Posted on by Alexander Case

X-23 (Vol. 3): Comic Review

Laura Kinney, cropped from the cover of X-23 #1

This past year, when Marvel comics brought back Logan, someone else had already taken on the mantle of Wolverine – Laura Kinney, formerly known as X-23, complete with having her own book branded as All-New Wolverine. Marvel editorial decided that rather than letting Laura keep the code name (as they’ve done with the multiple Hawkeyes), Laura would renounce the code-name, and her book would re-launch and re-brand. Unfortunately, it causes this book to be something of a step back from All-New Wolverine in multiple respects.

Read more
Posted on by Alexander Case

Watch Dogs 2: Video Game Review

Shortly after watching Ubisoft’s E3 2019 Showcase, I finally beat Watch Dogs 2. Beating that game, in a lot of respects, made clear what my objections are with Watch Dogs Legion. In short, effectively all of those objections are related to the narrative – in particular, how the story will play out with procedurally generated characters.

Read more
Posted on by Alexander Case

Savage Sword of Conan #1-5: Comic Review

There aren’t a lot of fantasy comics out there, and the ones we get in the US are generally licensed from another property, whether Games like D&D or Pathfinder, or literary works like Game of Thrones, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, or Conan the Barbarian. So, when Marvel got the license to Conan comics again, I was interested, and when they re-launched their classic Conan titles – Conan the Barbarian and Savage Sword of Conan, I added those books to my pull list.

Read more
Posted on by Alexander Case

20th Century Boys: Manga Review

If I was going to describe 20th Century Boys in a high concept manner to someone in an elevator, I’d describe it as It meets The Stand. It’s a story that takes place over a vast scope of time, almost 30-40 years, with multiple time skips, and an apocalypse in-between, with a fundamental premise of a group of childhood friends being forced to face a great evil as adults. The difference is, the evil in It is a clearly supernatural, unearthly evil. The evil in 20th Century Boys is very, very human.

There are some spoilers below the cut.

Read more