What is a Short Pants Review? While we’d love to give full reviews to everything, there just isn’t enough time in the day. So we’ve come up with Short Pants as a way of providing capsule reviews from our varied review writers, giving quick hits and short capsule thoughts about various comics we’ve read recently.

This time out, Randy covers Batman and the Outsiders #8, Brave and the Bold #14, George RR Martin’s Wild Cards: Hard Call #3, Guardians of the Galaxy #2, Pilot Season Genius, RASL #2 and Warhammer: Condemned by Fire #2.

Continue Reading »

Writers: Dan Abnett & Ian Edginton
Artist: Rahsan Ekedal
Company: Boom! Studios

Just as Abnett & Lanning have carved out a niche for themselves in the galactic side of the Marvel Universe, Abnett has teamed with Edginton to create a place within the Boom! Studios publishing house. That place? The war-torn, grim universes of Warhammer, both fantasy and sci-fi flavored. Condemned by Fire is the former, a Man With No Name meets Solomon Kane style adventure of a witch hunter who roams the land, using blade and black powder pistol on chaos cultists and undead and scaring the crap out of even those he’s sworn to protect. The story here is familiar, a “plays by his own rules” loner whose dogged pursuit of a fugitive leads him into a much Continue Reading »

What is a Short Pants Review? While we’d love to give full reviews to everything, there just isn’t enough time in the day. So we’ve come up with Short Pants as a way of providing capsule reviews from our varied review writers, giving quick hits and short capsule thoughts about various comics we’ve read recently.

This time out, Randy covers Annihilation: Conquest #4, The Bakers: Babies & Kittens HC, Buffy the Vampire Slayer #11, The Darkness #2, Nightwing #141, Teen Titans Year One #2 and Warhammer: Forge of War #5.

Continue Reading »

Writers: Dan Abnett & Ian Edginton
Artists: Greg Boychuk, Lui Antonio, Daniel Lapham & Kevin Chin
Company: Boom! Studios

In my review of the first issue of this book, I summed it up as “painted art, a lot of imaginative gory visuals and concepts and characters who seem like they escaped from Jack Kirby’s mind when he was tripping heavy on steroids and meth.” Though my reaction to the stories warmed when I saw the whole arc collected in this trade, I stand behind that description, but I don’t necessarily mean it as a pejorative. Damnation Crusade is about as true a translation of the Warhammer 40K universe as you’re likely to find, which makes sense given that writers Abnett & Edginton have handled their fair share of Continue Reading »

Writers: Dan Abnett and Ian Edginton
Artist: Lui Antonio
Company: Boom! Studios

In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.

The world of Warhammer 40,000 (or 40K, as fans know it) is a bleak one. Humanity has spread across the galaxy, and lives under the dominion of the Emperor, who is both god and man. A number of other races claim this galaxy as their home too, and conflict is constant. The deadliest warriors mankind has to offer, the bio-engineered Space Marines, are at the forefront of every fight, organized into Chapters more reminiscent of warrior cults than armies.

Damnation Crusade focuses on one such Chapter, the Black Templars. Unlike most Continue Reading »

Writers: Andrew Cosby & Johanna Stokes
Artist: Rafael Albuquerque
Company: BOOM! Studios

Zombies! We don’t need your stinkin’ zombies! Or maybe we, as a society, really do need them.

I once thought that this zombie sub-genre that has become so popular would eventually end up being a passing phase, that it would hit its apex and come crashing back down to earth with a heavy thud. It’s come and gone before over the years and I reckoned it would follow the same pattern. So far, that hasn’t been the case.

Continue Reading »