Before I begin, I need to say up-front that when it comes to the big DC Infinite Crisis event, I'm relatively clueless. From what little I do know, Infinite Crisis was a big deal, that concluded with the big name DC drawcards, including Batman, jump forward a year in their continuity. Batman: Face the Face was written by James Robinson with art by Leonard Kirk and Don Kramer. The trade paperback collects a total of eight issues, taken from Batman #651-654 and Detective Comics #817-820, which were originally released May - August 2006. This story-line is sometimes referred to as "One Year Later", and basically serves as the relaunch of the Batman titles.

Batman: Face the Face marks the return of Batman, and Robin, following their one year sabbatical. Prior to taking the year off, Batman left a reformed, and no longer deformed, Harvey Dent to fill the role of protector of Gotham City. From all reports, the twelve months without Batman passed relatively smoothly, and Dent appeared to have handled the challenge well. When Batman and Robin return to Gotham, and take up their crime fighting responsibilities, things start to turn pear shaped. A 'mysterious vigilante' begins dispatching some of the lower level (read crap and unpopular) super villains, such as KGBeast and Orca. When all the evidence points toward Dent, and "Two-Face", as the mastermind behind the murders. All of this is set on the backdrop of an unseen player attempting to take control of the Penguin's empire, as well as Dent growing increasingly resentful of the Dark Knight's return.

So Batman has some tough questions that need answers. Has Dent returned to the Two-Face persona? Is Dent being framed? Who is trying to take over the Penguin's operation? Well if I answered those questions for you, you would need to read the book!

Face the Face is important if for no other reason than it re-establishes James Gordon as Gotham's police commissioner and reveals that Detective Harvey Bullock is once again a member of the G.C.P.D. The collection also end with Bruce Wayne offering to adopt Tim Drake (the current Robin) as his son.

There is a real effort in this collection to reposition Batman as the detective. He is less a "super hero" in this story and more a "super detective". The whole feel of the book is one of "back to basics". Which is good and bad. It's good because it restores the character of Batman back to the ball park of where he is at his best, but bad because at the same time, there's nothing new going on that hasn't already been done before.

Overall, while the artwork in this book is solid, the story-line is more than a little disappointing. The twist in the tail is telegraphed from very early on, and from then on in it's more a case of going through the motions. For what is essentially a 'relaunch' I found Batman: Face the Face to be a let down.

Overall I'd give Batman: Face the Face 4 out of 10. » Read the rest of the entry..

What would Spider-Man be like if you were to fast forward thirty five years into his future? That’s the question Spider-Man: Reign attempts to answer. Spider-Man: Reign was written and illustrated by Kaare Andrews, and was a four issue limited series published by Marvel between December 2006 and March 2007. Whether it exists within the accepted Spider-Man continuity or not is probably open to debate, and even more so if you’ve kept up with the “Brand New Day” story line.

Reign begins in New York, which has all the hallmarks of being a police state. It’s people are subject to extreme governmental controls, and Spider-Man has not been seen or heard from for some time. “Super crime” no longer exists, and the city is policed by a group known as the Reign.
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Wolverine Origin is a six-issue comic book limited series published by Marvel and released between November 2001 and July 2002. It was jointly written by Bill Jemas, Joe Quesada and Paul Jenkins, and illustrated by Andy Kubert (pencils) and Richard Isanove (colour).

Origin is the first Wolverine story to reveal his childhood and early background in any real detail. The six issue series has been collected in trade paper back as well as hardcover form. Origin reveals a lot of new information about Wolverine, as well as raising a few new questions.

** Be warned: The following section contains spoilers. **

Wolverine was born James Howlett in Canada in the late 19th century. In his early childhood he is depicted as a sickly child, who suffers from a number of allergies and illnesses. His father, John Howlett, Jr., is a rich plantation owner, 'adopts' an orphaned girl named Rose so that James has a companion. Both James and Rose grow up on the plantation along with another child called Dog Logan, who is the son of the Howlett's groundskeeper, Thomas Logan. Thomas Logan is no Groundskeeper Willy. He is a cruel and abusive drunk that often takes out his rage on his son. As the children grown older, Dog becomes increasingly like his father, and tension between Dog and James builds, mirroring the friction between the boys' fathers, as a triangle between the two men and James' mother Elizabeth begins to emerge.

It is revealed that Elizabeth is no longer playing with a full deck, having apparently gone mad following the death of her first son, John Howlett III, in mysterious circumstances a few years prior to the beginning of the story. The story also alludes to the fact that John Howlett III may have displayed some mutant abilities, similar to those that Wolverine would develop, and that scars on Elizabeth's chest may have been caused by John Howlett III's claws.

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Apparently I'm a sucker for an "untold origin story", because when I saw Bullseye: Greatest Hits for $2.99 from the Things From Another World scratch and dent sale, I couldn't pass it up.

The trade paper back, Bullseye: Greatest Hits, collects the five issue mini-series, with the story itself attempting to reveal the origins of the man that became the ultimate thorn in Daredevil's side. The mini-series ran from November 2004 through until March 2005 and was written by Daniel Way and illustrated by Steve Dillon, the same team behind Wolverine Origins.

Bullseye: Greatest Hits opens with Bullseye being held in a top secret underground government facility, where he is being interrogated by two special agents, who are attempting to learn the whereabout of some nuclear weapons that Bullseye was responsible for stealing. This interrogation is used as the plot device through which to reveal snap shots of Bullseye's origins.

Bullseye reveals that when he was a child he displayed the uncanny knack of being able to hit any target with any sort of projectile, as seen when he kills a bird with a yo-yo. When his family is killed, following a bungled attempt by Bullseye's older brother to murder their abusive father, young Bullseye is put into foster care. He takes up Baseball, but his boredom for the game leads him to kill his opponent, as is depicted on the Mike Deodato drawn cover of issue 2.

This is when Bullseye first gains the attention of the US government, and is subsequently recruited then sent out into the field. It doesn't take Bullseye long before he goes rouge. Following his first battle with the Punisher, Bullseye heads back to the US, where we are treated to various glimpses of his first encounter with Daredevil and the King Pin as well as his murder of Elektra.
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I'll say it up front, Batman: The Long Halloween is one of the best Batman stories I have read. The Long Halloween is a 13-issue comic book limited series written by Jeph Loeb with art by Tim Sale and originally published by DC Comics in 1996 and 1997. Even if you aren't a comic fan, chances are you'll have seen some of Loeb's work on television, as he is a Co-Executive Producer on the comic inspired NBC show "Heroes", and was formerly a producer/writer on the TV series Smallville and Lost. The Long Halloween has been collected in trade paper back and you can also find it as a DC Comics "Absolute Editions" version.

At its core, the Long Halloween is a detective story, with Batman on the trail of a serial killer known as Holiday, due to his habit of killing his victims on public holidays. Like Batman: Year One, The Long Halloween is set in the early days of Batman's career, pre-Robin. Like Year One, The Long Halloween also focuses on the early day's of Harvey Dent and his eventually transformation into Two-Face.

The Long Halloween is described as "noir-ish" which I guess is a fair way to describe it. Many of the mob gangsters that appeared in Year One return, but Gotham is slowly being over run by the "freak" element, with villains such as Two-Face, The Joker, Scarecrow, Mr Freeze and the Mad Hatter, all having surfaced in the six or so months that have past since Year One.
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If you haven't seen it yet, here's the X-Men Origins: Wolverine teaser trailer.

This one looks like the real deal, not a video camera at Comic Con thing. No pudgy guy tooling around like the Star Wars kid.

Get ready for some excitement! Wolverine is one bad mutha!

Ok, maybe I was wrong, on second viewing it might be a fake. » Read the rest of the entry..

What do you get when you take one part The Matrix, one part Fight Club and add a dash of a Marvel style universe? Wanted. Written by Mark Millar, with art by J.G. Jones, Wanted is a six issue miniseries that has been collected into a couple of different trade paper back formats. The series was initially published in 2003/2004.

I picked up the Wanted: Assassins Edition Hard Cover just prior to release of the film adaptation, with the intention of reading the comic, then catching the movie. That never happened. I finally got around to reading Wanted a few weeks ago now, and since then, I've occasionally found myself thinking about the story and wanting more. To me, that's the mark of any good comic, book, movie or TV show.

The story begins with Wesley Gibson, white collar office drone, who looks like Eminem, and share a lot in common with the Narrator (pre-Tyler Durdan) from Fight Club. He works in an office cubicle, at a job he hates, while his girlfriend is off shagging his 'best' friend. When Wesley is approached by a hot looking Halle Berry look a-like called The Fox, he learns that his recently assassinated father was also the super criminal known as The Killer, his life undergoes some significant changes.

Wesley enters the Fraternity and finds out that the world has run by super villains since 1986, when they banded together to eliminate the world's superhero population and rewrite reality. Superheroes are no longer remembered as being real, only fictional characters. Wesley inherits his fathers position in the Fraternity as well as his perfect aim and extraordinary ability with any weapon. Wesley quickly adopts the super villain life style. Leaving his old life behind. » Read the rest of the entry..

Weapon X: Days of Future Now is a five issue miniseries first released in 2005 and then collected into a trade paper back. Most of the story takes place approximately 30 years into an alternate future, and provides a conclusion to Frank Tieri's Weapon X series, which was canceled after 28 issues. I have to say, I haven't read the 28 issues that led up to this, and I purchased the trade paper back for two reasons. Firstly it was $3.99 in a TFAW scratch and dent sale, and secondly, it had "Weapon X" on the cover, and that was good enough for me.

Reading Weapon X: Days of Future Now as a stand-alone title proved to be a little confusing in places, and no doubt I would have benefited from having the background that is probably covered in the original 28 issues. Reading this, I felt like I had missed a lot, and there seems to be a lot of exposition going on that doesn't necessarily make sense to the reader coming in fresh. As a result, I'd suggest this collection is best suited to the die hard fans of the Weapon X series, and as such it does go a long way to providing them with some closure.

I have to admit, reading Weapon X: Days of Future Now was a little hard work. Not having the Weapon X series background, I was at a loss as to how this all fitted in to the X-Men universe. While Wolverine sits at the center of the story, a number of his Weapon X counterparts also play major roles, including Agent Zero, Fantomex, Sublime and Chamber.

The artwork is average. Not terrific, but not total rubbish either. I think the best way to describe it is, "serviceable".

What did I learn?

Don't try and pick up a story 90 per cent into proceedings!

I'd recommend this for fans of Tieri's Weapon X series only. If you don't have the background, like me, you'll find this collection more confusing than it is entertaining. » Read the rest of the entry..

Batman: Year One is a four issue story arc written by Frank Miller and illustrated by David Mazzucchelli, that originally appeared in issues #404 to #407 of DC Comics' Batman series in 1987. Batman: Year One is one of the "must read" Batman comics, and is also one of the first examples of the "limited series" format (or self contained series within a series) that is now common place in most main stream comics. Batman: Year One is also the story arc that inspired a lot of the key plot points for the film Batman Begins, and there is a clear link between the gritty style portrayed in both Year One and the film.

Batman: Year One begins with the return of Bruce Wayne. Having left Gotham city 15 years ago, following the death of his parents, it appears that Bruce Wayne has spent his time away training in martial arts as well as forensic and criminal sciences. Jim Gordon is also moving back to Gotham City, with his pregnant wife Barbara. It doesn't take Gordon long to figure out that law enforcement in Gotham is not everything that it should be. Corruption has spread to the highest levels.

Bruce Wayne, yet to adopt the Batman persona, hits the street for his first mission, creating an alibi and disguising his appearance before entering the Red Light District of Gotham. Following an altercation with a local with a local pimp, and a brief fight with a dominitrix called Seline Kyle (who will go on to become Catwoman), Bruce Wayne is shot by police. Managing to escape and make his way back to Wayne Manor, Bruce sits alone, bleeding, and wondering whether it's worth going on. Searching for a flash of inspiration, and a way to strike fear into the hearts of his enemies, a bat crashes through a nearby window and lands on a sculpture of his father. "Yes Father, I will become a bat". Batman is born. » Read the rest of the entry..

Wolverine's first appearance was in the Incredible Hulk #180 in October 1974. Since then the Hulk and Wolverine have faced off a couple of times in the comics, but as far as I'm aware, they have yet to take the battle to the large, or small screen... until now.

I didn't realise that a Wolverine Vs. Hulk animated feature was even in the works, but according to this teaser trailer, it looks set to hit in January 2009.

So here it is in all it's bone cracking glory.
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