Review: King Conan – The Hour of the Dragon #6

This is the last issue of the Hour of the Dragon, but this issue keeps adding to the story, instead of concluding it. Of course, this is really just the halfway point in Dark Horse’s adaptation of Robert E. Howard‘s Hour of the Dragon. The story continues in February as King Conan: the Conqueror, and I can’t wait. I may have expressed some doubts in previous reviews of this series, but this issue does not disappoint. This series is a classic Conan story from the team of Timothy Truman, Tomás Giorello, and José Villarrubia.

In this issue, King Conan sneaks out of Aquilonia into the still-loyal province of Poitain, just to take off alone again in search of the Heart of Ahriman. This month’s comic has ancient superstitions, magic and treachery, and even some undead for Conan to fight off. It ends the six-part miniseries on a high note, and I imagine the next six issues will be just as good.

The writing and artwork are just as good as before; if you’re already keeping up with this series you don’t need me to say it again. The team of Truman, Giorello, and Villarrubia is one of the better creative teams in recent Conan comics, and it shows in this series. The Hour of the Dragon is not an easy story to tell in just twelve issues, but judging by the first six, I think they’ll do a good job.

There isn’t much left for me to say about this issue except to recommend it. As always, the cover price is $3.50. Definitely pick this one up if you liked the previous issues. This goes without saying, but if you just now found out about this series, the first issue is a better place to start. The Hour of the Dragon is a classic Conan story filled with violence, magic, and even some political intrigue, and Truman, Giorello, and Villarrubia are well on their way to creating an excellent adaptation of it.

Danilo Culibrk, aka Augustus, is a staff writer for the Red Shirt Crew. He stole the Heart of Ahriman and fenced it to a wandering merchant. You can follow his boat down the Khorotas River on Twitter at @Augustusing.

Review: The Strain: The Fall #4

It’s official. The entire series is a setup. The final chapter, The Strain: The Fall #4, is just more of the same. I was hoping with all this setting up that the final chapter would be this explosive ending. But it’s all of the same problems, and it doesn’t really end. I get that the story continuing in another series sells more, but I personally would not continue this because the entirety was boring confusing and therefore unpleasant.

I’m going to try and keep this short because I’ve covered a lot of this in prior reviews and try and keep it fresh for the people who actually follow these reviews. This comic brings in all the characters that have been previously introduced, but there seem to be some convoluted connection scheme between them that isn’t entirely clear. It’s too scattered and thinly spread to fully understand for me. This might just be because I’m still a comic novice, but it was impossible for me to keep up who’s whom and why they know them. It overall just appears to lack focus and a key element to every story: A PROTAGONIST. If someone asked me who the story was about, I would probably say something along the lines of about 5 random groups of people who kill these creepy tongue things in New York City for some reason I’m not fully sure of.

What else do you want in an action comic? Violence! There was finally some proper fighting but it seemed fairly aimless. Usually when people fight it’s for a purpose, but this was just fighting. I mean there was some clear intents from a few select characters, but for others there seemed to be little reason; it wasn’t even for shits and giggles or some kill number goal. It wasn’t a big focus even, almost like the author just had to fill his quota for number of panels with blood.

Beyond that there wasn’t much more substance. All that was left was list of cliffhangers for the next series: Angels. I mean, that’s basically it. I wished there was more to ending of this because I was holding out hope that the ends would justify the means, but the finale was just as much a dud as its predecessors. Guillermo Del Torro failed to deliver for me and I wish I could hold The Strain: The Fall in higher regard.

You could probably guess this but I would not recommend this comic (or series) and a cover price of $3.99 is far from worth it. If you want to read Angels, you might have better luck just reading a synopsis; It may even be less confusing because I honestly understand very little of what is going on in this comic.

Brendan is Bigmacd101, a writer for the Red Shirt Crew and tired of being thoroughly confused.  He has not yet decided if he will be following the next series in the strain series.  Hunt him down on Twitter at @bigmacd101 if you wanna hear more of the things he says.

Review: The Star Wars #2

I was frustratingly vague in my review of issue #1 of this series. A lot of that was due to the fear that Dark Horse would send someone with a lightsaber to my apartment if I spoiled anything, but also because the idea alone carried the issue and my recommendation. However, now that the novelty has worn off, does The Star Wars #2 (written by JW Rinzler, illustrated by Mike Mayhew) carry itself with the story rather than just the concept?

I just had to post the Ralph McQuarrie cover.

I don’t hold Star Wars up as the foundation of my childhood or The Holy Trilogy (that belongs to Lord of the Rings), so I really wanted to see the different interpretations of these characters. While I still like it, this series is caught in a weird Catch-22 – it wouldn’t exist without the Star Wars name and is too much of a rip-off to exist on its own. Problem is, existing in the middle tends to just make things more confusing. The biggest issue is how much the characters are modeled after the actors – this Princess Leia looks like Carrie Fisher while acting nothing like her Leia, this Annikin looks like an older Hayden Christensen but is nothing like him. Just a change in the art, designing those characters to look different than their (somewhat) counterparts from the movies would go a long way towards avoiding confusion.

Big Star Wars fans are about to be pissed off at really stupid things, which I realize now should be the definition of fans. There are some familiar characters introduced here with a very different take than people are used to. Now, that can be said for everyone, but these are particularly beloved characters, and anything that’s changed about them is going to bring the angry fans out in droves, assuming that they’re reading this in the first place. While it caught me off-guard, I believe that changes shouldn’t be condemned automatically, and since the spirit of the characters is still intact, I’m willing to roll with it and actually enjoy seeing a different take.

The story in this issue is also a little unclear. The biggest problem is that it’s trying to hit on a lot of beats from the original movie (as much as I’d like to avoid the comparisons, they’re simply impossible not to make), but they play out in a different but unforunately unclear way. I’m also wondering how much ground of the original trilogy is going to be covered in this series, in their very compressed way. I thought this was just going to cover the ground of Star Wars, but this issue is making me think it’s going to cover a lot more.

Overall, I give this a tentative recommendation, only $3.99 after all. I have enough faith in it for now that my subscription is still going, but the novelty is wearing off and the rest of the story hasn’t yet stepped up to compensate. If you’re not in on it yet, this won’t convince you, but if you’re already reading it, you’ll want to keep going.

Zac Kandell (known mostly on the internet as Mischlings) tried writing this review purely in beeps and whistles, but the speech recognition software didn’t like that idea. If you find what he says interesting, follow him on Twitter at @Mischlings for more, shorter thoughts.

Review: Catalyst Comix #4

I’m continually surprised by this series. For something that I knew nothing about and only picked up because it was a #1 issue, Catalyst Comix has become my most anticipated comic each month (and will probably hold that spot until they announce what Christos Gage is writing next). The biggest way that it surprises me is that Catalyst Comix #4 (written by Joe Casey, illustrated by Paul Maybury, Ulises Farinas, and Dan McDaid) manages to completely flip something I expected about the series in the best possible way.

She’s become awesome enough to deserve this cover now.

I’ve completely turned around on the Amazing Grace storyline, which is now the A storyline. I remember dreading this while reading a previous issue, but it turns out that was just a slow start. They spent so much time saying that Grace is amazing (hence the nickname) without showing her doing anything. That changed completely once Mr. Seaver came in, putting her in opposition against someone, and the story has only improved from there. This issue continues the crazy battle of the minds that started in the previous issue, and the banter between the two of them just keeps getting better. I especially want to comment on the art, as part of this seems to have been an excuse to give Paul Maybury free reign to come up with interesting areas to draw, making full use of Grace’s ability to teleport wherever she likes. I’m usually not a big art person, but I can’t wait to get a hard copy (my tablet’s resolution just can’t stand up) so I can look at it in more detail.

Wolfhunter and Elvis Warmaker – I mean, Agents of Change (that joke is still not old) – have gone back in a more interesting direction, showing that the last issue was only a small hiccup. The problem with these smaller stories is that sometimes 8 pages is too little to tell a significant piece of a story, and the last one suffered from that. Since the end of the second issue showed that they’re all in some sort of virtual reality, I wanted to know more, but the last issue didn’t really advance the story. This issue does, showing us that even though they’re called the Agents of Change, they’re not causing the change in the way you’d expect. I get the feeling that things will really move forward when they take over as the A storyline, but I still like the bits and pieces of story in here.

Finally, after starting off as being the A story, The Ballad of Frank Wells has been moved to the C story, and the transition is a bit abrupt. The story pieces given here have to be shorter, but I still love how they use Frank to fight much more mundane problems. It’s an interesting return to essentially the root of superheroes as we know them – while these are big, world issues, he’s fighting mundane people like dictators and corrupt businessmen, far from his apocalypse-averting heroics from the first issue, which highlights the shift in his character. I wish that they’d spent more time on showing the shift in his character across a couple issues rather than montage, but I still quite enjoyed reading it. The ending kind of disappointed me, as it seems intended for people already familiar with the original series, but as I’m not, it just went over my head.

Overall, I definitely recommend this issue. I still cannot believe that Dark Horse is selling this for $2.99, given that it’s three simultaneous stories in a 32-page book, and that’s not even considering how good they are. Grace’s story has gone from uninteresting to my favorite, Wolfhunter and Elvis Warmaker continue to make me want to repeat their names over and over, and while Frank Wells doesn’t handle the transition as well as I’d like, it’s still entertaining, so go and pick this book up.

Zac Kandell (known mostly on the internet as Mischlings) has found that an unintentional side effect of reading this comic is having church music stuck in your head all day. If you find what he says interesting, follow him on Twitter at @Mischlings for more, shorter thoughts.

Prince Avalanche — A Funny Road Repair Comedy

This poster, weirdly, is a fairly accurate summary of the movie.

This is rather weird for me to write, and not just because I don’t write many movie reviews. Prince Avalance (written and directed by David Gordon Green) is just a really weird movie. Beyond the fact that I enjoyed it and think you should see it, trying to get all of my thoughts straight about this film is rather difficult due to it being, well, kind of weird–but I will attempt it anyway.
This movie stars two very funny people: Paul Rudd (who I never recognize, but especially here because he looks more like Ben Affleck) and Emile Hirsch (who looks more like Jack Black). Your mileage may vary on if that’s good or bad, but it’s something I have to talk about because it caused me quite a bit of confusion for most of the movie. In this, they play construction workers, posting signs and repainting lines on the road after a wildfire destroyed large parts of Texas in the 1980s.

They also don’t get along, at all. Alvin (Rudd) is a little too tight-laced, while Lance (Hirsch) is a slacker and only there because his sister, Alvin’s girlfriend, thought he needed to get a job. For 80% of this movie, it’s all about the two of them going out and repairing the roads, and it’s much more interesting than something fitting that description has any right to be. Somehow, they manage to make scenes that consist almost entirely of hammering road signs in or talking while painting the lines funny, which is a natural result of handing a funny script to two funny people.

Okay, but what about the other 20% of the movie? Occasionally, Alvin and Lance try to deal directly with the aftermath of the fire on an emotional level, and those scenes tended to fall flat. It’s not that they never got emotion right – there are some really good emotional scenes between the two of them – but it’s whenever they deal with the fact that they’re cleaning up after a wildfire that killed people and destroyed lives that the movie loses it. I have to give them a lot of credit for filming it in Texas after an actual wildfire, which gives the movie an authenticity that I never questioned while watching it, but somehow those scenes just fell flat anyway, even while filming in the wreckage of what used to be an actual house. There’s no consistency or cohesion between this part of the story and the scenes of Alvin and Lance just being themselves, but luckily the less successful of the two takes up much less of the running time.

I’m not crazy, right? They look like Jack Black and Ben Affleck.

I know that sounds like I’m condemning the movie, but don’t hear me wrong. This really is just a small portion of what’s in this film. As you might guess from my description of their characters, Alvin and Lance are two guys who shouldn’t ever get along (and they don’t, mostly), but they’re forced to. This probably sounds very familiar, but there’s something to be said for very strong execution. There’s no moment of revelation that completely changes them, just a gradual understanding of each other that moves them just a slight bit closer at the end from where they were in the beginning. They also never sacrifice the humor for character development or vice versa – one of the best scenes in the movie just involves the two of them sitting in a truck listening to a German educational tape. It sounds ridiculous, but it’s a hilarious scene that also shows a lot of character development, and this, along with many funny and meaningful scenes, hold this together and allow you to ignore the missteps along the way.

That is the movie in a nutshell. Two funny people being funny and genuine people, with some slightly out of place serious moments that fade into the background over time. It’s definitely a movie I recommend seeing, which you can on several On Demand services, so there’s no reason you can’t watch it.

Zac Kandell (known mostly on the internet as Mischlings) had to tone down the weirdness of this movie to make the review coherent. If you find what he says interesting, follow him on Twitter at @Mischlings for more, shorter thoughts.

Review: Itty Bitty Hellboy #2

Art Baltazar and Franco do it again with the second installment of Itty Bitty Hellboy. The freaking CUTENESS OVERLOAD that is cult-classic character miniaturized begs the question of: why haven’t more people done this. The fact that they were able to take the Hellboy series and make it funny is quite a feat that seems so easy when you put them as cute characters on colorful landscapes. Itty Bitty Hellboy is like Calvin and Hobbes for grown-ups, or even, well, Hellboy for kids. That overlap adds to the brilliance because Hellboy has been around long enough to become a classic, but not too long to become obscure leading to the nostalgia value for all the mature readers and the interest value for the young ones. This comic taps into a unique niche that caters to all crowds evenly, and does so brilliantly.

The writing makes it so that the character traits are still intact, while putting on a scale of childhood games (and not apocalyptic forces). Hellboy, for example, maintains that belligerence and stubbornness as his character intrinsically has, but instead of being a hot-headed renegade, he is closer to a small annoying child. That being said, it puts in on a relatable scale because it reminds you of your childhood, or how children you know act. This also makes every character likable regardless because it adds that additional, personal touch to it.

The comedy of it all happens in semi-stand-alone stories where the punchline is so ridiculous that you know only kids would do something like that. Needless to say, even though the focus is on comedy, there does appear to be a bigger overarching plot to the comic, but its so subtle that you don’t really pay attention to it, just sorta figure it’s there.

I talked a bit about the art in my prior post which I recommend giving a skim if you want to get into this series. Overall, I just love this comic. It’s lighthearted and fun while staying true to it’s namesake. I highly recommend to anyone for the cover price of $2.99. It’s one of those comics that you read it once and can read again in a month and it will still be funny. Art Baltazar and Franco, I hope you keep up the good work!

Brendan looks forward to more cuteness and fun when the next comic is done. If you want to keep up with all his antics, follow him on twitter (@bigmacd101). Hopefully he will be doing something more creative soon, so keep an ear to the ground. 

Review: King Conan – The Hour of the Dragon #5

Those seemingly unconnected plot points in the earlier issues of Hour of the Dragon finally start coming together in issue #5, and yet this issue still manages to introduce new characters and intrigues. Also, this issue has settled those doubts about this series that I raised in my earlier reviews. The story of Hour of the Dragon is fast-paced and full of rival characters all vying for Aquilonia and Nemedia, but in this issue it doesn’t seem as rushed as it was in the previous ones. The most important exposition has already been told, so this issue gets a chance to move the plot forward. King Conan: the Hour of the Dragon #5 is another great issue from Timothy Truman, Tomás Giorello, and José Villarrubia. 

So far, the Hour of the Dragon has featured Conan escaping from prison with Zenobia; in this issue we see the flipside of that, with Conan helping an Aquilonian noblewoman flee from what were his own prisons. Of course, this time he’s more prepared and better armed. But before that, there’s a brief but unusual scene when Conan re-enters his capital city in disguise. Not to spoil it further, but the little exposition that is delivered this issue comes from a secretive priesthood and a certain rival to Conan’s throne who show up towards the end of the comic. They don’t say much that readers don’t already know, but it’s important stuff nonetheless.

There’s plenty of blood in this issue too, and of course to go with it are those grotesque faces that only Giorello can draw. The faces of Giorello’s characters are always distinctive, and he’s one of the few artists who really gets Conan’s features right.

If there’s one complaint I have about the artwork in this series, it’s that Villarubia’s color choice is sometimes odd, especially for backgrounds. Many scenes in this issue feature no background aside from a color or a gradient, and it’s a bit jarring to see bright blue, followed by dimmer olive green in a scene that talks about the “dim light” and shadows of the night. Like in the last issue, the dark environment doesn’t really come through in the artwork. But the action in this issue does all take place under what appears to be a full moon, so I guess it shouldn’t be all that dark anyway.

That’s a minor complaint though, more just artistic choice toward bright colors and contrast than anything else. If you’ve been keeping up with King Conan, you can be sure that this issue doesn’t disappoint for the $3.50 cover price. The story is finally going somewhere, but I have a feeling we’ll be seeing even more new characters in the next issue. Only one more issue remains in the six-part Hour of the Dragon, but the story won’t be over until the next six-issue series.

Danilo Culibrk, aka Augustus, is a staff writer for the Red Shirt Crew. He misplaced the Heart of Ahriman when he reorganized his shelf, but he’s yet to be free of its sorcerous powers. You can follow him through Khitan jungles on Twitter at @Augustusing.

Review: Conan – The Phenomenon TPB

I should start this review with a quick clarification. Conan – the Phenomenon isn’t a comic, but a book primarily about the history of Conan as a character, in all his forms and in different media. It also includes a brief biography of Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan. This volume lists almost every publication, film, and even video game the Cimmerian has ever appeared in (the book ends in 2006), and discusses each in turn, sometimes offering an insight into the contributions that the different authors, artists, and filmmakers have made to help create the popular conception of Conan the Cimmerian as he exists today.

The book is written by Paul M. Sammon, and is divided into five chapters, each with a different focus but presented in roughly chronological order. The first chapter is a biography of Robert E. Howard; the second and third chapters go over his Conan stories, as well as the books and comics published up until 1980 or so. Chapter Four talks in great detail about the two Conan films in the 1980’s – it helps that the author actually worked on the marketing for both movies. Sammon talks about their production, as well as their critical reception, and he discusses a few reasons why the films were flawed. There’s even a part at the end of the chapter where he talks about possible Conan films in the future, mentioning the 2002 attempt at King Conan specifically. The last chapter goes into newer Conan comics, as well as role-playing games and video games.

If anything, the sections towards the end point to the biggest flaw in a book like this: it was written in 2006, but some of the information is already outdated. The Conan MMO isn’t new and exciting anymore, and there’s been another Conan film since this book was written. But I guess it’s for the best that the film isn’t mentioned… but that’s because this book was first published in 2007, but it’s only now getting a paperback release. I would’ve liked to see an updated version of this book with more current information for this new release; I’m not sure why it’s taken so long to release this in paperback, but a few parts of the book could use updating.

If you can ignore the gap of the last seven years or so, there’s a lot of good information in Conan – the Phenomenon. The book goes into detail in a few sections, but it also directs the reader to other sources for further information about Conan. For example, it doesn’t have the most in-depth biography of Robert E. Howard, but it tells you about the more detailed ones if that interests you. Of course this book only briefly mentions Solomon Kane, Kull, or Howard’s other works, but this is a book about Conan.

And in the end, it’s a history book. It’s in the nature of history books to become outdated, but Conan – the Phenomenon is still an interesting read. It’s a great jumping-off point for learning more about Howard or the Cimmerian. Even though you can find most of this information online, this book does a good job of presenting it neatly in one volume, and Sammon does occasionally try to analyze why and how Conan’s legacy developed the way it did. The cover price of the new TPB release is $19.99; if you don’t mind the few outdated sections and missing information from the past few years, this book is a great collection of information about the Cimmerian. I just wish there was more current information in it.

Danilo Culibrk, aka Augustus, is a staff writer for the Red Shirt Crew. He actually does like to read history books occasionally. You can follow his rise to a pop culture phenomenon on Twitter at @Augustusing.

Review: The Strain, The Fall #3

I feel like there is just something I don’t understand here. After reading The Strain, The Fall #3, by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan, I think the reason why I didn’t like the first two issues was because they were both setting up for something. Similarly, this comic is setting up for… well something. That’s the thing, it’s very unclear what it is setting up for, which for some leaves the reader in suspense; personally I’m just confused and bored because I find it hard to get excited or suspenseful for something that I don’t really know what it is. I know that there is going to be some showdown to decide the fate of the world, but I’m not sure if I know that from reading the comic or just the summary on the cover.

I’m not going to bore you by rehashing all my other bashing in earlier comics, so I left a link for you if you want to give a quick skim of how twilight is a better vampire story then this comic. I also suspect that the author is reading the blog because there’s about a page of blog bashing, which is not cool by the way. Thankfully, it relieves me of any bad comic reviewing I’ve done for this series.

The main problem is that the voice of the entire comic is far too passive. It’s all about the set-up and the history rather directly addressing the problem at hand. While I don’t agree with the choice of using the “vampires”, it doesn’t change the fact that you have to fight them. That is a very active thing. If I wanted to shoot the breeze and talk about vampire apocalypses and occult and crap, I can do that any time. What I can’t do is freaking fight them. That what I want to read about. Buffy fights them Twilight falls in love with them, all these character do is talk about them.

Not to mention that there is now yet another new character with an unexplained backstory that apparently came in earlier Dark Horse Presents. While it may be a plot to sell more comics (bravo by the way), it sincerely pissed me off. I want to know the current, existing characters! Not to mention after reading this series, I don’t actually want to read anything remotely related to this.

After all the set-up, the last comic better be good. I’m talking shit needs to hit multiple fans from like rebounds and ricochets and crap. I want to see the last comic just so I can know that it’s over. Overall, I would not recommend this, not for $3.99. You’ll probably be fine just reading about the prospective “thrilling conclusion”. If the conclusion is good enough, you might want to go back and read the earlier ones to enhance the experience, otherwise, don’t bother. Lastly, if all blog readers are crazy people like the author says, please be the most awesome crazy people and in the comments section, roll your head on the keyboard and submit that. Over and out.

Brendan is hoping to read something good for his next review, Fingers crossed. Until then can be stalked on the twitter thingy @bigmacd101. Also to do his part for the insanity: ujhhygtfvrvtghyujknhygtfr.

Review: Angel & Faith Volume 4: Death and Consequences

Just a note upfront – shortly after issue #18 was published, Robin Sachs, the actor who played Ethan Rayne, died of a heart attack. That made this story arc slightly awkward to read, especially since it involved his dead body being reanimated by a demon.

Postmortem awkwardness aside, this story arc returns to the resurrection storyline after the minor distraction that was Angel visiting his son’s wonderful childhood home. In Death and Consequences (written by Christos Gage, illustrated by Rebekah Isaacs), Angel sets out to finish collecting Giles’s soul in his enchanted nipple ring after discovering where the rest of his soul would be located.

Something that strikes me is that a lot of this arc is a retcon of things that happened as far back as Season Two of the series. In some places, it does slow the story down a bit in order to explain away how things happened before, but it does that for the sake of actually improving that old story and opening up possibilities. I was always bothered by the way that the show handled Eyghon all the way back in Season Two – for a demon that was supposedly so powerful and spent twenty years tracking down Giles and his cohorts, he sure went down easily. No, there wasn’t really a flaw in the logic that the demon in Angel managed to kick Eyghon out, but the idea that he was so much more powerful as to kill him felt wrong, so I was glad to see this retcon, especially with the story possibilities that it opened up.

Nadira is also a major character in this arc, and she’s one of the few good characters created specifically for the comics (interestingly, they’re almost all in this series), showing that they can actually make characters for the comics that people will like (unlike, say, Billy). When I first read this, I had almost forgotten that she learned about Angel working with Faith before the previous arc, and I didn’t really know how she was going to handle it. From the beginning, they made it obvious that she wasn’t exactly going to be forgiving towards Angel for what he’d done as Twilight (if it was him, or not, or whoever he was – it’s really confusing, and they lampshade that here), but I expected the conflict to bubble over at a later point inthe series, not this early. Even though it’s obvious given the context (especially the name of the series) that he wasn’t going to die this early, it still felt like she was actually going to kill him if he didn’t cooperate.

There’s also Spike, who comes into the series here for a short time. Throughout the entire run of Buffy and Angel, Spike’s banter and general disdain for Angel was great to watch, and it continues here. Until now, there’d never been any on-screen interaction between Spike, Angel, and Faith at the same time (this is technically on a page, not a screen, but my point is the same), and they all have a wonderful chemistry together. As I’ve said before for Christos Gage, I can hear the actors saying his dialogue for the characters, and Spike is no different. His introductory line to Angel is, well, perfect for Spike, and if you don’t read it in James Marsters’s voice, then something is wrong with you.

For the first time in this series, Rebekah Isaacs illustrated one of the issues that’s a multiple of five, and I’m glad she did. Even though they tend to be one-shot issues (#25 wasn’t, but the others were), the change in art was jarring and distracting more than anything else. For this one, we finally have continuity and the characters look like I’m used to them looking by now, which make a contribution to that issue, Spike and Faith. Now, a lot of people have big problems with this issue, and while I agree that it’s not one of the stronger ones in the series, I don’t think it really deserves that hatred. The story was a little thin for an issue and it’s obvious that they were waiting for the beginning of the next arc, but the characters sound like themselves and it has some really fun banter between them so, even though I’m not going to say it’s one of the better issues, I don’t think it’s the character derailment a lot of fans treat it as. Taking it apart and going into why would take a whole other article that I’m not going to write, so don’t bother holding your breath.

Best cover in the series.

On the subject of extra features, I think I want to see all of Rebekah Isaacs’s sketchbooks. This isn’t as robust as some extra features I’ve seen in other trades, but the thing I love is that it allows you to really get inside her head. She explains a lot about what she draws and why she made the decisions that she did, including showing older design sketches and telling us exactly why they didn’t work (for example, her first sketch of Eyghon looked too much like “guy in a suit”, so she made it more grotesque and demonic), which manages to take what would otherwise be just a series of pictures and manage to tell a story out of the making of the story. I love these extra features, but best of all, it ends on the variant cover for issue #20, which is easily my favorite cover in the series.

Overall, another good story that I recommend, even if the last part is a little bit shaky. It’s worth the $17.99 cover price, though if you don’t care about the special features or don’t need the nice looking trade paperback, you can always buy the individual issues in physical or digital form, but I really think it’s worth it to get the trade.

Zac Kandell (known mostly on the internet as Mischlings) wishes this arc was called “Angel extracts a man’s soul from his enchanted nipple ring”. If you find what he says interesting, follow him on Twitter at @Mischlings for more, shorter thoughts.