By Aaron Nash

Good eve to you, with all festive cheer,

We shall look at a book decidedly queer,

It is not unlike the stories of old,

Except for the fact its inhabitants are cold.

Not with a chill that one may have come to expect,

More with a death, and a craving to dissect.

For what we have here is a tale retold,

Of old Mr Scrooge and a time of old,

But here you’ll find, little festive delight,

For his little world is riddled with blight.

A zombie curse, I guess you could say,

Making the Christmas we know a far less joyful day.

By Jacob H Baxter

In my last article, I sang the praises of alternate reality tales. These stories have always been some of my favourites. Today, I bring you my most loved of these. I proudly present, Transformers: Hearts of Steel!

This tale centres on a great ‘what if’ concept. Originally, it was planned as a series, but only one was ever produced. However, that one was awesomely epic. I really wish that the series would have continued, but sadly, we all know about the best laid plans of mice and men.

By Sam Hurcom

There’s one, rather bold way, to test the quality and intrigue of a comic book’s writing – strip back just about everything that can distract the reader from the core narrative. Remove bold speech bubbles, vibrant colours and unnecessary panels of filler. Reduce even the images drawn to their bare components; mere black lines and squiggles on a white canvas that provide only enough to present characters and objects in their simplest, recognisable form. Pull back a comic in this way, to the very minimal characteristics that define it as a ‘comic’ at all, and you’re left with something quite remarkable, if not challenging to a reader.

This is the intent of Jim Alexander in his recent series Good Cop Bad Cop. If nothing else, it’s a comic you cannot passively engage with.

By Jacob H Baxter

It seems these days that more and more alternate universes are being introduced into comic franchises, along with all other types of media. Sometimes they make sense to me. Sometimes they don't. Often it’s very interesting to see how things change.

The first time I was introduced to the concept of alternate universes I remember being immediately fascinated by it. One of my favourite cartoons was G.I. JOE: A Real American Hero. Those were the days. It had more explosions than Michael Bay could ever hope for! I distinctly remember Steeler, Clutch, and Grunt being transported to an alternate universe where Cobra was in charge of the world and what Joes were alive were deemed criminals and enemies of the state. Dreadnok police? Seems like bad comedy here in the real world. But, in that story it made perfect sense. The Baroness and Steeler together? But, she's Destro's girl! Not there! It was an interesting tale to say the least.

By Aaron Nash

This is a review that I should have written a long time ago, as this is the book that got me back into reading Marvel after many years reading Image, Top Cow and 2000 AD publications.  Maybe it was the idea of a strong female character that has flaws and a dark side that appealed to me so much, as the character of X-23 was slightly reminiscent of the lead females in the Top Cow publications Witchblade and Aphrodite IX, which I had been reading at the time. Whatever it was that drew me to the story, I am so happy I gave it a read as none of the magic has diminished over the years.

By Sam Hurcom

Last week, I suggested Marvel had taken something of an easy option in their new found cause of diversifying their character roster. In my mind, whilst having more women in the mainstream Marvel universe is nothing but a good idea, simply introducing female versions of well-established characters was something of a cheap trick. The all new Thor run is no exception. For me, a fairly weak narrative (based on a gender war held between Thor’s Mum and Dad) coupled with the extreme likelihood that the original, male Thor would return on the scene (reducing the new female Thor to little more than a tacky tag-along like She-Hulk or Spider-Woman), makes the series a little gimmicky. In the end, I argued that Marvel would be better advised to invest money and intellect into creating brand new female characters who could fully reflect the struggles and ideals of modern women.

 

About an hour after the article was posted online, I picked up Dan Abnett’s Guardians 3000 #2. Anyone who knows me will be sick of hearing how awesome this comic is – in my mind its only close rival is Skottie Young’s Rocket Racoon (but I’ll laud over how wondrous that series is another day!). For those of you who haven’t read issue two, I apologise in advance as I may spoil a big chunk of what happens.

The series follows the original crop of the Guardians of the Galaxy – Captain Vane Astro, Charlie 27, Starhawk, Martinex and Yondu Udonta. The team rescue and recruit a young human woman Geena Drake who is gifted with a unique power regarding space and time. Geena can recognise shifts in the flow of reality, meaning if time skips forwards or backwards and reality is subsequently altered in some way, Geena (as a ‘temporal singularity’) can recognise the big or small differences.

Time is a massive part of this comic as Dan explained at the recent MCM Comic Con in London. When I asked him whether the story would see the original team return to the 21st Century and meet up with the current Guardians crew (Rocket, Groot et. al) he explained that the narrative itself would literally be premised on the fabric of time ripping apart. Subsequently, time hopping and the breakdown of coherent causality would become ever more prominent, giving rise to plenty of bizarre and exciting consequences.

In issue one, the entire Guardians team including Geena (from whom the narrative is told) are killed. Time shifts backwards and Geena (being aware that she and her companions are reliving their lives only minutes before) acts to prevent their impending deaths. The ramifications of this are made clearer in issue two however, as it turns out the supposed shift in time is actually more like a jump to a parallel universe. Whilst it appears that Geena is reliving her life exactly as it was, she becomes aware of one quite big difference: her once male companion, Starhawk, is now a woman.

So I’m going to be quite hypocritical here. I stand by my underlying argument that I’d much prefer to see a whole new bunch of diverse female Marvel characters with their own original stories, powers, villains etc. But, if you are going to take the easy option of simply switching a characters gender from male to female, this is probably the best way to go about it. Let me explain. 

By Jacob H Baxter

Pumpkinface - Origins was an absolute delight to read. Helmed by writer Graeme Buchan and company, including Antonio Brandao, Jessica Jimerson and Anthony Cuizon, it weaves a twisting tale of fates between the two main characters, Pumpkinface and Bunny.

This comic really hit it out of the park when it comes to storytelling. The back and forth story somewhat reminded me of the shifts in the Quentin Tarantino classic, Pulp Fiction. Its non-linear style sets it apart from most mainstream works. The characters play well off of each other in a manner of priorities. Everyone has an agenda. The strings of each form an interweaving latticework of fictional greatness.

I've always sort of felt like a man out of time. Sure, I love my Xbox. But, the days of yore always seem to call and beckon to me. Most of it is due to my being a history buff and daydreamer. The settings really grabbed my attention. The first setting in 1906 Scotland struck a major chord with me. It was the land of my forefathers before leaving for America. I always feel a connection with these settings. Then it shifts to New York City in 1924. This has always been a particularly fascinating time in history for me. The world was changing at its most accelerated rate. I've always been interested in seeing how characters interacted with the morphing world around them.

Speaking of character interactions, this crew did it well. The dialogue is well written and executed. But, that's not the highlight of the interactions. It has often been said that the greater portion of communication is actually non-verbal. There were many panels in there that did not contain a single word of dialogue. Yet, the actions, facial expressions, and body language said all that needed to be said. They conveyed both the progression of the story and reactions of the characters to a T.

It really warms my heart to see such up and coming comic book crews turn out such work. Sure, the big boys such as DC and Marvel will pretty much always be the big boys. But, this title proves that the little guys (and gals) can produce work that is just as satisfying.

By Emlyn Roberts-Harry

On 31 October this year, Roc Upchurch, the artist and co-creator of Image Comics' Rat Queens, was arrested on charges of domestic violence.

Like many fans of this wonderful comic, I was stunned by the news - but more than that, I felt betrayed. It's irrational, perhaps, but getting emotionally invested in this sort of stuff has always been one of the hallmarks of geek culture, and when the co-creator of a comic that you love turns out to be a wife-beater, it's a pretty crushing blow. It's disheartening for the fans, and it isn't going to do the comic's image any favours either.

By Aaron Nash

I’ve always been massively interested in the character of Lady Death. She has a great dark backstory and some awesome character design, which rivals some of the very best on the market. As such I was really interested in reading her humble beginnings again, and what better way than reading Lady Death: The Reckoning (revised) which contains the first 3 issue series from 1994 as well as the ½ issue and a few other extras.

So what’s it all about?