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, Dave and Randy cover Conan the Cimmerian #0, BPRD: The Ectoplasmic Man, Hulk #4, Immortal Iron Fist #16, Indiana Jones Adventures Vol. 1 TP, Magdalena/Daredevil, Man With No Name #2, Pilot Season: Alibi, Thunderbolts #121, Transformers Spotlight: Wheelie and X-Men First Class Vol. 2 #13.

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Fat Pants is a monthly Comic Pants feature (well, at least in theory it’s a monthly feature) in which I mull over the last month’s trades and graphic novels in order to let you know which ones I feel are most worth your attention. It is far from a comprehensive list of all the good reads published in the past month, so please feel free let us know in the comments which trades and graphic novels came out in the last month that you, the reader, feel are most worth our attention. So, without further ado, here are the books I think really stood out this month.
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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.

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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, Nick covers Ex Machina #33, Angel After the Fall #2, Captain America #33, Daredevil #103, Umbrella Academy #4 of 6, New Warriors #7, and G.I. Joe America’s Elite #30.

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Writer: Joss Whedon
Artist: Paul Lee
Company: Dark Horse Comics

It’s not an insane stretch of the mind to say that the first four issues to the eighth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer have been a fairly inclusive jaunt. The story has zig-zagged its way through years of history and torn like a madman though the entire contents of a half-charred, half demon chewed copy of a Sunnydale High School yearbook. If you’re a dedicated fan of the show and have seen all seven of the previous seasons, then by golly, this is a fan’s dream come true. If you’re not the die-hard fan and only have watched the show in passing, or caught the occasional late night repeat, then the comic might feel Continue Reading »

Writers: Welles Hartley & Mick Harrison
Artist: Douglas Wheatley
Company: Dark Horse

Dark Horse’s Star Wars titles have always been a cut above the source material of the prequels in my eyes, but having Lucas bring the saga to a close has proved an unexpected boon for the titles. Dark Times is the fourth book to be launched in this new, post-movie era, and it might be the best of the bunch. Following directly on the heels of “Order 66″, the order that turned the clone troopers against the Jedi, Dark Times tells the story of a Jedi who has joined forces with his former enemies in a battle against a growing Empire that fans of the Star Wars saga know he’s destined to lose. It’s an oddly dark setting for Star Continue Reading »

Writers: Patton Oswalt, Thomas Sniegoski, Bill Morrison & Steve Niles
Artists: Mike Ploog, Eric Powell, Bill Morrison & Ryan Sook
Company: Dark Horse

Anyone who is familiar with Dwight T. Albatross’s letter column exchanges with Eric Powell probably knows what to expect from this book. It’ll be like The Goon, but with more sexy women, gratuitous violence and dark humor that would get you stoned to death in some countries. Wait… that just describes the regular Goon book. Ah, but it’s black and white, and features some stellar guest creators alongside Eric Powell, including comedian Patton Oswalt and Simpsons writer/Bongo Comics honcho Bill Morrison! That’s the difference, and here’s the good news: If you love The Goon, you’re going to love Continue Reading »

Writer: Brian K. Vaughan
Artists: Philip Bond, Eduardo Barreto, Steve Rolston & Jason Alexander
Company: Dark Horse Comics

New York may be where the superhero was born… but in The Escapists, Vaughan makes a pretty good case for Cleveland being the birthplace of comics as we know them today. More to the point, he effectively sets the stage for Cleveland as the rebirth of a little known Golden Age hero known as The Escapist. Not in a literal, superhero battling evil kind of way, but in terms of a dormant character beloved in the fictional universe of Michael Chabon being reborn at the hands of a few talented and dedicated comic book creators.

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