Pilot Season: Genius #1 [Jun 2008]

Rarely does a comic book inspire me to rage like this one did.  No, it’s not the bang-your-head-on-the-table rage that comes from retcons like “Ghost Rider is actually an angel, and he always has been.”  Rather, this is the kind of rage caused by the despicable nature of the book itself.

A police detective sort of figures out that “every generation has one, Lou. Hannibal, Alexander, Washington, Patton. We just might be dealing with the greatest military mind of our time. A goddamned… genius.” Only in this case, the genius is 17 year-old Destiny, who decides she wants to take over the law enforcement in her neighborhood all by herself.

Army of Darkness / Xena #4 [2008]

The title of this mini-series’s storyline was “Why Not?”.  You know, I’ve got four comic books here that are all the justification you need to answer that question.

For starters, when the last issue of a mini-series has a completely different creative team than the first three, it makes you curious how bad the ending of the original was, especially when this isn’t going to win any awards, either.

Angel: After the Fall #8 [Jun 2008]

Screw you, Joss Whedon. I want my $33.84 back.

(For the mathematically confused, that’s 8 issues at $3.99 each + 6% sales tax.)

At first I was worried I was expecting too much. I think the fact that I suffered through this for 8 issues says my expectations were too low.

Angel: After the Fall #5 [Mar 2008]

I’m hoping this is just a case of being too much of a fan of the original material, therefore the sequel will never be able to live up to the expectations.  I really want to like this series, but it’s done nothing but frustrate me since the first issue.

Let’s start with the story.  The story started entirely too far into the future.  What we were treated to is essentially the aftermath of the big battle that was set to start when the TV series ended.  In a way, this reminds me of how Fox mis-aired Firefly by not showing the pilot and starting the series with the second episode.  My enjoyment of that series suffered immensely because I felt like I was always missing some little detail the plot was assuming I already knew.  The same thing’s been happening with this series.

Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters #1 [2008]

Maybe it was just my sense of humor twenty-two years ago, but I actually liked Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters back in the day. There was a certain humor to the whole thing that made reading about this cross between the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the Fantastic Four enjoyable to my warped young mind.

These are not the Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters I grew up with.

In a story titled “The Next Generation”, we’re introduced to five completely new hamsters: Rock, Arnold, Jean Claude, Steven, and Lucy. Yeah, it’s as good as it sounds.