Simply put, everything I dislike in mainstream comics, the reasons why I fell out of comics in the first place, were  all present in this series. 

• Time travel
• Crossovers between other series that are impossible to follow without those issue purchases
• Alternate universes

If Wolverine would have made an appearance, which yes, would have been impossible, I would have thrown my comic reader across the room.

Do I expect the crossover thing? Of course I do. I’m well aware this is how DC and Marvel spur sales and garner new interest in other series for comic fans. However, it would have been nice if the largest and most important arcs weren’t all in other crossover issues. Since I was reading the trades, the other series that contained the rest of the crossover weren’t even listed. If I wanted to purchase these wayward issues, I couldn’t because I had no idea which series they came from, much less which issue numbers contained these stories.

I lost a major section of the Harvest/Culling arc as a result. One minute, they’re gathering intel on the Culling, the next, they’re fighting Harvest at a Culling with a team of Titans from the future. And somewhere in there, one of the Titans just bolted, and I have no idea why as I wasn’t privy to how they got there, how the future Titans appeared, or really anything else.

Same thing happened later when the Titans were constantly jumping the time stream. There were so many references to another Beast Boy centuries in the future who survived the slaughter of the Justice League in one possible timeline, something about oh hai we knew all along Raven was playing us, and don’t mind how Kon El just disappeared after attempting to kill Jon Lane Kent, the spawn of Superman from one future that Kon was cloned from.

You know what? I have a headache after typing that.

No wonder the powers that be at DC ended that comic series and attempted to try again just a few months later. The saddest part about it is that I could have easily overlooked the time travel and alternate futures BS if the crossovers weren’t so poorly implemented. The books started out so great, and if I had all of the story at my disposal, I bet it would have been great throughout.

Here’s hoping this current Teen Titans series isn’t half as painful. Yes, I’m keeping my subscription because I have a problem. That and I adore the artist, Kenneth Rocafort. I’ll read almost anything he draws.

The post The Teen Titans 2011-2014 Comics Are Everything I Loathe About Comics (Yet I Kept Reading) appeared first on CrunchyChocobo.

No, not her family in the traditional sense. She is an orphan after a riot that seems to have created what the City of Glass is now. Her mentor and father figure is a man named Noah, who runs a runner Cabal. The runners are among those who are “off-grid,” meaning they aren’t part of the system in City of Glass, aren’t employed in a legal work force, and therefore live outside the law, which seems to be run by a corporation. Me personally, I’m not sure which side I’d rather be on–the side where I stay out of trouble but I constantly have to follow strict rules and do what I’m told or be on the side where I can go and do whatever as long as it’s not hardcore criminal but always be on the run and kind of hurting for food and money. Both kind of suck, don’t they?

And that’s the wonderful world Faith is in. Noah looks out for her, but as a leader for a Cabal, he has more than just her to think of; he has an entire family of runners. Faith feels that Noah doesn’t trust her or have enough faith in her abilities to let her become a full-fledged runner, so she takes matters into her own hands, like a rebellious young teenager would most certainly do. And as rebellious young teenagers do, she finds herself on the wrong side of the law, doing work for a criminal all in hopes of retrieving a piece of her biological family’s history. She has to make a choice between her living family and the family of her past, and neither choice has delightful consequences.

I started the comic thinking this would be a simple explanation of the City of Glass, who and what runners are, and possibly why Faith ends up in juvenile detention, as she is released upon the start of the Catalyst game. While the comic touched on these a bit, it was really more about learning what family is, especially in this beautiful and cold city. I know this is a bit of a “well duh” moment, but not every family is by blood, and sometimes it takes a trial by fire and faith to figure out who your family really is.

Okay, I totally laid it on thick there. I’m laughing so hard right now, even though what I wrote was true with this particular comic series and yeah, I guess with life too.

I’ve never played the first Mirror’s Edge game, but this comic doesn’t require any previous knowledge. In fact, I might have enjoyed it more without those preconceived notions. If anything, I’m more excited about the upcoming game now, as I didn’t expect it to have so much heart as Exordium certainly suggests.

All six issues are out now with Dark Horse comics.

The post Comics with the CrunchyChocobo: Mirror’s Edge Exordium and Family appeared first on CrunchyChocobo.

I started off with a failure, but then I really picked up speed and was doing so well. And then July hit, and suddenly my motivation has just plummeted to do, well, anything outside of work. I am reading a rather large book that I like, but I can’t pull it together enough to sit down to read it.

And, well, lately I have another distractor that’s taking me away from reading a proper book: comics.

Lots of people on GoodReads count comic books as books they have read, and while I can justify a bit of it for the trade paperback collections, I can’t do the same for single issues. (Otherwise, I’d be tearing through this book challenge.) Right now, thanks to a lovely birthday gift, I am reading all of the back issues of the Mortal Kombat X comic series. 30 issues are available, and I’ve been staying up rather late the last few nights trying to read as much as I can before the eyes get too heavy. I have about 10 more issues to go, and while I’ll probably finish it tonight, I know I’ll dive into a few other trades I picked up instead of the book I’m supposed to be reading.

Of course I’m not serious in insinuating that comic books don’t count as real books. Comic books are definitely real books, but it’s kind of cheating to say that a 32-page comic book counts the same as a 200-page novel. However, I did buy some trades recently, which are close to 200 pages so those can count, right? Don’t you glare at me, GoodReads, and you keep your guilt to yourself.

I’M DOING THE BEST I CAN, DAMMIT.

Oooooh, look at all of the The Flash collections I haven’t read yet…

The post Failing My 2015 Book Challenge Because Comics appeared first on CrunchyChocobo.

And it’s true; for the most part, the new comic series featuring the new Thor (not Thorina or Thoress, she is the new Thor in name, powers, hair color, speech, everything) has been rather good. They did not reveal the identity of the new Thor until now, issue #8, so there has been quite a bit of speculation as to who she could be. Even Odinson (the former Thor) has set out to figure out who it could possibly be, and he has a list of women he believes could be worthy to wield Mjolnir.

I at first, like Odinson, thought it was his mother, Freyja. She was with him on the moon, by Mjolnir, she has blonde hair, and she’s not thrilled about the All-Father returning from gallivanting around the universe and demanding she go back into the kitchen. By all accounts, it makes sense that she is the one to pick up the hammer, as who else could possibly breathe on the moon?

Well, it wasn’t her, which naturally led me to ask two questions:

• Why was this chick on the moon?
• How could she be on the moon?

I have an answer to the latter, I think, but I have no idea why exactly she was there unless she was seeking out Mjolnir.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. In issue #7, the authors led you to believe that SHIELD Agent Rosalind Solomon picked up the hammer. They showed her arriving on the moon, they showed her reciting the worst line in the history of comics, and that includes anything that came out Wolverine’s mouth, and then let the reader connect the dots from there.

It’s this page alone that makes me so happy it is not Roz.

Odinson, however, was not wrong with his list. He did guess the new Thor correctly, but he was led astray as the readers all were, and we were led away quite brilliantly. In fact, Odinson doesn’t learn who Thor is at all thanks to Roz’s intervention. New Thor flies away to her home in Asgardia, takes off her helmet so show that the new Thor is…

Unless you’ve kept up with Thor comics, as I have not, you most likely have no idea why Jane Foster is sick. I wouldn’t have known what was going at all with her if Odinson hadn’t visited her sickbed in Asgardia. She has refused all magical treatment for her breast cancer, and chemo doesn’t seem to be going well. If what she says is true, she really is dying, knows she is dying, but knows she must carry on as Thor.

Thanks to Roz’s horrific line, at least we know how she was able to be on the moon, but I have no idea how she got there or why she was there. But perhaps that is not important.

What is important is that the entire Marvel universe is about to change. In a story arc called Secret Wars, all timelines and dimensions of the Marvel characters will come to an end. Marvel has announced which series will get canceled and which will continue. The female Thor is set on the continuing list. So the fact that Jane Foster is dying makes me wonder if

1. They’re keeping her as dying so they can kill her off if girl-Thor doesn’t go over well with fans; and
2. If fans do embrace her, they can always say Thor’s magic or the magic of the hammer cured her.

All of it is incredibly weak and spineless, but what can I say; that’s kind of what and how comic books do. They always leave themselves an out if things don’t go over well, and it’s usually with killing off a character. Or, if people are mad about that, bring the character back to life. To make me even more irate, they’ll keep the character alive “in a different timeline/dimension.”

Or hey, maybe Jane will just keep dying for years. That’s always a possibility, and it’s not below Marvel’s or any other comic publisher’s standards.

I am keeping my subscription because the comic series is as good as it is perplexing. I am curious what the writers will decide about Jane’s disease, what Odinson will do when (or even if) he finds out, and how Thor will take part in the upcoming all-girl Avengers team, A-Force. Oh yeah, I’ve already subscribed to that too. Most everyone is dying in the Secret Wars except for the women…I guess they are the stronger of the species.

The post Now That We Know Who the New Thor is… appeared first on CrunchyChocobo.