Comics

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Ten #23

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Ten #23The endless grind of fighting back monsters from other dimensions begins to wear on everyone, especially now that Willow is working with the military (a situation Buffy continues to have problems with). Relying more and more on the Magic Council to fight these battles, Buffy is convinced to adding to their power using the Vampyr tome (likely foreshadowing all new kinds of trouble for the Slayer and her friends down the line).

The other major piece of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Ten #23 deals with Andrew and the recent hauntings of ghost Jonathan. Approached by the Sculptor, who plays on the young man’s guilt, Jonathan is offered a trade: steal Buffy’s Scythe in exchange for the demon crafting Jonathan a new living body. Strongly tempted by the offer, Andrew continues to grow as a character refusing to make new mistakes to make up for his old ones.

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Secret Six #10

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Secret Six #10After Zatanna recaps the events of the arc so far, “House of Strangers” concludes with the Secret Six taking on Superman to fight for the right to destroy the world in order to save the life of Black Alice. But if the world ends how will Black Alice be safe? Hey, we never said these guys were smart. Loyal, sure. But not smart.

Gail Simone has to think outside of the box to find a way for the half-dozen rogues to stand toe-to-toe with the Man of Steel and come out on top. Not bad for a band of misfits thrown together by chance. That said, the comic ends on an anti-climactic note as the decision of friend vs. world is taken out of their hands and the story simply peters out.

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Batgirl #47

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Batgirl #47While fun, Batgirl #47 is a jumbled mess. Offering us an team-up between Batgirl, Spoiler, and Bluebird the latest issue sends Babs and Stephanie into the GCPD disguised as cops in an undercover mission so ridiculous it would have made Charlie’s Angels blush. The girls’ night out vibe is cute, but Barbara’s plan (breaking into a police station where nearly everyone knows her by sight) is half-assed at best.

It also doesn’t help that the art from the issue is a scatterbrained as the story with two different artists sharing duties. The very talkie issue also takes far to long to get to the break-in as we’re forced to wait through Babs dealing with the bizarre New 52 version of her father (seriously DC, WTF did you do to Commissioner Gordon?) and roommate issues.

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Astro City #31

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Astro City #31With the help of guest-artist Jesus Merino, with Astro City #31 writer Kurt Busiek offers up a story from the perspective of a monster who, it turns out, isn’t all that monstrous. Told from the perspective of the Living Nightmare, a nightmarish creature that feeds on the fear of others, who escapes captivity not to wreak havoc but to do some serious soul searching, the story is one of introspection about what the creature is and who it wants to become.

Frankenstein Monster stories are hardly new, but in this day and age taking the time to explore the empathy of the creature rather than let it wreak wanton destruction down on innocents is something unexpected, anywhere but Astro City that is.

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Usagi Yojimbo #151

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Usagi Yojimbo #151In another single-issue tale, Usagi Yojimbo #151 opens with the rabbit ronin stumbling upon a valley of death where a ruined procession, and the broken bodies of both its samurai escort and the attacking bandits all line the forest floor. In the middle of the carnage Miyamoto Usagi finds only a single survivor, the daughter of the sake brewer in Maru Town who is the promised bride to the son of a brewer in the town of Tansu in two days time.

With only two days before her scheduled wedding, and on the eve of a tempestuous storm about to erupt, Usagi volunteers to accompany Haruko to Tansu when the pair are attacked again on the road by Koroshi, the League of Assassins.

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