Comic Book Candy

(For those joining late, please see the introductory post on Odyssey X, where I explain my attempt to read every X-Men title during X-Men: Schism) Uncanny X-Force #15 Writer: Rick Remender Artist: Jerome Opena Cover Price: $3.99 Uncanny X-Force isn't just the best X-Men titles being released; it's probably one of the best Marvel books period. Remender continues to push the boundaries of the X-Men line by infusing more than a few genres into this super-hero title. At the end of the last issue, Psyloche chose to stay behind in an attempt to save Warren, while her teammates fled from their losing battle to regroup. The Life Seed is being used to alter time itself by creating a new evolutionary path for Earth, one where life's mutation never reached the plateau of mankind. The dreamlike sequences of Archangel and his followers witnessing time and evolution re-form makes one hell of a subject for Opena to draw, and he more than meets the challenge. X-Force feels the lea...

Season 8 puts Buffy through the ringer  Buffy the Vampire Slayer #40 Publisher: Dark Horse Writer: Joss Whedon Artist: Georges Jeanty Warning: This review includes ample SPOILERS. There's no pussyfooting around the ramifications of Season 8. I've just finished BTVS #40, the final issue of the ongoing series of comics dubbed Season 8, and I am pretty bummed to see this story come to an end. Since I am a rather late comer to the Buffy franchise, this is the first time that I have finished anything within the Buffyverse without having something to immediately follow. I didn't have to wait months between seasons, or years between the end of the show and the beginning of the comic. I didn't even have to wait long for the first 30 issues of the comic either; I read those in trade paperback and only recently read the comics issue to issue. A few years ago I would have said that I didn't read the comics because I didn't think they could possibly live up...

Here we are, another year older, wiser, and with lighter pockets. Twenty-ten brought a lot of changes to the industry, and this year will surely be remembered as a turning point. All major publishers are now offering an outlet for digital comics, and the growing popularity of the iPad and other digital tablets is a game changer with results yet to be seen. Many months posted lower direct market sales than last year, proving that no industry is recession proof, and that giant crossover events do help individual issue sales after all. Without Blackest Night to make many DC titles “must reads”, sales have slumped, a theory that I myself support considering I dropped all tie in books upon the crossover’s end. The return of Bruce Wayne hasn’t resulted in any shake-ups either, in stories or sales. (It might’ve helped DC if readers did not see this predictable non-event coming). Despite gimmick after gimmick (the new and vague Heroic Age , enough Deadpool titles to rival the X-books, vampi...