EYG Favorite Comic Covers of the Week

Posted on by

Week of September 23

It’s NEW COMIC BOOK DAY so it is time for the comic covers of the week!

Where as last week, I mentioned that I did not think it was the best week ever for cover art. There was nothing terrible, mind you, but nothing really knocked my socks off. Well, this week was significantly stronger as I had to choose from a possible list of seven books.

Here we go….

Bronze Medalist

Sherlock Holmes: The Dark Detective #1

Cover art by Dave Elsey

I am a fan of Sherlock Holmes and this cover gives us a new look at the iconic gentleman detective. The chair, the background, the newspaper. Everything is so interesting that it works for Sherlock.

Silver Medalist

Hello Darkness #3

Cover art by Paolo Rivera

Talk about a compelling cover. What could this possibly be showing? The lovely naked woman with the blood running down her arm and the title carefully covering anything inappropriate.

Gold Medalist

Spider-Man: Black Suit & Blood #2

Cover art by Mitsuhiro Arita

This actually came out last week, but I got the A cover. Todd insisted that this was a beautiful cover and he is 100% right. This is a beautiful piece of art and it deserves this spot on the list.

Bonus Action Vol. 2 E4

Posted on by

Spoilers

“Mercy in the Mist”

What a wild adventure in Wild Country, plus some exceptional emotional acting from a clearly talented actor as Amanda brings the power to her backstory. Legit tough to watch as Bar’B recollects the flashback from earlier this season.

And the Mistwalker… shenanigans at a special level!

I was worried when Rory threw himself on that bomb… seems as if it did not even slow him down.

Only Murders in the Building S4 E5

Posted on by

Spoilers

“Adaptation”

I love and hate the ending of this week’s Only Murders in the Building at the same time.

What a great episode that ended with a horrendous cliffhanger, a gunshot echoing through the photo shoot.

I literally said out loud, “You can’t end there” as the screen went to black.

Charles was seemingly putting together a big time theory that the Brother Sisters, the movie’s directors, were the ones who shot Sazz, one of them as the shooter in the apartment and one to clean up the mess and dispose of the body. When the timeline of the murder night was seemingly thrown off by a limited amount of time, Charles was down about his “brain no longer thumping” as was written in the script of the movie. However, he did come up with the idea of the two. The Brother Sisters also had a boot mark similar to the one left in the apartment by the apparent shooter.

Clearly, as we have several episodes to go, this is not the final theory to come out, but everything sure feels like it fits together. Sazz supposedly had called about a mysterious trouble with the movie just before she was murdered.

By the way, the cameo of John McEnroe was hilarious, if not really weird.

We are introduced to Marshall, one of the writers of the movie script, who seems very excited to be a suspect by the trio. He may seem suss, but I just do not think he is anything more than a red herring.

I am not a fan of the side story of Oliver’s concerns over Loretta’s new co-star, This feels like a distraction from the best parts of the story (much like the heart attack to Oliver last season, which turned out to be nothing). Oliver does get a ton of funny lines from this, but it just feels too sitcommy.

I look forward to this show every week as it has been one of my favorites this year.

Thunderbolts* teaser trailer

Posted on by

Marvel Studios dropped the first teaser trailer for Thunderbolts* featuring an awesome cast with Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell, David Harbour, Hannah John-Kamen, Geraldine Viswanathan, Lewis Pullman and Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

There is a lot of mysteries in this trailer… especially with that strange asterisk in the title.

This is a nice teaser trailer and I am very curious about what is going on here.

Bates Motel S4 E5

Posted on by

Spoilers

“Refraction”

Sometimes this show catches me off-guard. Chick followed Norma for awhile, and wound up coming to see her, offering to fix the stained-glass window that was broken during the break in. It was very stalker-like, but during the episode, Chick almost had me convinced that he was going to turn over a new leaf and just fix the stained glass and redeem himself for his past sins.

Nope. At the end of the episode, he comes to Norma and tells her the truth. That he wants to find her brother Caleb. When they were speaking before, Norma called Caleb her brother and Chick was able to piece it together since Caleb had introduced himself to Chick originally as Dylan’s father. Chick took this info and tried to play on Norma’s uncertainty, her deep seeded pain over what had happened to her. He was manipulating Norma and suddenly the good tidings that he had earned in this episode went right out the broken stained-glass window.

I really felt for Norma in that moment. Its as if she can never fully catch a break. She has just started to connect with Romero, so much so that she even asked him if he had killed Bob Paris. His response was that he had no choice, but you could see the truth in his face. He killed him because Bob was a danger to Norma. It was to protect her that Romero had no choice. Norma could see that. I say this every episode write-up but I loved Romero and Norma as a couple which makes what I know is coming up later this season all the worse.

Dr. Edwards met Norman’s Mother personality as Norman blacked out during a session. Edwards had pushed Norman about an imagined meeting Norman had with Norma at the mental institution which happened in Norman’s head and Norman flipped out. Freddie Highmore does a great job switching into Mother. The way he moves, the glint in his eyes, the tilt of a head. Highmore is exceptional in playing the role.

There was a sweet scene between Dylan and Emma where Emma showed Dylan her scar. She was embarrassed by it, but she wanted to get past it. Dylan handled it wonderfully, showing Emma the scars across his body from gunshots and other moments from the drug running career he had been involved in. Another fun moment was when Dylan interviewed for a real, honest job and told the interviewer the truth about his past in the drug trade. Amazingly, it seems as if the truth may have worked out for him.

We have gone past the halfway point in season four and I am not thinking that Chick is long for this world.

Battlestar Galactica S2 E17

Posted on by

Spoilers

“The Captain’s Hand”

We’re back with more trouble aboard the Pegasus. Some of their Viper pilots disappeared and this led to conflict for Commander Garner and Starbuck, as well as Lee who arrived from Galactica as aid.

It seems like everyone on Pegasus has been hard-headed and stubborn, and Garner fell right into that category. Of course, Starbuck was not trying to keep out of trouble either.

It was clear that things were not going to go well for Garner as it seemed like every decision he made went against our main characters and that never is a way to ingratiate them into the good graces of the audience. Garner winds up dead at the end of the episode, showing that is the case.

Lee is appointed as new Commander of Pegasus by his father and that can only be a positive, right?

Lee and Anastasia Dualla’s relationship still feels quite forced to me. They kicked off the episode in bed together and I just am not sure where this entire relationship came from, outside of the last few episodes.

There was an abortion side plot going on that leads to Baltar to proclaim his candidacy for the Presidency. He surprised Roslin with his announcement at a press conference. Baltar has the backing of Tom Zarek, who realizes that Baltar has a much better chance to defeat Roslin than he does. Baltar really is a slimy dude.

Battlestar Galactica continues to be a fantastic sci-fi series with very few episodes missing the mark.

Blink Twice

Posted on by

This is the second film this weekend that I found on streaming that I had missed while it was in the theaters. Blink Twice is the directorial debut by Zoë Kravitz and it was another film that I wanted to go see in the theater but just could not find the time.

According to IMDB, “When tech billionaire Slater King (Channing Tatum) meets cocktail waitress Frida (Naomi Ackie) at his fundraising gala, sparks fly. He invites her to join him and his friends on a dream vacation on his private island. It’s paradise. Wild nights blend into sun-soaked days and everyone’s having a great time. Nobody wants this trip to end, but as strange things start to happen, Frida begins to question her reality. Something is wrong with this place. She’ll have to uncover the truth if she wants to make it out of this party alive.”

Naomi Ackie was excellent as the lead character in this film. She brought every bit of emotion and you believed her at every turn. She had great chemistry with Channing Tatum and, when it came time for her to be feral, you accepted it easily.

The mysterious nature of the story worked well as the audience were brought along the ride with Frida. Truthfully, when the reality is revealed, I was shocked at the situation. That is always a good sign when a movie can fool me.

Besides Ackie and Tatum, there is a strong cast of actors involved here including Christian Slater, Kyle MacLachlan, Haley Joel Osment, Geena Davis, Alia Shawkat, Adria Arjona, Simon Rex, Levon Hawke, Liz Caribel, and Trew Mullen.

I had no expectations for this film and it was so much more than I thought it would be. I went in without much knowledge of the story and it was worth my time.

3.75 stars

Afraid

Posted on by

I came across Afraid on Vudu/Fandango this week and it was a movie that I had missed while it was in the theaters. I had intended to go see it, but things just never worked out, so I was somewhat excited to see it show up on streaming.

However, this was a disappointment of a film with an ending that was wholly unsatisfying.

According to IMDB, “The Curtis’ family is selected to test a new home device: a digital assistant called AIA. AIA learns the family’s behaviors and begins to anticipate their needs. And she can make sure nothing – and no one – gets in her family’s way.”

We have seen this type of movie before. It is very much similar to the M3GAN film from a few years ago which was also produced by Blumhouse. Honestly, it was predictable and lacked any originality, although the switch up at the third act was different. Problem is that that same switch up was also really dumb.

I do like John Cho as an actor, even though he is really not given that much to do in this movie. He was considerably better in 2018’s Searching, which deals with an online search to find his missing daughter. This is a considerable step down from that much more intelligent and engaging script.

Even still, the first part of the film was decent enough, but it went off the rails very quickly. AIA became crazy very quickly and became dangerously unbalanced not too much longer after that.

I was not the only person who missed this in the theater (by looking at its box office), but I would not say that anyone needs to find this on streaming. Perhaps it is worth a view when it comes up for free on Netflix or one of the other streamers, because it is short and gets over in a hurry. of course, it does not do much along the way either.

2.45 stars

The X-Files S6 E21, E22

Posted on by

Spoilers

“Field Trip”

“Biogenesis”

The sixth season of The X-Files, one that had some absolute highs and absolute lows, wraps up with these final two episodes.

One of them was a really bad trip (though a wild and bizarre episode).

‘Shrooms cause trouble for the agents in “Filed Trip” which found both Mulder and Scully trapped underground being devoured by a plant as they hallucinated different ‘realities’ about what was happening.

The episode felt like one of those Russian dolls. When you thought we had come to a crossroads, there was another story inside.

It was fun seeing the different hallucinations that Mulder and Scully had and how their POVs played into each of them.

The season finale for season six was “Biogenesis” and it led to Mulder being in a mental institution and Scully in Africa chasing after an artifact that could prove that aliens put the human race on earth at the beginning of the planet.

It feels as if the X-Files reignited its mythology with a slightly different focus, though we have appearances by Smoking Man, Krychek, Diana Fowley, and Albert Hosteen, characters all involved in previous X-Files stories. Skinner also took a step back with his involvement in the conspiracy/mythology of the show.

As all season finales of the X-Files seem to go, the show will be a to be continued until the beginning of the following season. Season 7 is one where the show goes through significant upheaval with new characters and exits by major figures. I’m not sure where things will go as I was not a fan of what happened during this time frame so I guess we’ll see how I react to it now.

EYG Comic Cavalcade #116

Posted on by

September 21

Another big week of books. Of course, it has become a regular occurrence for me to have this amount of books as my collecting has expanded over the years. Lots of new independent books this week.

I enjoyed the two new comic based TV shows, Agatha All Along on Disney + and The Penguin on HBO Max. This will make the middle of the week all the more enjoyable moving through the spooky season.

I have received two of the final three issues of Ice Cream Man that I was missing from eBay this week, and the final issue that I need will be arriving some time soon. I have been trying to fill out the Ice Cream Man series, which I have really enjoy. Todd told me that the issues have been elevating in price recently because a potential TV show based on the IP. I did drop some $ on these final three issues that I was missing, but I am happy to have the series filled out.

Books this week:

The Tin Can Society #1. Story by Peter Warren & Rick Remender. Written by Peter Warren and art by Francesco Mobili. Cover art by Francesco Mobili and Chris Chuckry. My favorite new book of the week. This is a murder mystery among a group of old friends…the victim which was a handicapped man with a power armor that was missing. I was hooked immediately.

X-Men #4. “Upstarts” Written by Jed MacKay and penciled by Netho Diaz. Variant cover art by J. Scott Campbell & Tanya Lehoux. The X-Men face off with Trevor Fitzroy and the Upstarts. The issue ends with the reappearance of an old Age of Apocalypse villain that I used to have an awesome action figure of… Sugar Man!

The Moon is Following Me #1. Written by and drawn by Daniel Warren Johnson. Cover art is done by Mike Spicer. This new Image book is interesting. It has a strange. kind of fantasy-like setting, but there is something at the end that throws everything that happened in the story into a different thought.

Dazzler #1. “Out and Proud” Written by Jason Loo and art by Rafael Loureiro. Cover art by Terry & Rachel Dodson. Dazzler is back from the dead and back on the stage and an attack by Scorpia gets worked into the show. This is a nice return to the world of mutants for Alison.

The Masked Macher #1. Written by David A. Goodman and art by Alex Andres. An actor on his way to an audition winds up in the wrestling ring as the Masked Macher, a hooded wrestler who had just died. His wife needed someone to step through the ropes… and here we are.

Deadpool #6. Written by Cody Ziglar and art by Rogê Antonio. Taurin Clarke did the cover art. As Wade is slow to heal, Taskmaster takes Deadpool’s daughter Ellie and Princess on a mission. Then bad things are happening to Deadpool.

X-Factor #2. “We Could Be Heroes” Written by Mark Russell and art by Bob Quinn. Greg Land, Jay Leisten & Frank D’Armata do the cover art. Havok and Polaris had issues between the Mutant Underground. Is Polaris a spy? Which direction will Havok go? This new series is focused on this couple’s story through the first couple of issues.

Spider-Society #2. Written by Alec Segura and art by Scott Godlewski & Andres Genolet. Pete Woods did the cover art (Silver Medalist). The Sinister Squadron is up to take on the Spider-Society and we see an evil version of Madame Web leading them. And it was a familiar face beneath that Madame Webb mask… it was who everyone thought of when we first met Madame Web way back when.

Avengers #18. “Impact” Part Two. Written by Jed MacKay and art by Valerio Schiti. Joshua Cassara & GURU-eFX did the cover art. Hyperion is on a literal crash course with earth and the Avengers look to try and stop him in any way they can. Thor resigns from the Avengers this issue too.

Spider-Boy Annual #1. Written by Steve Foxe and art by Carlos Nieto. The individual Infinity stone holders are coming together as the arch across the various annuals are to its penultimate annual. And how cruel to take poor Coulson’s burger.

Ice Cream Man #41. “Spy Story (Or My Best Graham Greene Impression).” Written by W. Maxwell Prince and art by Martin Morazzo. Cover art is done by Morazzo & Chris O’Halloran (Gold Medalist). A secret agent story with some weird monstrous creature involved. Ice Cream Man is some of the most creative comic horror stories around.

The Graveyard Club #1. Written by R.L. Stein and illustrated by Carola Borelli. Cover art was done by Miguel Mercado. This is a big first issue of this Boom! comic. A group of outcasts are involved in a ton of strangeness centered around the graveyard. Some of these characters are not very likable.

Spider-Man: Black Suit & Blood #2. There are three shorter stories in this issue centered around the time when Peter wore the symbiote. Daredevil guest starred in one of the stories as they take on Bullseye in a snow storm. This cover art is done by Giuseppe Camuncoli & Edgar Delgado.

Incredible Hulk #17. “City of Idols” Part One. Written by Phillip Kennedy Johnson and art and cover art by Nic Klein. The Hulk is on his way to try and save Charlie, but he did not know that approaching the Eldest mean that Hulk could not save Charlie without sacrificing himself. This was a much better issue of the Hulk than the last few have been.

Ultimate X-Men #7. Written, drawn and cover art by Peach Momoko. This is a very different book than anything else in the Ultimate Universe and I really like that. Peach Momoko is quite a talent with the cover art, but I do enjoy her work on this series too.

Dark Knight of Steel: Allwinter #3. “Bat Country.” Written by Jay Kristoff and art and cover by Tirso (Bronze Medalist). This Elseworlds series continues along with Slade taking the kid to the city and running into a Batman-Superman type of amalgam. I’m not sure why Bruce seems to have Superman powers. I wonder if this is a return to this setting from another series where some of these things have been introduced prior. I have been liking this a lot though.

Sam and Twitch Case Files #6. Script/plot by Todd McFarlane and Jon Goff was the co-plotter. Art was done by Szymon Kudranski. Cover art was by Mark Spears & Thomas Nachlik. Twitch is in deep trouble as there are dead bodies everywhere. I do like this down to earth take on a detective series in the Spawn universe.

Spirits of Vengeance #1. Written by Sabir Pirzada and art by Sean Damien Hill. Kendrick “Kunkka” Lim does the cover art. Ghost Rider returns as does Vengeance. Vengeance was hanging in a corm field as a scarecrow? That has to be the scariest scarecrow of all time.

Other books this week: Wolverine: Deep Cut #3, Deathlok #50, Gilt Frame #2, Lawful #4, and Huge Detective #2.

Transformers One

Posted on by

Whoever put together the first trailer for Transformers One should be fired.

The first trailer I saw for this animated movie, a return to the world of Cybertron and the Transformers, was one of the worst trailers I have ever seen. I hated it so much that I almost decided to skip this movie. The job of a trailer is to get a viewer more excited to see a movie and this one nearly stunted my viewership.

I have had some terrible Transformer movie experiences, with The Last Knight being one of the worst, so seeing this first trailer filled with some many unfunny moments nearly ended me. However, the second trailer which, I believe, came out of San Diego Comic Con this year was so much better, which confused me. Then, we started getting word of mouth from people who had seen it, some of which, were claiming that it was the best Transformers movie ever. I had a difficult time wrapping my head around that idea with that first trailer still front and center in my mind.

Well, they were 100% right. Transformers One is the best Transformers movie ever put on screen and should be considered as one of the best movies of 2024.

I know… who would have thunk it?

The film dives into the origin of Optimus Prime, called Orion Pax (Chris Hemsworth), and Megatron, called D-16 (Brian Tyree Henry), showing us how these friends became the iconic characters that we know of all these years.

Orion Pax and D-16 were minor bots, who could not transform and who were working mining Energon in the mines of Cybertron. Orion Pax had a vision to reach for more than what life had given him and he caught the eye of the one remaining Prime, Sentinel Prime (Jon Hamm).

There are so many great moments through the movie that I could not believe it. I was not sure that I wanted Optimus and Megatron to have been best friends only to become mortal enemies. That trope feels as if it has been used too much, but it works here way more than I ever thought it would. It helps to bring a real emotional kick the film and the story does a wonderful job of showing how these two characters went from friends to bitter rivals. You believe it. It was well earned.

Scarlett Johansson played Elita-1 and Keegan Michael Key played B-127 (who will become Bumblebee) and they both did a great job. All of the voice actors were exceptional in their roles, especially Chris Hemsworth and Brian Tyree Henry who had the difficult task in stepping into famous and well-recognizable voices. Hemsworth in particular had to follow in the footsteps of Peter Cullen (EYG Hall of Famer) whose work as Optimus Prime has been iconic over the decades. Hemsworth seemed to be able to make the role his own. Perhaps that was because they started him off as Orion Pax and not in the mantel of Optimus Prime.

The film looked great and the action worked so well. The humor, which was so terrible in that first trailer, worked so much better in the context of the film that I was shocked. The film did not feel like a parody of the Transformers as that first trailer had seemed. Even the moments from that trailer that did not work, was so much more entertaining when they came in the film. They were dispersed beautifully and never felt like it was trying to take over the film. Did ever joke work? No, but how many films can say that every joke worked? Very few.

I loved the Transformers when I was younger and they were first on TV. As many others, I was scarred after the 1986 movie made me suffer through the death of Optimus Prime. I hated the Michael Bay movies, which seemed to get worse with every one. I was hopeful with the release of Bumblebee and the fairly likable Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, and the comic from Image Comics, written and drawn by Daniel Warren Johnson is a great hit every month. I really thought Transformers One would send this franchise crashing back to the bottom, but I was wrong. It is one of my favorite movies of the year.

5 stars

The Penguin S1 E1

Posted on by

Spoilers

“After Hours”

The new crime series on HBO Max is a spin-off from The Batman with one of the most amazing transformations in TV history.

There is no way that Colin Farrell is playing this character. But he does it. It is truly unbelievable.

Oswald Cobblepot is aka as Penguin. He starts off the episode by shooting and killing Alberto Falcone, who was going to take over the business from his dead father Carmine. And when Oz killed him, he had to spend much of the episode trying to survive and avoid being revealed as the killer.

Sofia Falcone arrived to cause trouble as well.

I liked this show. It would not be considered a comic book show, even though Penguin is a Batman villain. This show will be fascinating to see without the Batman.

Agatha All Along E1, E2

Posted on by

Spoilers

“Seekest Thou The Road”

“Circle Sewn with Fate / Unlock Thy Hidden Gate”

The last live-action Marvel Television show was Secret Invasion. It was such a letdown that one has to wonder what was going on. The animated X-Men ’97 was brilliant, and that led us to the beginning of the spin-off of WandaVision, called Agatha All Along.

Agatha Harkness was the big bad in WandaVision and Wanda left her trapped in her Agnus character. That was three years ago and it seems that Agnus has found herself inside a police procedural.

The Agnus of Westview section of the first show was awesome, clearly a take on the Mare of Easttown series from HBO. However, the arrival of Aubrey Plaza and Joe Locke helped break Agatha out of the trance cast upon her by the now deceased (?) Wanda.

Agatha still has no power, but Joe Locke, who seems to be unable to say his name or any specifics about him, wants Agatha to lead him down the Witches’ Road.

The mystery of “Teen,” which is what Agatha begins calling Joe is one of the biggest of the early part of the show. We comic fans believe that we know who he is… Billy Kaplan, aka Wiccan. In the comics, Wiccan was one of Wanda Maximoff’s children (or so I think… this is a really convoluted piece of Marvel history). Could this be Billy from WandaVision? Who or what is preventing Agatha from hearing his name?

The second episode had Agatha and Teen recruiting other witches to put together a coven so they could open the door to the Witches’ Road. Patti LuPone, Ali Ahn, Sasheer Zamata are three of the witches that they recruited. Agatha also brought in Debra Jo Rupp, reprising her role from WandaVision in a brilliant piece of casting. Debra Jo played Mrs. Hart in WandaVision, but is actually named Sharon Davis and not a witch. Her part in the show was absolutely hilarious.

The group of them wound up singing “The Ballad of the Witches Road” in Agatha’s basement. This was an amazing song and it sounded awesome. Sharon’s line “Am I supposed to know this song” was just tremendous.

The cast is fantastic. I loved how this started off. Some may claim that it was too slow of a build, but I disagree. I was fully engaged from the first, as Agnus was investigating the death of a mysterious woman (sure being hinted as it being Wanda Maximoff).

The show had a very scary tone as the coven started to head down the road. In particular, the arrival of the Salem Seven was some of the creepiest moments of the first two episodes. I expect these are the witches we see Agatha betray and kill in WandaVision.

Agatha All Along has a vibe of The Wizard of Oz as well as plenty of Easter eggs from WandaVision. Several supporting cast members from that show appeared here.

I can’t wait to see where the Witches’ Road will lead us. Agatha All Along seemed to be a lot of fun and the perfect show to watch during the spooky season.

EYG Favorite Comic Covers of the Week

Posted on by

September 18, 2024

I am anxiously awaiting the debut of Agatha All Along tonight (in about 30 minutes from now) and tomorrow is Talk Like a Pirate Day (always one of my favorite times of the year). It is a busy time of the year.

Honestly, I did not have any covers this week that blew my socks off. There were several decent ones, but nothing that was obviously going to medal. Todd said that the variant cover of Spider-Man: Black Suit and Blood would be the automatic winner, but I did not get that cover. It was sold out when I went to look for it.

So here are this week’s winners.

Bronze Medalist

Dark Knights of Steel #3

Cover art by Tirso

I love this action filled cover as the battle is falling right into the title. I am a fan of white backgrounds too and the grey blur behind the characters really look great.

Silver Medalist

Spider-Society #2

Cover art by Pete Woods

Miguel standing strong as the rest of the Spider-people are scattered on the ground behind him. Miguel’s webbing cloak floating in the air behind him. Just a strong looking cover with the question about what is exactly going on.

Gold Medalist

Ice Cream Man #41

Cover by Martin Morazzo & Chris O’Halloran

Ice Cream Man has had all kinds of fun covers over the years. This parody of a James Bond cover is yet another fun satirical cover. The secret agent is holding an ice cream cone.