Comics Catch-Up: Boom Studies

Pretty explanatory what this post is all about. Boom have really been able to keep a good position in the super-hero genre. With the end of both Irredeemable and Incorruptible (both my Mark Waid), I was worried I would miss out on alternative super-hero awesomeness. Thankfully, Si Spurrier came along with Extermination, which I can’t recommend highly enough. Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning brought us Hypernaturals, a good (if slightly uneven) sci-fi super-hero extravaganza. Sam Humphries stepped up with Higher Earth, a dimension-hopping mystery that shows a great deal of promise, but is also quite uneven at times. In addition to these, there’s also Fanboys vs. Zombies, which is usually just a lot of nerd fun, but this issue was a little lackluster, I thought.

And finally this week, the debut issue of much-anticipated and talked about (but sadly disappointing) Freelancers.

I don’t know why, but I think I was in a bad mood when I read most of these. Only Extermination really ignited my interest, although the others do have interesting stuff to offer. Hypernaturals is improving, though, after a bit of a lull.

Reviewed: Extermination #5, Fanboys vs. Zombies #7, Freelancers #1, Higher Earth #5 & 6, Hypernaturals #4 & 5

Boom Studios Catch-Up (September)

This is just a nice, short catch-up. Boom Studios are still one of my favourite of the smaller comics publishers, and here are two of their best on-going series – they’re very different from each other, but both are also quite fun.

Reviewed: Extermination #4 & Fanboys vs. Zombies #6

Comics Catch-Up: BOOM STUDIOS

As many of you will know, I’m a big fan of many Boom Studios series. In this review, I bring you four of their best: Extermination (#3), Higher Earth (#4), Hypernaturals (#3), and the final issue of Valen the Outcast (#8).

Comics Round-Up (Jul.18)

Things are finally getting back to normal after the terrible (comparatively short) era in which a Virus Ate My Computer. This means the weekly comics round-ups should start appearing as before (except for the occasional week when nothing available catches my eye). And this week, it’s a rather nice mix.

Reviewed: Cobra #15, Danger Girl & G.I.Joe #1, Extermination #2, Grimm Fairy Tales #75, GFT – Myths & Legends #18, Irresistible #1, Jungle Book #4, Star Wars: Darth Vader & the Ghost Prison #3, Wonderland Annual, Wonderland #1

Comics Round-Up (June 6)

A bit more of a targeted selection of comics. A lot of fun ones, too: a great reinterpretation of a classic villain; two “heroes” fighting in the face of an alien invasion; zombies want to eat the braaainz of geeks; clandestine military outfits; some weirdness; and the families of super-heroes deal with a post-battle situation. I’ve been pretty busy and distracted all week, so I’ve only written short reviews – this is probably advisable, actually, as some of these are now a good way into their runs, so I don’t want to spoil too much.

Reviewed: Batman Annual #1, Extermination #1, Fanboys vs. Zombies #3, G.I.Joe #14, Monocyte #4, Supurbia #4

Coming Soon: EXTERMINATION by Simon Spurrier (Boom)

A couple of months ago, Boom Studios leaked a pair of teaser-images for an upcoming dystopian super-hero series. The images (below) were pretty enticing, as they gave the impression of the new series being pretty bleak:

Then I discovered it was being written by Simon Spurrier, and I was absolutely sold. I’ve read some of Spurrier’s fiction (for Black Library) and also loved his Marvel mini-series, X-Club, which I thought was delightfully twisted and amusing (see the “Comics” page for links to the issue reviews). Since then, the covers for the first two issues of the series have been released into the interwebs.

Extermination #1

It’s been difficult to glean any more information about this upcoming series, but Comic Book Resources got the scoop: Extermination takes place in “a world in which an alien incursion has already decimated the Earth’s population, including its super-powered community.” The story follows two former nemeses, Nox and the Red Reaper,

“who must strike an uneasy truce in an attempt to drive out the invading force and begin to rebuild society – of course, their motives for doing so could not be more dissimilar.”

Extermination #2

The story begins after the apocalypse is over and done with, Spurrier told CBR.

“It wasn’t even an ‘invasion’ in the conventional sense – no overwhelming attack by big wibbly UFOs or unimaginative hivemind gribblies – but a brutal corruption of the planet itself, wiping out millennia of history in one fell swoop and leaving the aggressors to merely mop-up what dregs of resistance remained. At the story's start find we ourselves on a broken Earth – a cinder, an apocalyptic waste of tortured terrains, deadly meteorology, fractured cities and horrific sights. The vast majority of the populace died in the upheavals – continental earthquakes, mega-tsunamis, solar storms and toxic rains – and certainly all traces of government, culture and military have been systematically decimated since then.”

Spurrier continued, saying that “part of the beauty of this story lies in juxtaposing this hideous new status quo with the big, simple boldness of ‘regular’ superhero activity – punchin’, flyin’, spoutin’ one-liners”. The series will use “a lot of cleverly-deployed flashbacks” to explore the period of the invasion itself: “How it started, who died, who survived (and how), and above all why the invasion occurred at all.”

I can’t wait for this series to start (the series starts in June)! There’s a lot more to the piece on CBR, so head on over to get the full scoop on the upcoming Extermination.