the remaining issues the review will be going live.

Doctor Who: The Thirteenth Doctor (Titan Comics)

You comic book fans won't know this but i'm also a huge Doctor Who fan and i'll admit i've not read the comics or heard the audio plays but i've seen the show both classic and recent and i've seen all of the films and spin off shows. I was actually one of the few people excited to be getting a female doctor granted I had to watch something that Jodie Whittaker was in to see if she was any good at drama but she's not let me down so far and as soon as they finish the first story for this run i'll be posting the review.

The Flintstones (DC)

Not only are we heading back to DC but also back to the stone age because just like with The Jetsons recent comic book I read the awesome Flintstones book as it was published. Guys and girls this is a book that i'm dying to revuew for you guys but with it being twelve issues long and the fact that I have many other reviews and stuff to write per day this one might take a few billion years but it will get here that much I promise.

Avengers Standoff: Assault on Pleasant Hill (Marvel)

Now then Marvel fans i've not forgotten about you guys this is a title that i've honestly not seen that many people talking about. I figure tho that with the next Avengers movies coming out soon this would be a great year for me to take a look at it the only issue i'd have is there's so many issues to read and the collected edition is rather expensive so I might have to wait until it drops down in price before I even consider reviewing this one.

A-Force 2015 (Marvel)

I'm not even going to try and lie here the only reason i'd even consider reading and reviewing this book is that it has Captain Marvel on the cover and I could tie it in the new Captain Marvel movie that's coming out. It might be a shameless reason to do a review but it's better then doing a review for no reason at all plus we all know that when that movie comes out any book featuring her is going to sell and sell fast.

Batman/Catwoman: The Wedding Album: The Deluxe Edition (DC)

When this storyline was first announced alot of people couldn't believe that it was finally going to happen Bruce Wayne was finally going to get married to Catwoman it just seems insane right. Well as we all know things didn't exactly go that way and that's why I want to review it so I can see if it makes sense in terms of both the story and the characters or not because it would be so easy for me to say that the storyline sucks but it would be more of a challenge if I sat down and read it and then gave you my thoughts on it.

Any Hellboy Comic

I'm not going to name just one title here because there's so many just for this one character so i;m saying that I want to review any of the Hellboy comics because I honestly like the character. It also helps that he has a new movie coming out and so any review I could do I could then tie it in to the new m movie in shape or form so it would be a really easy for me to get alot clicks or likes just due to that fact.

The Rest Of Red Sonja Worlds Away (Dynamite)

I know that i've just reviewed the first volume but my task is to finish the whole storyline now i'm going to tell you right now i'm not working on this as of this moment because there is such a thing as to much of a good thing. So i'm aiming to finish that whole storyline by the end of the year so that way I myself can take a break from the character and whoever publishes the collected editions can finish releasing it.

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.