Ian Gowan Comic Reviews

This comic is a perfect time to get on board to the Dark Horse superhero universe. Writer Fred Van Lente gives you just enough information on Captain Midnight and Brain Boy where you won't be lost or get bored. Artist Michael Broussard's will rope you in and leave you wanting more of his horror inspired illustration. There's even a really well made supporting web comic at http://www.projectblacksky.net/ to give you more backstory on how Project Black Sky got started in the first place. This issue is the best of the bunch in the Free Comic book day offerings.

Anytime I laugh out loud while reading a comic book, then it's worth my time. The story is by both Ulises Farinas and Erik Freitas. The story can a bit sporadic, and not easy to follow. The silliness of it all may contribute to its lack of a smooth story flow. There were a few too many inside jokes and pop culture references for me to catch. Don't let the cartoon-ish look of the book fool you, this one is for older teens and adults. All in all, this is a very fun one-shot that is certainly worth your time. I'd buy the next issue, if and when, since this is a one-shot, another full issue comes out. These former DHP stories now as one-shots, tend to be the best comics shaking out of those anthologies.

A King Conan comic by Truman and Giorello is really like your favorite rock band playing one of their classic tunes live. Theyre giving the fans what they want, and seem more than happy to oblige. This is the third King Conan series from the duo at Dark Horse Comics. Truman also has written twenty-five issues of Conan the Cimmerian, with Giorello on art duties for most of those issues. This comic book team is very confident with what theyre doing on the Conan property and it shows on the comic book page.

The art is very different than what you'll find in most any other comic books. It's a blend of gritty Manga style with european sensibilities. The way the art makes you feel extremely small in a much larger alien landscape is difficult to do on a small comic book page. The simple coloring is used for setting moods and always moving along the story. Coloring in comic books can often be over rendered for the sake of adding more to the page. Following the story in Prophet can be a bit challenging at times. But that's part of the fun with this and a lot of sci-fi stories. This comic book is sci-fi at it's best and weirdest. It deserves to be on the shelves right along side the other great sci-fi comics of its time.

This comic has me wanting to read the previous issue and then coming back for more in the next issue of X-O. Also this is the second issue in a new story arc that will be leading up to the November release of the new Valiant team book called Unity. X-O will be a focus of Unity, as a team will be assembled on Earth to confront him. Unity also seems compelling as being the first team book from this new Valiant universe. This issue along with the previous issue is a decent jumping on point. It's a good place to start if you're interested in X-O Manowar and the new direction he's going within the Valiant universe.