New comic book Wednesday has come and gone. The dust at your local comic shop has settled. An eerie silence descends as you finish reading your last superhero book of the week. Now it's time for something a little more sinister. Welcome to Bagged and Boarded: comic reviews of the sick, spooky, twisted and terrifying!
The Crow: Skinning The Wolves No. 3
This is a Crow story unlike any we've ever seen before. The poor dead sap who's now tasked with being the Crow is a victim of the Nazis in a concentration camp. During his brutal death and subsequent undeath, the Crow goes on a killing spree looking for the vile general who killed him and his family. This issue shows him finding his quarry, and the blood will flow.
Bag it or board it up? I don't usually like Crow comics. I find them a little goth, a little melodramatic, and kind of, well... corny. But this comic, holy smokes. This comic bursts with drama, empathy, sadness and excitement that is so rare in comics like this. Not since the original Crow comics have I been so moved by a Crow comic (if that makes sense). Pick it up. Pick up the earlier two issues. This is awesome.
Colder No. 4
The crazy hunk Declan, whose temperature keeps dropping, dips his toes into the world of the insane once again. Now that Nimble Jack (a beatnik monster who feeds on the minds of the insane) is fully on the loose and has Reece captured it's up to Declan to get weird. He journeys once again into the world of the insane, and comes face to face with his nemesis.
Bag it or board it up? This is a fun, quick issue. It moves at a very fast clip and shows more of the world of the insane. With giant dogs that have human hands for bodies and a huge beast lurking, the whole thing feels very beyond. It's a blast to read and I can't wait for the conclusion next month!
Willow No. 4
Willow's been a bit distracted from her goal of saving the world. After a rude awakening from what turned out to be a pretty pleasurable side-track, Willow is back on the case to re-ignite the spark of magic on Earth. But her friends and cohorts aren't quite as helpful as she originally thought, and everywhere she turns ghosts from her past keep creeping back into her life.
Bag it or board it up? This issue won't be for everyone. There isn't a lot of big magic, and there isn't a lot of action. But the story's here. The emotional cues, the plot twists, and the classically awesome Buffy-verse dialogue.
Venom No. 31
A little backstory if you're out of the loop with the current state of the Venom mythos. Flash, that old high school bully of Peter Parker's, went to the Army. He was a war hero but lost both his legs, and through an experiment with the U.S. government, was injected with the alien symbiote and made into a special agent. During the day he's confined to a wheelchair. At night he prowls the streets as Venom, the dark-sided superhero. Today's issue concerns his move to Philadelphia, where he takes up residence as the city's newest hero.
Bag it or board it up? I'm a native Philadelphian now relocated further north. I loved that city. And if I had to choose one hero to represent my city of brotherly love... it would definitely be Venom. Philly has a kind of grittiness that screams for a dark, foreboding hero like Venom. I always said Batman would have had more fun in Philly. Now we've got our Batman, and he's got a giant fang-laden mouth that can eat a guy whole.