Wednesday, October 22, 2008

So Many Comics

Hi, I'm Eamon, and I've started this blog to attempt to review every comic/trade paperback/graphic novel I own or have read. These are all my opinions, and I can be fickle, so try not to take everything TOO seriously.

I recently Attended the Baltimore Comic con, and bought a lot of comics there, so I thought i would start with that bunch. For my first review, i chose the Batman trade "Batman:Anarky"
I first discovered the Anarky character way back when, during the knightfall epic. He tries to stop batman and the scarecrow at once, and fails, not the greatest arc for him, but i thought he looked awesome. Lots of time went by, and then i saw this here trade at the Baltimore Con and grabbed it up. Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle are the most prevalent writer/penciller team in the book. In fact Alan Grant wrote the whole book. John Paul Leon did the pencils for a nice two parter, and Stewart Johnson did a nice short. I've always been a big fan of Norm Breyfogle since a german friend of mine gave me a German copy of The Last Arkham. I can't read German, so I would have to focus on the art, and the way Mr. Breyfogle handled the his pages and figures were really effective and stunning to me. John Paul Leon had me drooling over his work ever since i got a copy of the new adventures of cyclops and phoenix. Great stuff. So this is a great looking book, from start to finish.
As for the stories herein, I was impressed. It kept me reading, i never really got bored. Some things were a little silly, like Anarky's machine that enables him to become a genius just by wearing it 8 hours a day, merging the two hemispheres of his brain. But this is a superhero book, so that's ok. My favorite section has to be the final chapters, which brings some of my favorite characters besides Batman into confrontation with Anarky. Namely, Etrigan the Demon(and his human counterpart Jason Blood), and Darkseid ( go Kirby characters!). There is also a little cameo by Scarface. It's cool to see Anarky outwit The Demon, and even Darkseid himself.
So if you like the duo of Grant and Breyfogle, and superhero stories that aren't the norm, but have that familiar flavor, pick this one up. It's great!

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