COMIC BINGE: Batman: Eternal, Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, & Guardians of the Galaxy
Welcome again to the Comic Binge everyone! It’s been an exciting week for comic book readers as we’ve been getting a lot of big news on all of our upcoming super movies this year. Deadpool is only a few weeks away and so far the word seems to be good, if not really good. It’s a possibility that’s due all to good advertising or just a lot of it, but Deadpool seems to be the next good time at the movie theater with Marvel. Then we have the new trailer for Suicide Squad really amping everything up from the trailer before. Lots more Joker, and a lot more action. I’m still sticking by my guns in saying regardless of whether the not the movie is good, but Leto appears to be giving us a big over the top R-rated Joker we’ve never seen before in a movie. I’m excited just to see it, and if it fails then we’ll have to re-evaluate. Batman vs. Superman trailer spots have been dropping everywhere, and Wonder Woman clips and shit, and I find myself least excited about these. Regardless, we have an awesome year of comic book movies ahead of us and some of these comics should or will be at some point! One of these should definitely have a movie, so let’s get down to business.
The first volume of Batman: Eternal was something I struggled with the first time I tried to pick it up and give it a read. I’ve had a lot of good times reading Scott Snyder anything when it comes to Batman, but somewhere along the line in Eternal I just lost all interest. Now some time later I’ve tried to get back into the Batman: Eternal story and I can’t say it’s gotten much better. Batman faces off against a couple of foes, all the while the story is dragged along in what feels like another hefty volume of comics. Not nearly as big as the first, but we’re still talking about a lot of time taking place for a story that doesn’t need as much. It reminds me of Marvel event comics that are drawn out, and well I guess DC does it too. There isn’t enough here for me to really want to read it over any other Batman book. I will admit I found this volume a lot more entertaining, and we see the character Hush return but I can’t say that the story is anything new. Catwoman gets set up as the head of the Calabrese Crime Family from her last volume that I read, and Gates of Gotham really random Architect time for people who know that villain. In pretty typical fashion Batman and family are out on the city fixing the unfixable while Alfred is out of competition due to capture and his daughter learns about Gotham the sort of hard way. Overall I guess you could call it one of those Batman timekillers. It’s just good enough to get a read just because it’s Batman, but overall I don’t think it’s anything you need to bother with having to read. It’s better than the first, really slow volume of Batman: Eternal and of course I’ll be reading the third to see what happens as usual!
RATED : ( PG-13 )
STORY : ( 6 / 10 )
ARTWORK : ( 7 / 10 )
COVERS : ( 7 / 10 )
AWESOME : ( 5 / 10 )
FINAL RATING : ( 6 / 10 )
Next up this week was the first volume of The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl from Marvel. I first got wind of this character while I was playing some Marvel Puzzle Quest awhile ago, which is a game worth playing might I add, but then found out Squirrel Girl is actually a somewhat older character. This book sees the character into a modern day mold, and I have to say that Squirrel Girl fits in well for her first book. A lot of reader have been latched onto Ms. Marvel as the best female lead in Marvel, but I think we need to be paying attention to Squirrel Girl before she gets her own movie. From the beginning, hilarious Doreen Green brings us straight into the life of being Squirrel Girl. New girl at college, she meets her roommate and cat Mew along with several others. She squares off with Kraven and Galactus, with a few others and it’s always sort of playing in a light-hearted way. I love the way the book is written. Her sense of humor is on point, and there’s a slight breaking of the fourth wall between you and Squirrel Girl. Each page has plenty of laughs, but at the bottom outside of the panels you get a look into the mind of this new superhero for us. She’s a ton of fun, and the first thing you get from her is recreating the Spider-Man theme song for herself, and Deadpool is one known to engage in these kind of antics as well. Squirrel Girl is sort of a teen version of Deadpool, so for those teenagers clamoring for PG-13 Deadpool, here it is for you. Don’t let Squirrel Girl fool you, because in this first volume awesomely called Squirrel Power it really is a squirrel power on the market for Marvel Comics right now. At first I didn’t care for the art, but slowly it grows on you in this kind of story with this kind of humor. Deadpool’s Trading Card of Marvel Education are a really nice touch, and again show our hero’s likeness to the Merc with the Mouth! If you haven’t read Squirrel Girl, I can’t recommend it enough!
RATED : ( PG-13 )
STORY : ( 8 / 10 )
ARTWORK : ( 5 / 10 )
COVERS : ( 6 / 10 )
AWESOME : ( 9 / 10 )
FINAL RATING : ( 8 / 10 )
Lastly this week I checked out what was left of a Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 5: Through the Looking Glass, after having read The Black Vortex story in another trade book. First up was the Annual #1 which is possible I’ve read before too, but it was probably the only good part of the book. Captain Marvel is with the Guardians and Venom and the usuals, and of course Rocket comes in for the occasional good laugh. Otherwise those, this volume of Guardians of the Galaxy wasn’t very good and follows the downturn trend in quality for me over the last two volumes. I hope that with the new movie and as story details emerge about it, we get some new stories and twists in the Guardians of the Galaxy comic. Rocket is at his best when he’s actually on the pages, and so are the regular Guardians of the Galaxy as written in the movie. I don’t want to be the guy that only knows all the new stuff, but from what I’ve read between new and old I much prefer the newer stuff that came out right after the movie. Here it to hoping that the sixth volume of the Guardians has more in store for us that this event-ruined volume of a middle of the road Marvel comic.
RATED : ( PG-13 )
STORY : ( 5 / 10 )
ARTWORK : ( 7 / 10 )
COVERS : ( 7 / 10 )
AWESOME : ( 4 / 10 )
FINAL RATING : ( 5 / 10 )