Comics

Noir Burlesque #1

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Enrico Marini’s Noir Burlesque #1 begins a noir tale set around a local mob boss, a returning solider turned professional thug with a debt to pay, and the beautiful dancer who will come between them. Marini’s first issue gets the tone of the genre with Slick being a bit too rough for his own good getting into trouble with Rex and his former love Caprice who is now married to the mob boss he owes money to.

Noir Burlesque has the feel of a story which won’t turn out well for any of our characters. The muted art with splashes of color captures the feel of 50s noir while the story unfolds leading to a confrontation between Slick and Rex and an impossible task to clear our protagonist’s ledger.

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #124

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Christmas comes for the Turtles in the form of a silent issue without narration or dialogue. Playing on recent events, we see various members of the Splinter Clan searching in vain for the missing weasels . The first Christmas without Splinter is also felt by the brothers who still don’t know about the new face hiding in the shadows as Oroku Saki finds Old Hob and the weasels, and lets the Turtles know through and anonymous message that they are safe finally allowing for a low-key Christmas.

Without the need for dialogue, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #124 hits on several of the themes of the current arc offering a melancholy Christmas for all concerned, but one at least where the Turtles know the weasels are safe. Saki continues to help where he can as we wait for the former nemesis to eventually reveal himself. 

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Red Sonja: Black, White, Red #5

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Three more tales of Red Sonja are captured here by various writers and artists. Each story from Red Sonja: Black, White, Red #5 has a common theme of Sonja being either the hunter or the hunted.

My favorite of the three tales, in “The Hunted” Baron Raaf has hired an assortment of mercenaries to hunt Red Sonja but the She-Devil with a Sword dispatches them one by one before going after the man who sent them.

Red Sonja hunts a witch and fights werewolves on the side of a mountain in “The Chill Touch of Sorcery!” And Sonja meets a new challenger in the brash “Erik the Black: He-Demon with an Axe” who walks into a tavern boasting of his greatness to Sonja but never walks out.

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The Amazing Spider-Man #81

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Despite what the cover suggests, this isn’t a Spider-Man vs. Spider-Man comic although it does feature the first meeting of Ben Reilly and Miles Morales (at least with both of them wearing Spidey costumes) who the Beyond Corporation wants their corporate hero’s help in stopping him from using the name Spider-Man.

The bad guy of the issue (if you don’t count the evil corporate types of Beyond while foreshadowing the inevitable turn of Maxine Danger as a super-villain) is the utterly forgettable Rhizome who the two Spider-Men team-up to stop. Seriously? It took two of them to stop what looks like a drunken mistake by Poison Ivy? Anywho, Maxine isn’t pleased with Ben for not pushing the copyright issue with the other Spider-Man, although she may have other more pressing concerns involving Doctor Octopus.

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The Batman & Scooby-Doo Mysteries #9

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The recently salvaged pirate ship of Captain Black Jack Paddywhack which was shipwrecked in 1764 along with a treasure map to the pirate’s stash of gold brings out Mystery, Inc., various treasure hunters, and the Riddler. Oh, the ghost of Black Jack Paddywhack shows up as well to scare off all but the most determined of the treasure hunters, forcing Scooby and the gang to team with the villain to try and find the treasure and solve the mystery by deciphering a list of clues and riddles.

Batman only makes a cameo at the end to take the Riddler into custody, while leaving Scooby and the gang working with the super-villain for most of the issue in an unexpected twist. Daphne is able to discover the source of the ghost while Velma uncovers the trick the Riddler has played on them all, but in the end it takes all of them to find the treasure.

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The Batman & Scooby-Doo Mysteries #9 Read More »