New York Comic Con Preview

NYCC 09 Preview

Going to comic conventions is one of my favorite things. I always have such a fun time there. I like getting to walk around and see all the people dressed up in different costumes and finding cool toys and getting sketches from comic book artists. The New York Comic Con is really big and there is a lot of stuff to do there.

Next week we’ll all be going to the NYCC and I will have my own badge for the first time which is awesome! I’m also getting to spend time at the Del Rey booth and in Artists Alley with Tommy Lee Edwards (1985, The Question, Bullet Points) and the BLVD guys (Bernard Chang, Sean Chen, Trevor Goring and John Paul Leon)

It’s cool just to be able to sit with those guys and hang out, but I’m probably going to try and do some drawings for people too for like a couple dollars or something.

When I know what times I’m going to be there I’ll post them here. If anyone wants to come by and say hello or order a sketch from me I’ll let them know when I’m going to be at the booths. I also want to try and do interviews with comic book people and take a lot of pictures of the con and I’m going to put them here after we’re done.

I’m really excited about this year’s convention and think it’s going to be the best one yet!

http://www.theblvdstudio.com/

http://www.randomhouse.com/delrey/

Green Lantern #37

Green Lantern #37
Written by Geoff Johns and illustrated by Ivan Reis
Published by DC Comics

My dad said that the Geoff Jones said he liked my review in the comments of the blog which made me happy. I'm glad I was going to do this review because now I know he'll probably read this one, too.

The book starts with Green Lantern Hal and the Blue Lantern flying to try and capture Sinestro and bring him back to the Blue Lantern’s home planet. And the Blue Lantern keeps telling Hal that he is going to become the best Blue Lantern and their leader.

Green Lantern gets to the planet where the Red Lanterns have Sinestro and he tries to free Sinestro but the Red Lanterns have a trap. They were all hiding and they pop up and start attack. Atrocitius is telling Green Lantern that he has a lot of rage and one day he is going to attack and kill all his friends. Then one of the girl Red Lanterns wants to kill Jordan and the Red Lanterns are ready to fight but then all of Sinestro’s friends in the Yellow Lanterns come in to battle. This bug looking Yellow Lantern in armor goes to Sinestro and gives him his ring back so he can get all of his powers back.

The Blue Lanterns are on the planet, too. They come to find Green Lantern and tell him that everything is going to be okay. The rest of the book is one huge fight between all of the different lanterns. Red and Yellow Lanterns are fighting. Blue and Green Lanterns are fighting Red Lanterns. Everyone is against the Red Lanterns but they’re still pretty tough.

The Blue Lanterns are very strong but the Red Lanterns are telling them that they don’t have a lot of power on their planet. One of the Red Lanterns is trying to choke Green Lantern and he is telling her that he will try and help her. She starts to believe him and let go and asks for help and then Sinestro kills her with his ring and then tells Green Lantern that he broke another promise.

When the Red Lantern dies the ring flies off and starts looking for someone who will wear it. Green Lantern is really angry that Sinestro killed the girl and he starts fighting him. He’s really mad and because of that the ring thinks he has a lot of rage and goes onto his finger and turns Hal into a Red Lantern.

I liked the art in Green Lantern a lot again. When the Red Lanterns first attack all the red energy around them is shown and it looks really cool. One of my favorite pages what when the Yellow Lanterns come to the planet. I like how it’s one big page of all the guys and it even has little marks to show how hard the one guy is smashing the Red Lantern into the ground. The other cool page was when the Blue Lanterns showed up to help Green Lantern. That was two big pages together and all the energy is around them and everyone is flying away. The last page when Hal turns into the Red Lantern was really good, too. I like how Atrocitus’ face was drawn behind Hal and all of the red flames or lava is around him.

This issue was even better than the last Green Lantern comic. There is a lot more action in this book. Everyone wants to fight the Red Lanterns because they are the meanest group so each group is having a different battle with them. I like how the other Lantern teams showed up and had their own battles, too. I still think it’s funny and a bit weird that there are elephants on a bunch of lantern teams. The Blue Lanterns got one in the other issue and now there is a Yellow Lantern one. I like that there can be any type of creature as a lantern. One thing that bothered me was that even though Hal turned into the Red Lantern you could still see his green ring on the other hand so I don’t know how he could be wearing both. I think the green ring is going to take back over his body and he isn’t going to be bad for long.

My Rating: 10 out of 10

Amazing Spider-Man #583

Amazing Spider-Man #583
‘The Barack Obama Story’
Written by Zeb Wells and illustrated by Todd Nauck
Published by Marvel Comics

I’m doing a short review just about the Barack Obama part. It was a short story in the back of the comic.

Spider-Man is in Washington DC taking pictures of when Obama was going to be president and a car came crashing in and there were two Obamas. No one knew who the real one was because they both looked exactly the same and even dressed the same. One of them had a different tie though. A security guy says that they should ask both people a question only the real Barack Obama would know and they ask what his basketball nickname was. The real one gets the answer right and the other guy makes mistakes. He doesn’t even know how basketball is played.

The fake Obama turns out to be Chameleon. Chameleon wants to become President by taking Obama’s place during the oath but Spider-Man stops him. After Spider-Man saves everyone, the Chameleon is taken away. Barack Obama says ‘thanks partner’ to Spider-Man and then Spider-Man leaves and Obama becomes the President. That wasn’t really important to the story. It’s not like they really know each other or are friends so it didn’t mean anything.

This was a very weird story. It’s crazy that the Chameleon would try to become Obama and he didn’t even know what his college basketball name was supposed to be and then he just tries to escape. It’s kind of weird that Obama was in the comic because he’s the President and he likes Spider-Man. It’d be even weirder if Obama was checking out this website to see the review of his comic.

I did like the story a lot though because I thought it was cool that the President was in it since he is a real person. I like the plan and the part where there were two Obama and how Spider-Man had to come in and save the day. It might be cool if Obama was in the comics some more and got super powers like flying and being really strong but I don’t think he should be in comics all the time. It was a special treat issue. I think it would have been pretty cool if someone dressed in a Spider-Man costume showed up at the inauguration, too, but that didn’t happen.

Rating: Presidential

Final Crisis #6

Final Crisis #6
‘The End of Batman’
Written by Grant Morrison and illustrated by JG Jones, Carlos Pacheco and Doug Mahnke
Published by DC Comics

I haven’t read this book before but I wanted to find out how the Batman story ended up. I didn’t know a lot of the people in the book or a lot about what was going on since I wasn’t reading this book all the time but the parts I did read were really good. I’m just going to review the Batman part of the book but I liked how there were all these huge battles going on like it was the end of the world. There was a lot of fighting between all these different characters.

Batman escaped from a trap in another comic and he was trying to stop the main bad guy in this issue who was Darkseid. Batman found a special gun and a special bullet that was made to kill very strong people who were like gods. Darksied doesn’t care and says that Batman is going to lose.

Batman says that he doesn’t want to use a gun but he’s going to make an exception and shoots Darksied but Darkseid fires lasers at him at the same time. Batman kills Darkseid but the lasers shoot Batman in the head and the chest and then the book switches to Superman. Superman is flying around going crazy. He’s really mad about everything that’s happened and how all the super people are fighting on Earth and he’s using his heat vision and powers to destroy buildings and stop the bad guys.

On the last page Superman is holding Batman’s dead body. He was all burnt up.

I thought it was pretty cool that a big character like this was killed. He’s Batman. I didn’t think they would actually kill him. It’s weird that they actually did it. I think it’s cool that it was a different villain that killed him since none of Batman’s other bad guys were ever able to do it. It just shows how tough Darkseid really is.

I think it’s okay that Batman used a gun to kill Darkseid even though he promised not to use guns because Darkseid was going to kill everyone on Earth. Batman had a good reason for breaking his promise and he did it to save the planet so he should be forgiven. It was a pretty cool issue and the art was really nice but I wish that Batman was in it more.

I liked the picture of all the other Batman people in the ad in the back of the book for ‘I am Batman’. There’s no way Two-Face or Harley Quinn is going to be Batman. I think Nightwing is going to take over since he’s oldest and has the most experience.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

The Punisher #1

The Punisher #1
Written by Rick Remender and illustrated by Jerome Opena
Published by Marvel Comics

This comic starts with the Punisher wanting to kill Norman Osborn. Osborn was the hero of the Skrull war and everyone thinks that he is an okay guy now and now Osborn is trying to make his own team of heroes that is going to do whatever he says. Osborn is giving a speech and the Punisher is very far away and he has a special gun that can fire a bullet for miles. The Punisher shoots the gun and it looks like Osborn is going to get shot right in the head but the Sentry shows up and grabs the bullet and then tries to arrest the Punisher.

The Punisher escapes by jumping off the building and the Sentry chases him but the Punisher has traps set up all over the building. He sets a bomb and it blows up but it doesn’t even hurt the Sentry. The Sentry grabs the Punisher and starts flying away with him and then the Punisher puts his gun to his faces and starts shooting but the bullets don’t bother him. The Sentry drops him and the Punisher falls pretty far and gets hurt a little but he makes acid fall on his head.

The Punisher tells the Sentry that he has a bomb in another building far away and he’s going to make it explode unless the Sentry goes and stops it so the Sentry flies away really fast and finds out that there is no bomb in the building. Punisher was lying to get away and disappears when the Sentry gets back.

When the Sentry comes back from the other building the Punisher is trying to escape and gets to his truck to look for a way to escape and find more weapons or something. When he’s in his truck some guy shows up on a TV screen and tells Punisher that he still needs to get out because he’s not out of the woods yet. Punisher runs out of the truck and runs for the subway like the guy tells him and the Sentry finds the Punisher’s truck and tears it apart. Punisher sneaks onto a subway and Sentry can’t find him and when he gets out of the subway he is so tired from his fight and all the running around that he just falls down and passes out.

I like the way the artist draws a lot of the stuff in the book. I like in the beginning how the bullet is shooting and how the gun and the bullet is drawn when it is fired. I also like the whole part when the Punisher is first trying to get away from the Sentry. I like how it kind of shows the speed of how he’s getting away when he jumps off the building and first starts getting ready to fight the Sentry.

I think it’s pretty cool that the Punisher was able to fight someone who is strong like Superman and not get killed. He has a lot of guns and bombs and different weapons but none of them work against someone with the Sentry’s powers so he just has to be smart and trick him and try and escape. I don’t know why the Sentry would be helping Norman Osborn, either. That seems kind of weird. It’s one of the first Punisher comics I read and it was pretty good so I’ll try and read some more of them when they come out.

My Rating: 9 out of 10

Green Lantern #36

Green Lantern #36
Written by Geoff Johns and illustrated by Ivan Reis
Published by DC Comics

This comic starts with the Yellow Lantern Sinestro and he is captured by the Red Lanterns. Sinestro is saying that nothing scares him even when all the Red Lanterns are trying to kill him and saying that they are going to eat him. Sinestro says that he controls all of fear and won’t be worried about anything but the Red Lantern leader Atrocitus says that he controls rage and rage will beat all the other lights.

The Blue Lantern shows up and then the big pink Green Lantern doesn’t trust the new blue one and starts blasting at it with his ring. The big Green Lantern thinks that the Blue Lantern is just another bad guy like the Yellow and Red Lanterns but the Blue Lantern tells him to calm down. The Blue Lantern is really just nice. He is talking about peace and hope and wanting everyone to be happy.

The Blue Lantern takes Hal Green Lantern to the home base of the Blue Lanterns which is a really nice planet that has water, flowers and trees and gentle birds and things like that which make it the nicest planet to visit. Hal sees some small little blue guys who are in charge of the Blue Lanterns. They used to be in charge of the Green Lanterns but left and started their own team. I like when they brought this elephant looking creature and started giving him powers. They chose him to be the next Blue Lantern and they say how ‘Hope is the most powerful of light’. The blue small guys tell the Hal Lantern that they want him to go on a mission and find and rescue Sinestro because they say that he is going to be very important to things that are going to happen in the future.

Then there is a part on another planet where a girl is turning into a Purple Lantern and she wants to go after one of the other Green Lanterns. The Blue Lanterns are flying around in space and the Elephant Lantern is kinda funny because he looks so chubby when he is floating around. They find out that a sun is going to explode and kill all these people on the planet near them. The Hal Lantern wants to go rescue all of the people but the Blue Lanterns don’t need to do that. They are so strong that they make the sun better and turn it into a new blue sun in just a few seconds and they don’t even get tired when they do it.

Hal Lantern is impressed with how the Blue Lanterns fixed everything and then they tell him that he is going to have to give up his green ring and become the leader of the Blue Lanterns. Then it goes back to the Red Lantern base and Atrocitus tells Sinestro that he is going to be scared because the Red Lanterns found Sinestro’s daughter.

I liked that there were a lot of different colored lanterns. My favorite of the new Lanterns are the red ones because they’re really tough and red is my second favorite color. My favorite ones are still the Green Lanterns because I know them the best. I liked how the artist drew a lot of different people captured and strapped to the big Red Lantern sign on their base planet.

I like how the artist drew all the different kinds of Lanterns. It was cool that every time the Red Lanterns were doing something there was blood all around. I liked that effect. They looked really good even if there wasn’t a lot of fighting between the different groups. I think there is going to be a big fight with all of the different color groups since that’s what Atrocitus keeps telling Sinestro and the Blue Lanterns were saying that something is going to happen, too. I thought it was pretty cool at the end how they showed all of the Red Lanterns tearing apart and eating one of the Yellow Lanterns that they captured. I think that there is going to be a lot of action in the new books.

My Rating: 9.5 out of 10

Amazing Spider-Man #582

www.xtranormal.com

Atomic Robo #5

Atomic Robo #5 (of 5)
Written by Brian Clevinger and illustrated by Scott Wegener and James Nguyen
Published by Red 5 Comics

The book starts off with the good soldiers going across the beach to fight the Nazis and their boats are attacked. Robo and the army tries to get up the beach to fight the bad guys but it’s a trap and most of the good soldiers are killed and Robo gets captured. I like how when Robo was climbing up the beach the bullets kept bouncing off him.

I thought it was funny and cool when the Nazis used Robo as a battery to power up their big weapon. And then Robo thought that the main bad guy was being stupid because he said it was going to be a weather weapon and that would never work. I like when the good soldier came in and saved Robo and everyone was asking how he got through the guards and it showed that he basically killed all of the Nazi guards to save Robo. He talked really funny. I couldn’t understand what he was saying and Robo didn’t know what he was saying either. There were a lot of funny bits with Robo saying he thought the soldier was making up words that didn’t even exist.

I like how the guy pulls Robo out of the machine and Robo freaks out because his legs are missing. He was only attached to the machine from his stomach up and he’s screaming about his legs and the soldier is like, ‘we’ll get your baby legs’ and they try to escape the base together.

He grabbed Robo and had to carry him everywhere and he’s shooting his way out to get away until he runs out of ammo. Then someone drops a big crate that had Robo’s legs in them so the soldier grabs those and throws them into the plane with them so they can get away from everyone.

Robo is trying to hold onto the bottom of the plane and fight one of the Nazi’s who just put a bomb on the bottom of it. Robo gets rid of the bomb but he ends up falling off of the plane into the ocean. The Nazis are looking around and find all this dynamite in their base and are all upset and then the whole place just blows up.

Robo had to walk in the bottom of the ocean with his legs to get back to the country but his friend was sitting there relaxing because he was able to take the plane there. Now they just want to relax.

The other story was real short. It takes place a long time after the war and Robo is meeting with the main bad guy again. The bad guy has cancer and is going to die and says that he killed one of Robo’s friends and wants Robo to kill him. Robo picked up the gun and was ready to shoot him but said that the guy deserved to die alone and not like a soldier. I like how Robo was wearing a suit in that part of the book. He looked a little bit different but maybe it was because he was older or there was a different artist.

I liked this book a lot. It’s cool to see Robo fighting with the other soldiers in the war and there are always some funny parts, too, especially with his missing legs in this issue and how the good soldier who helped him talked so strange that no one could understand him. I hope that there are more Robo comics coming out.

My Rating: 9 out of 10

Ultimatum #2

Ultimatum #2 (of 5)
Written by Jeph Loeb and illustrated by David Finch
Published by Marvel Comics

I liked how in the beginning Spider-Man is pulling the car up off of the guy and he’s getting yelled at. There was a huge flood in New York and a lot of people got hurt and killed and Spider-Man is trying to save as many people as he can. I thought all of the giant heroes that were saving everyone in the city was cool and I like how the Hulk came and was like, ‘Hulk help Spider-Man’ and Spider-Man is like, ‘oh boy’.

In the next part Iron Man helped bring Captain America to the Shield base because he was hurt real bad and the girl was giving them a hard time about coming to the base. Iron Man told her that they needed to save Captain America’s life so a bunch of doctors are trying to help him but it’s not working.

The next part that I really liked was with Hawkeye climbing up Yellowjacket because Yellowjacket was ignoring him while they were trying to help people out. Yellowjacket gets mad and picks him off his leg like he’s a bug and threatens to squash him in his hand but Hawkeye says they have to help save the Wasp together.

It was a really cool scene when Thor went to the Statue of Liberty and saw his friend killed. I like how everything looked in those pictures with Thor riding the winged horse and the Statue ripped apart from all of the damage. And I like how they was a girl called Hela who was in charge of all the demons made a deal with Thor to fight them. Thor needed to win the fight to save his girlfriend and he was up against hundreds of zombie creatures. It was just Thor with his girlfriend’s sword battling all of these zombie skeletons and then for some reason Captain America was fighting, too, helping out. Thor didn’t know why he was there and Captain America didn’t know either.

Hawkeye said that he found something and Giant Man put him down and Hawkeye was running around in the streets and found Wasp but she was getting eaten by the Blob who said ‘tastes like chicken’. That was a real gross part the way it was drawn. Blob had a very creepy face and eyes.

At the end of the book Professor X gets a visit from Magneto and they start arguing about who is going to be in charge of the world. Magneto wants to punish the humans and Professor X is nicer to them and wants to help. He doesn’t like how Magneto is causing the tidal waves and causing all the destruction so Magneto breaks his neck so that X won’t be able to stop him.

I liked the art in this book a lot. I like how he did the actions scenes especially. There’s a part where Captain America’s shield is breaking the bones of the zombie army and it looked like the shield was really moving. I like the picture of the Hulk and Spider-Man in the beginning too. The Hulk looked really huge holding up the car over Spider-Man and you could see all the broken windows and stuff in the buildings behind them. He draws the destroyed city real good, too. I liked the two pages where the Giant Men were helping out around the city and there is all the destruction on the ground and helicopters and stuff in the air. There was a lot of detail in those drawings.

This was a fun book with a lot of action in it. I got a little confused with some parts since it’s a different type of world than the other Marvel books but I figured it out. I was surprised that they actually killed a bunch of people like Wasp and Professor X. I thought it’s funny how the Wasp is dying in every comic she’s in. She’s probably the worst hero since she can’t ever beat anyone.

My Rating: 9.5 out of 10

New Avengers #48

Happy New Year!

New Avengers #48
Written by Brian Michael Bendis and illustrated by Billy Tan
Published by Marvel Comics

This story starts right after the Skrull war is ending. Everyone is still mad at Iron Man and Spider Woman and then it goes to Spider-Man stalking Wolverine on the streets of New York. The Avengers are in Captain America’s house basically hiding out after the war with the Skrulls. Spider-Man is being silly and he keeps asking if there is a TV around.

I like how the real Spider-Woman came to the base and all of the other heroes were mad because the Skrull Queen impersonated her during the war and they don’t trust her. Then Captain America shows up. He’s the new guy with the cooler costume. He’s telling everyone that they are Captain America’s Avengers and that his house is going to be their new base and anyone who wants to live with him is allowed to. Then Luke Cage and his wife show up and tell everyone about the Skrull Jarvis that kidnapped their baby. No one knows why the Skrull would take the baby or whether its hurt or not but Cage makes them promise to help them.

I thought it was pretty cool how the Avengers went to the Fantastic Four for help and Mrs. Fantastic said that they were all tired after the battle but when she found out the baby was taken she told everyone in the house to wake up because it was important to help. The Avengers wanted Mr. Fantastic’s weapon that could figure out who were Skrulls and who were regular people so they could track down Skrulls and find the Jarvis one.

I like when the Avengers went into one of the bad guy’s base and Iron Fist punched the guy right in the mouth. The picture that the artist drew was really good there. I liked how they kept battling all of the villains that they could find and Wolverine really beat down Electro. It looked like Electro was dead because he was beat up so hard.

I like when they went to the bar where all the Shield agents were drinking after being fired by Norman Osborn and Wolverine knew that one of them was a Skrull in hiding. The Skrull tried to run and Luke Cage was really angry and punched her through the wall of the bar and then all the Avengers started chasing her on the outside. Luke Cage’s wife beat her up pretty bad and captured her. They wanted this Skrull because they thought she would be able to help them find the Skrull Jarvis but one of the stupid Shield guys shot her dead and Cage’s wife started crying because they had no way of finding Jarvis now.

I liked how in the end Cage was talking to a mysterious person and he was getting ready to make a deal with that person to help find his baby. I guessed who the mystery person was right away and was happy to find out I was right, but I think Cage made a dumb move by making the deal.

I thought the art was really well done. My favorite page was the one with all of the new Avengers team standing on the roof together. I also liked one of the pages where it showed all of the Shield agents in the bar. I thought the artist did a good job of putting in the details like the agents, the servers, bottles on the table and the TV and all of the other things in the bar. It wasn’t an action picture but it looked really good because there was so much going on in just the one picture.

I also think the deal that was made in the end was bad. Cage wants to help his baby girl, but I think that making a deal with that person is going to turn out really bad for him and things are going to get worse. I do like the new team and I’m glad that Spider-Man and Wolverine are still on it and that Captain America is on it, too.

My Rating: 9.5 out 10