Star Trek: Klingons Blood Will Tell #4

Written by Scott Tipton & David Tipton

Art by David Messina and Elena Casagrande

IDW $3.99

The miniseries winds down with the apparent conflict or resolution between the Klingons and the Federation quickly approaching. Morglar, an old comrade of Kahnrah’s recounts a tale, for no apparent reason, about his interaction and experience actually murdering human beings, which impresses K’ahlynn to no end. His story is about an encounter with the Enterprise, Kirk and company and a brutal sword fight among dozens of members of both the Federation and the Klingon soldiers who are trying to take it over in retaliation for being attacked by the Enterprise. Of course, the Klingon’s see this as Kirk’s fault and he utterly refuses to back down until a truce is called by both sides.

Again, in the end everyone ends up having drinks and telling jokes. This issue is a retelling of the Original Series episode, day of the dove, but it tries to be more multifaceted in it’s portrayal of the Klingons, showing them as a race trying to secure a military advantage instead of the fascist way that they have often been portrayed in the television series. In the end, Morglar tells them to take up arms with the humans, that they should work together, because his battle on that day showed him that the humans can be trusted, but they are also incredibly strong and deserve the right to be respected.

Without a doubt, this series has been 200% better than the TNG series. I hope Tiptons get another Trek series, because they definitely know what they’re doing.

New comics for August 03, 2007

I’m a week and a half behind, so this week I ended up picking up quite the pile. I was glad to see so many great issues in my pile this go around. I was particularly excited about walking dead, which is already reviewed, batman, dark tower and JLA. I’ll be putting up several reviews per day and working my way through my pile over the next several days.

Action Comics #853 - Kurt Busiek(w), Brand Walker, Livesay, Lee Loughridge(a)
Batman #666 - Grant Morrison(w), Andy Kubert, Jesse Delperdang(a)
Black Panther #29 - Reginald Hudlin(w), Francias Portela and Val Staples(a) Arthur Suydam(c)
Black Summer #1 of 7 - Warren Ellis(w), Juan Jose Ryp(a)
Chronicles of Wormwood #6 of 6 - Garth Ennis(w), Jacen Burrows(a)
Countdown #39 & 40 - Paul Dini, McKeever(w), Jim Calafiore and Jay Leigten(a)
Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born #7 of 7 - Peter David and Robin Furth(w), Jae Lee and Richard Isanove(a)
Deathblow #6 - Brian Azzarello(w), Carlos D’Anda, Henry Flint(a)
Fallen Angel #18 - Peter David(w) and J.K. Woodward(a)
Futurama # 32 - Ian Boothby(w), Mike Kazaleh and Andrew Pepoy(a)
Grimm Fairy Tales #16 - Ralph Tedesco and Joe Tyler(w), Andrew Magnum and Roland Salvidor(a)
Justice Society of America #8 - Geoff Johns(w), Fernando Pasarin and Rodney Ramos(a)
Metal Men #1 of 8 - Duncan Roleau(a & w)
Midnighter #10 - Keith Giffen(w), Chris Sprouse, Karl Story, Randy Mayor(a)
Raise the Dead #4 of 4 - Leah Moore and John Reppion(w), Hugo Petrus, Marc Rueda and Ivan Nunes(a)
Speak of the Devil #1 of 6 - Gilbert Hernandez(Spider-Man Fairy Tales #3 of 4 - C.B. Cebulski(w), Kei Kobayashi, Christina Strain(a)
Star Trek: Klingons Blood Will Tell #4 - Scott and David Tipton(w), David Messina and Elaina Casagrande(a)
Star Trek: Year Four #1 - David Tischman(w), Steve Conley, Leonard O’Grady(a)
Uncanny X-Men #489 - Ed Brubaker(w), Mike Perkins and Andrew Hennessey(a)
Unholy Union #1 - Ron Marz(w), Michael Broussard(a)
Walking Dead #39 - Robert Kirkman(w), Charlie Adlard, Cliff Rathburn(a)
Welcome to Tranquility #9 - Gail Simone(w), Neil Googe(a)
Wetworks #11 - J.M. Dematteis(w), Joel Gomez and Trevor Scott(a)
World War Hulk #3 - Greg Pak(w), John Romita Jr, Janson, Strain(a)
World War Hulk: Ironman #20 - Christos Gage(w), Butch Guice, Dean White and Gerald Parel(a)
World War Hulk: The Incredible Hulk #108 - Greg Pak(w), Leonard Kirk, Scott Hanna and Chris Sotomayor(a)
World War Hulk: The Irredeemable Ant-Man #10 - Robert Kirkman(w), Phil Hester, Ande Parks, Bill Crabtree and Val Staples(a)
X-Men #201 - Mike Cary(w), Humberto Ramos, Carlos Cuevas and Edgar Delgado(a)

Martha Washington DIES

Written by Frank Miller

Art by Dave Gibbons

Dark Horse Comics $3.50

She dies in all caps, what a way to go. I’d never read Give Me Liberty, in fact, I’d never even heard of it. This one-shot serves as an end to the life of the lead character of that series and an advertisement for the collection Dark Horse is printing next year. In this issue, Miller kills off his wise old character, spreads some rumors about her so that the reader doesn’t really know who she is unless they read the old series and he makes a pretty intriguing character sketch of a wise old revolutionary who only appears on 9 pages of her own death comic.

It worked. There’s some thoughtful narration on freedom. liberty and the like, and how we fight for it, how we always fight for it and how after we die, people will still fight for it. Everything appears to take place in the future, in a dystopic ruined version of America. It worked, Miller has me willing to buy some huge collection with this commercial that I paid for. That is essentially what he’s done with this book, he’s convinced people to pay almost four dollars to buy an advertisement for a product that isn’t even for sale yet. That’s talent.

Stormwatch P.H.D. #9

Written by Christos Gage

Art by Andy Smith, David Baron, cover art by Mike McKone and David Baron

Wildstorm $2.99

Stormwatch has been absolutely one of my favorite comics of the worldstorm launch that hasn’t been written by Gail Simone. Since the worldstorm relaunch, Christos Gage has continually proved himself as a fantastic storyteller and a writer quite capable of crafting character-driven fiction that is as enjoyable without being meaningless.

Gage has spent these nine issues showing his abilities of characterization and plot, when he puts them together, they are incredibly fun to see unfold. The characters in Stormwatch are so refined, so well-developed, some of them are downright loveable, like the Machinist and Black Betty, and some are so much fun to hate, but they’re all fun to read. This issue takes hold of these well-defined characters and puts them in a murder/mystery story, but I never thought of it as a genre story until I began to write this post. Jackson is shot in the head with a laser, but only high level people from the department would have access to him and it would be incredibly difficult to sneak up on a psychic. A newer twist on an old idea, but it’s done without the old routines, instead taking time to focus on individual characters, all of whom are suspects, and letting the reader come to their own conclusions until the final panel where the mystery is wrapped up.

On the other side of the coin, I pretty much hate the art.  I think Andy Smith is all wrong for this book, he’d be better suited on a darker, more moody piece, not this character driven exploration book that Gage has created.  Really, I wish the art was closer to the first four issues, that stuff was great and so well suited for this comic book.

This is a self-contained story that is done rather well, you wouldn’t absolutely need to read any other issues to enjoy this because Christos Gage makes everything simple for the reader who isn’t looking for much other than a fun story, but if you’ve taken the time and gotten the rest of the information, you can delight as you see everyone stress each other out and act out as you question whether they’re guilty or not. Either way, it’s great fun and definitely worth the three dollars. But seriously, this is one of the best superhero comics going right now, run out and grab it!

Stephen Colbert’s Tek Jansen Adventures #1 of 5

Written by John Layman, Tom Peyer and Jim Massey

Art by Scott Chantler, Robbi Rodriguez, Dave McCaig, Pete Pantazis and Aurelio Alfonso

Oni Press $3.99

was so excited when I saw this in my pile today just because I didn’t know what I was getting into, but I knew it would be an ironic and playful jab at science fiction. This book pretty much delivers just that. It has two stories that are essentially separate from one another, though they both feature Tek Jansen, a futuristic space hero with the moves of Han Solo and the brains of a retarded pumpkin. He says stupid things, screws up and never listens, therefore he never really helps anyone. It’s a simple formula, but enjoyable enough.

I think my favorite line is, “What’s the harm? Except for the radioactive robot chimp, and the asexsual caged manifestation of pure cosmic evil–we’re all GUYS here!”

Entertainment Weekly has enabled their readers to read the entire second story, “Horn Like Me”, which uses metaphors of racism and social inequities to tell a humorous story about infiltrating an alien government and democratize it against it’s will secretly. Give it a shot - http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20043846_3,00.html - it’s all in flash instead of Jpeg, so I couldn’t steal it and put it here for you. You’ll just have to work a bit.

If you liked the way Futurama parodied while at the same time celebrated sci-fi movies(and if you didn’t you need help), you should definitely check this out. It doesn’t sacrifice moving the story along to get a cheap laugh and there are virtually no old fashioned jokes with punchlines. Instead, the writers rely on Colbert’s own smart ass way of extending the honest truth to the point of outright bullshitting the audience with a truthful grin. If you like what you see, head out and see if your local shop is carrying this, it’s kind of a toss up. It’s published by Oni Press, one of my favorite independent publishers, and I hope that this book will sell well and help them to sell more books, as they are publishing an extraordinary amount of fantastic work right now. If you can’t find it in the stores, you can always order it from Oni - http://www.onipress.com/display.php?type=bk&id=250

Star Trek: Klingons: Blood Will Tell #3 of 5

Written by Scott Tipton & David Tipton

Art by David Messina

IDW Publishing $3.99 

When I started reading this series, I didn’t actually know much about Star Trek outside of the first season of Star Trek Enterprise, which I’ve been watching in order throughout the year and just recently finished. I liked it, I’m interested in the Star Trek universe, but I didn’t really know where to go from there. Then, about halfway through the first season, I noticed that IDW was doing a Next Generation mini-series, so I started reading it. I liked it, though I wasn’t at all familiar with the characters of the settings. Then the Klingon mini-series started and jumped on that, knowing that I wouldn’t know what was going on. I’ve really enjoyed not knowing what was going on and now I feel like I know a little bit about what’s happening. I’ll be sticking with the comics and the DVDs.

Some insight into the Klingon’s history and political strifes has been incredibly fun. I had assumed this mini-series would be like the next generation book in that it would be four to six individual stories that didn’t really hold itself within any particular continuity. Those stories are interesting in their own right and must certainly be easier for a writer to work around without having to worry about throwing off any balances for a later story, but when everything is going to be wrapped up in 22 pages, the storyteller lacks the ability to truly stretch out and lay out the details.

The Tipton’s stories mostly focus on a small group of Klingons trying to expand their reach without being caught by the starfleet, who they seem to truly loathe, during the time line of the original Star Trek series. James Kirk even showed up last issue. The mission statement of the comic is to show the Klingon side of an already told story. I find this to be an interesting way to tell the story, but if one hopes to find sympathy or understanding in the warrior race, they will certainly be let down. This alternate look at the Klingons only furthers the look of rugged, ruthless hateful people looking for personal gains through bloodshed.

That being said, I really like the comic. The writing does a pretty good job at showing the Klingons in a more in depth style without too much interference from the good guys and it has a bit of room to explore the Klingon history and culture. This is easily the most interesting and valuable thing the comic offers, for it’s not really a different perspective that’s so unique, but it’s the actual insight into characters and culture that is vast and, to this reader anyways, unknown territory.

B.P.R.D. Garden of Souls #1

Image Comics $2.99

Written by Mike Mignola and John Arcudi

Art by Guy Davis

Today I was in a part of town that I usually don’t get to, where there’s a comic shop I don’t usually buy from. I have an extensively organized pull list at the shop I frequent, so there wouldn’t be any point in picking up issues from my list, but I decided to pick up four titles I haven’t read and generally know nothing about. B.P.R.D. is the first. Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, if you will, focuses on an apparent group of paranormal researchers, but because this seems to be a mini-series, the action is all part of a story that apparently occurred before this issue takes place. Even without truly knowing what’s going on or who the characters are, it’s fairly easy to follow and put the clues together as to what’s going on.

The dialog works really well, telling the story of five main characters whose lives revolve around supernatural elements. There is this great tension between all the characters, obviously stemming from the death of a co-worker, but the details of the death aren’t specifically given, in fact, the characters rarely even discuss the source of the tension between themselves, rarely acknowledging that there’s even something wrong

The art has this old effect that makes if feel very familiar, like the first League of Extraordinary Gentlemen books. I like it quite a bit, it’s warm and effective and generally helps the story in a very positive way by drawing just enough attention to the details of architecture in the cities and the significant differences in the physical nature of the lead characters.

I think I’ll follow this one through the series, it looks like it has a lot of potential.