World Comic Book Review

25th March 2024

Unseen Shadows: The Chimera Factor (Review)

Unseen Shadows: The Chimera Factor Batten Press, 2017 Writer: Richard Clements The writer of this title, Richard Clements, gives us an unmistakable pointer in respect of the concept he harvests. Mr Clements introduces one of the one of the main characters, Major Stephanie Commisbee, as she solves the riddle of opening a secret passage into … Read more

Eclipse #1 (review)

Eclipse #1 (review)
Image Comics/ Top Cow, October 2016
Writer: Zack Kaplan

The premise of a catastrophic solar event has roots in reality. In 1859, a massive solar flare called the Carrington Event caused telegraph poles to burst into flames and covered the Earth in beautiful auroras. Should such an enormous radiation pulse occur in the digital age, the consequences would be disastrous.

Writer Zack Kaplan takes this concept further. In this first issue of “Eclipse”, Mr Kaplan paints us a dire picture of the Sun as a scourge of life. Billions died when the Sun inexplicably brightened, burning all living things. Surviving humans are nocturnal. As the sun rises, police officers in New York’s Time Square assist to round up citizens and get them undercover before the morning sun can strike them down. This planet-changing event is called “the Flare” by the community of survivors, an inaccurate term for an ongoing and unrelenting solar radiation particle cloud.

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Shekhar Kapur’s Devi: Rebirth #1 (review)

Shekhar Kapur’s Devi: Rebirth #1 (review)
(Graphic India, August 2016)
Writer: Ashwin Pande

This title has come back into existence following a crossover event in January 2016 between the title character, a warrior goddess named Devi, and Top Cow Production’s character “Witchblade”. “Witchblade” reached the height of popularity in the late 1990s when comics featuring beautiful, under-dressed superheroines sold stock. This vogue prompted the term “T&A” (“tits and ass”) to describe comic books, such as “Tomb Raider” and the truly awful “Mike Deodato’s Jade Warriors” which sat on the hazy border of soft pornography and comic book entertainment for teenaged boys.

devi

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REVIEW: Symmetry #1

Symmetry #1 (review)
(Image Comics/Top Cow, December 2015)
Writer: Matt Hawkins

This intelligent, compelling comic by writer (and editor) Matt Hawkins has its roots manifestly embedded in “The Time Machine”, a book written by H.G. Wells in 1895 (Heineman).

In “The Time Machine”, the nameless English voyager in his time travelling machine heads into a far future (802701 AD) where humans have evolved into two different species: the golden, beautiful, harmless and thoughtless Eloi, who live above the world’s surface, and the brutish subterranean Morlocks, who tend to machines, perform tasks the purpose of which is long forgotten, and who prey upon the frivolous Eloi. It was and remains a haunting tale which has not dated at all, but it carries a significant social message.

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