FEAR ITSELF UPDATE

FEAR ITSELF UPDATE

The Nazi's, that's right, THE NAZI'S have attacked America and seem to be winning, Odin and the the rest of the Asgardians have left Earth, some grizzled old ancient God dude called the Serpent has unleashed hell on Earth in the form of 7 magical hammers that have taken control of 7 Marvel characters and turned them into unstoppable engines of destruction AND main characters are getting killed off! Marvel will probably bring them all back in a few months, they always do, but for the moment they are dead! Looks like once it's over, the Marvel universe will never be changed forever....err....again. It's a Marvel special event all right!

MARVEL CATCH UP - AVENGERS Volume 2 (#7-12 and #12.1)

AVENGERS Volume 2 premier edition hardback graphic novel (Collects AVENGERS #7-12 and #12.1)

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis

Art: John Romita Jr and Bryan Hitch

Published by Marvel Worldwide

Review by Stewart Loud

Viscous, power hungry murderer, Parker Robbins AKA The Hood, has escaped from prison to ruin everyone's day by shooting plenty of people in the head and attempting to collect together the all powerful infinity gems which it turns out he has little to no clue how to control properly. To combat this potentially world buggering turn of events, the Avengers, New Avengers and Secret Avengers join forces with Red Hulk and the Illuninati responsible for firing Bruce Banner into space before World War Hulk. Sounds great doesn't it? Meh, it's not bad.

MARVEL CATCH UP - SECRET AVENGERS Volume 2 EYES OF THE DRAGON (#6-12)

SECRET AVENGERS Volume 2: EYES OF THE DRAGON premier edition hardback graphic novel (Collects Secret Avengers #6-12)

Writer: Ed Brubaker

Art: Mike Deodato and Will Conrad

Published by Marvel Worldwide

Review by Stewart Loud

With Steve Rogers proudly packing what appears to be a colonial marines pulse rifle on the front cover, you know you're gonna be in for an exciting ride in volume 2 of Marvel's comic following the covert Avengers world police style strike team. Things certainly do heat up in these issues as Steve's team travel to Hong Kong and China in their mission to uncover more about the secret but powerful organisation known as the Shadow Council led by the Enigmatic Thorndrake and Nick Fury's doppelganger, Max Fury. Time for some people to get kicked in the mouth!

MARVEL CATCH UP - AVENGERS Volume 1 (#1-6)

MARVEL CATCH UP - AVENGERS Volume 1 Premier edition hard back graphic novel (Collects Avengers #1-6)

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis

Art: John Romita Jr

Published by Marvel Worldwide

Review by Stewart Loud

The Siege is over, Norman Osborn's been locked up and the American President has put former Captain America, Steve Rogers in his place as America's top cop in charge of organising the super hero community. One of the first things Steve does is put together an all star main Avengers team to inspire confidence and security in the public and what a team it is!

MARVEL CATCH UP - SECRET AVENGERS volume 1: MISSION TO MARS (#1-5)

MARVEL CATCH UP - SECRET AVENGERS Volume 1: MISSION TO MARS premier edition hardback (Collects Secret Avengers #1-5)

Writer: Ed Brubaker

Art: Mike Deodato, Will Conrad, David Aja, Michael Lark and Stefano Guadiano

Published by Marvel Worldwide

Review by Stewart Loud

Set after the end of the Marvel Siege, Steve Rogers has put together a covert strike team of heroes to operate behind the scenes and tackle threats best kept secret from the world. Equipped with state of the art S.H.I.E.L.D. air craft and technology, Steve's dream team of War Machine, Black Widow, Moon Knight, Valkyrie, Beast, Nova, Ant Man and Sharon Carter are there to carry out missions involving everything from industrial espionage to travelling to other planets and beating the living daylights out of whoever Steve tells them too.

CROSSED 3D graphic novel review

CROSSED 3D Volume 1 hard back graphic novel (3D glasses provided with book)

Writer: David Lapham

Art: Gianluca Pagliarani

Published by Avatar Press

Review by Stewart Loud

A stand alone short story graphic novel released after the original 6 issue Crossed mini series by Garth Ennis telling the story of a small group of grizzled, well armed fighters on a suicide mission to rescue a medical team and their supplies who've become trapped in a skyscraper in the centre of New York, a city completely over run by the Crossed. There's heaps of graphic violence, guys getting their cocks out, a scene where dozens of lunatics pelt the stories main characters with handfuls of their own poop and the whole thing is presented in stunning 3D. Greatest comic ever printed then? Well it's not bad.

TRANSFORMERS 3: DARK OF THE MOON review

TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON

Directed by Michael Bay

Starring Shia LeBeouf, Leonard Nimoy, John Malkovich, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley

Review by Stewart Loud

After the horrific train crash that was Revenge Of The Fallen almost erasing all the good memories I had from the first of Michael Bay's Transformers films with it's truly terrible Jar Jar Binks style comedy characters, vomit inducing gags and an overall story that felt like it was written by someone who didn't give a shit about the Transformers legacy, I wasn't sure if the franchise could be salvaged and reshaped into something I wouldn't be embarrassed to say I've been a massive fan of for 25 years. None the less, the trailers did make it look temptingly epic and as I've been an enormous Transformers fan ever since the original comics and cartoon series in the 80's I was never gonna miss out on watching this in the cinema in all it's 3D glory. So, was it any good?

ELEPHANTMEN Volumes 1-3 review

Review of ELEPHANTMEN Volumes 1-3

Collecting #1-23

Writer: Richard Starkings

Art: Moritat

Published by Image Comics

Review by Stewart Loud

Lets be honest. Elephantmen is a slightly comedic title for a comic book. And a bunch of 10 feet tall humanoid wilder beast in roles as investigators, crime lords and policemen in L.A. doesn't sound like a plot with much potential for greatness. So when I started reading the series I was a little confused as to what all the fuss was about, with the back of each graphic novel being emblazoned with five star review scores and quotes from reviews singing it's praises. Having now read volumes 1-3, I'm definitely a fan of this startlingly original sci-fi epic.

THE BOYS volume 7 THE INNOCENTS review

THE BOYS Volume 7: THE INNOCENTS graphic novel

Collects #39-47

Writer: Garth Ennis

Art: Darick Robertson, Russ Braun and John McCrea w/ Keith Burns

Published by Titan books and contains very adult material

Review by Stewart Loud

The events that made volume 6 so exciting suddenly seem a little mundane as Garth once again ups the tempo of his massive slap to the collective faces of all Marvel and DC's popular characters, The Boys. While it's still very funny in places, the story has definitely taken a far more serious turn as The Homelander and the rest of the supes begin to look like more of a threat to the world than they already did and Butcher shows more of the unpleasant side of his character after he learns of Hughie's involvement with Starlight.

REQUIEM VAMPIRE KNIGHT book 3 review

REQUIEM VAMPIRE KNIGHT Book 3: DRAGON BLITZ and HELLFIRE CLUB

Writer: Pat Mills

Art: Olivier Ledroit

Published by Panini Publishing

Review by Stewart Loud

In book three of my new favourite series written by my new best mate, Pat Mills (well I met him once anyway) it's time for a double helping of plot thickening with a side salad of comedy and more graphic nudity than I thought was actually allowed in a comic book.Requiem attempts to escape the service of Dracula and his order of vampires to be with his one true love from his human life, Rebecca but the vast and varied factions and nations of Resurrection aren't gonna make it easy for him. I think I spotted Hell Boy in there at one point as well.