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Cell by Cell: ‘Bitch Planet’ #5 (Part 9)

This is it. The beginning of the end. The finale of the episode. Here comes the heartbreak. Keeping the 2-page, symmetrical spread of the game scenes, these two pages kick off a 6-page action scene depicting the end of the scrimmage match between the N.C. team and the A.C.O. guards.

‘Nameless’ #3: we have lift off

Grant Morrison’s cosmic horror miniseries has had a bit of a rocky start. The first two issues left a bit to be desired as they were slow parts building up to a something between Lovecraft and Event Horizon and fortunately it’s finally paying off.

‘Birthright’ #6: on the open road

One of the problems that comes with traditional genre stories “now what?” narratives is that it trying to make it last beyond its simple thought experiment is difficult. Birthright’s story follows the Rhodes family whose lives are thrown into turmoil when the younger son Mickey goes missing in the woods. One year later, Mickey returns but now a fully grown man and an arsenal that would turn Conan green. He claims to have been whisked away to a realm called Terrenos as the prophesied chosen one to end the reign of the nightmarish God King Lore. However, it seems at some point Mickey strode from the true path, now manipulated to serve Lore in the invasion of Earth. With the “older” Rhodes son Brennan traveling with Mickey through the wilderness and the recently divorced Aaron and Wendy in FBI custody, the salvation of Earth must come from the denizens of Terrenos, else Lore may extend his will over all.

Advance Review: ‘The Autumnlands:Tooth & Claw’ #4 is man’s best friend

The expedition into Kurt Busiek’s Autumnlands continues and as expected, it’s a wonderful piece of work. One of Tooth & Claw’s strengths has been its limited exposition. The world the characters inhabit is explained through the story, trusting the audience to fill in the gaps. Aspects, like insectoid beasts of burden and wicker-built cities, come naturally as part of the series’ excellent world building and this issue continues the trend.

‘Wayward’ #5 is an emotional gut punch

Wayward is a comic that covers a wide spectrum of emotions. There are moments of extreme highs and moments of bottomless lows. The main character, Rori, experiences all of these moments, struggling to cope with her newfound situation. Rori has recently moved from her native Ireland to Japan to live with her mother. She enters an unknown land to be with someone that hasn’t really been a major part of her life. Though Rori is half Japanese and can speak the language, she is an outsider.

‘Wytches’ #2 – that rarest of accomplishments in a genre notorious for repetition

The first issue of the massively successful Wytches provides readers with a solid base while leaving us with a cliffhanger and excited for more. This issue finds Sailor trying to cope with the aftermath of her traumatic attack, while her parents attempt to search for answers to what’s happened to their daughter. Wytches #2 doesn’t reveal exactly what crashed through Sailor’s window at the end of the last issue, but it does show us how it effected her mind and body.

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‘Southern Bastards’ #5 a comic book that demands your attention

After the shocking conclusion of the first arc, which consisted of the brutal, animalistic murder of a prominent character, we return to Craw County with a glimpse into the past of Euless “Coach” Boss. We dive into the life of the legendary high school football coach and ringleader of plenty of illegal activities taking place in Craw County. Via flashbacks, readers are provided a window into a few incidents that helped shape Coach into the man he is today, And now that Earl Tubbs is dead, Euless deals with the aftermath of what he’s done.

‘The Fade Out’ #2 demonstrates a mastery of the noir genre

Using the murder of a Hollywood starlet as a catalyst to expose the web of dark secrets that runs through the City of Angels, the award-winning team of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips have put together the most intriguing comic of 2014. Brubaker & Phillips’ new crime noir is just getting started but it is already destined to be a cult classic. Brubaker’s name has been synonymous with the noir genre from the very start of his career, but The Fade Out is different from his books that came before it. Set in the Hollywoodland era of the 1940s, with painstaking attention to historical detail, The Fade Out relishes in classic Hollywood tropes – so much so that every page looks like a storyboard from an Anthony Mann film. The Fade Out is clearly, a labor of love from its creative team who go the extra mile by assembling a series of supplementary content that really helps readers get into the mind set of the time.

‘Genius’ #1- An Interesting Premise, another promising new series from Image

Genius is, at its core, a tale of revenge. A lot of kids grow up around a militarized, hostile police force and get lost in the system, and many of those kids grow up angry and potentially violent. This comic wants to show what would happen if one of those kids happened to be on an intellectual par with Hannibal or Alexander the Great.

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‘Wildfire’ #2 -The Series Has Already Started to Go Downhill

I’m really having trouble buying into this comic. I’ll admit that my own politics on the GMO issue color my views substantially, but even apart from that, this comic is falling into a lot of familiar disaster clichés. The characters in the comic are not interesting at all, and what emerges is a comic in which you flip pages and wait for something bad to happen.

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