World Comic Book Review

25th March 2024

Yoga Joe #1 (Review)

Yoga Joe #1 Writers: Dan Abramson and Chris Mead Brogamats LLC, 2017 Yoga Joe is an independent publication written by Dan Abrahamson and Chris Mead. The comic can be purchased at www.yogajoes.com. This is a strange website. It not only offers the comic, but also offers green plastic toy soldiers. Instead of firing guns or … Read more

He-Man/Thundercats #2 (review)

He-Man/Thundercats #2 (review)
DC Comics, November, 2016
Writers: Peter J. Tomasi, Patrick Gleason

Our review of “He-Man/Thundercats” #1 was less than favourable due to what we felt was a needlessly complex premise: characters from the two Saturday morning children’s cartoon, “He-Man and Masters of the Universe” and “Thundercats”, smashing against each other, to puzzlingly enable a cadre of ancient omnipotent evil beings to steal He-Man’s sword of power, and then use the sword to defeat the Thundercats. We were of what we regard as the simple and reasonable view that godlike beings with the power and audacity to mess with multiple realities do not need He-Man’s magic sword to achieve what they want. In other words, the plot was silly.

Fortunately, the second issue of this crossover miniseries has relegated that roundabout plot to the background, focusing more on the story’s primary villain, named Skeletor. This character is the primary antagonist of the “He-Man” franchise, portrayed as a heavily muscular, hooded figure but with the face of a skull (the skull visage giving rise to the otherwise contradictory but ominous name).

Read more

Micronauts #1 (Review)

Micronauts #1
IDW Publishing, April 2016
Writer: Cullen Bunn
Review by DG Stewart, May 18, 2016

Comics published in support of a line of figurines are often shaky texts. The writer of such a title can at best hope to impart a monochrome backstory and characterisation to the moulded plastic toys: a solid plot to accompany this artistically bleak mission is a rarity.

Read more

Deviating from Quality

Transformers: Deviations
IDW Publishing, 16 March 2016
Writer: Brandon Easton
Review by Neil Raymundo, 17 March 2016

Transformers: Deviations is a one-shot published by American comics publisher IDW Publishing as part of its March 2016 “Deviations” event, where the publisher takes existing titles and crafts standalone stories featuring alternate realities, either as a result of one aspect of the franchise being changed (such as gender-swapping a main character) or an important event happening differently. This is what IDW Publishing has done with its title, “Transformers: Deviations”.

Read more