Tag Archives: comic block unboxing

December 13, 2015

Comic Block November 2015

Another Month another Comic Block!

This month had a Star Wars Theme and we got two different Star Wars books. There is again no sign of the allusive graphic novel this month, however we did get something new. This box is the first time that the “extra” item has been a exclusive item.

We got a cool little Mjölnir keychain which was a Comic Block Exclusive. It looks like they didn’t quite have the rights to just call it Mjölnir though because on the description card it simply says “the hammer of the gods”.

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Here is the complete run down of what came in the box:

Star Wars: Vader Down Issue 1 Comic Block Exclusive Variant
Howard the Duck Issue 1
Pacific Rim: The Drift Issue 1 Comic Block Exclusive Variant
Star Wars Issue 1 Fan Expo Variant
“Hammer of the Gods” Keychain
Batgirl T-Shirt

Weirdly they didn’t put the Star Wars comic on the insert card of things inside the box. I actually got copy of the same Star Wars Fan Expo Variant Cover from a Nerd Block box I got several months ago. My guess is that they still had some extra issues around from that Nerd Block and added them to this box last minute.

I am a big Batgirl fan so this shirt should be something I really like. The new Batgirl costume and the Rosie the Riveter homage are both things I would like in theory. However, Batgirl looks terrible. I don’t know if I can place it, but her face just looks off. This is a huge disappointment because I would really like this shirt but because of how messed up Barbara’s face looks I doubt I’ll be wearing it at all.

Pacific Rim: The Drift Issue 1

I really wanted to like this comic but in the end really disliked it. I loved the 2013 film Pacific Rim so a comic that would take me back into that world actually sounded really interesting even though it was a licensed property. There are so many aspects of the Pacific Rim world I wanted to know about and this comic managed to explore none of them. It centered around a married pair of Jaeger pilots that are losing a battle with a Kaiju and getting exposed to radiation. It goes back and forth between the fight they are in and flashback of with they first met. That’s pretty much it. The art is very stylized and looks like Adi Granov’s artwork from Iron Man: Extremis. It doesn’t look bad but its so stylized that you can’t see any of the detail of the Kaiju or the Jaegar. If I’m going to read a comic about giant robots fighting monsters I want to see it! Maybe it gets better later on when the story kicks in but this first issue had me entirely uninterested.

Howard the Duck Issue 1

Please stop trying to make Howard the Duck a thing. The after credits teaser on Guardians of the Galaxy was perfect. After having a movie starring a talking Raccoon having a small little nod to Marvel’s goofier side was a great way to send off the film. Apparently what Marvel took from this is that people simply love Howard the Duck and want more of him! The fact is new audiences don’t know or care who Howard is, and older audiences who have nostalgia for Howard no longer read comics or care. There simply no audience this book is fulfilling.

Look Howard the Duck has an important history with Marvel. When the character was created in the 70’s it was subversive and edgy (I know that sounds strange but it really was) but that time has passed. Howard was always a comic aimed at older audiences so if you were a fan in the 70’s you were likely in your 20’s which would place you in your 60’s now and most likely not buying comics. If you are in your 20’s to 30’s then you didn’t grow up with Howard the Duck and your only experience is the terrible movie from the 80’s.

What about new audiences you ask? It doesn’t really matter the roots of the character if it is being written well today right? Well that would be correct, but it’s not being written well. Howard the Duck’s shtick is comedy and Marvel has solidly filled that spot with Deadpool. The comedic elements of this comic are just a shallow echo of what it would be if it were Deadpool. But even worse than that this comic just isn’t funny. There were a couple of enjoyable moments but I didn’t laugh once reading it and it felt way more like a chore to read than anything else.

Star Wars Issue 1

This is a great comic let me say that to start with. It feels fresh and gives us an original adventure with everyone’s favorite space gang. It has plenty to fill your nostalgia void along with a new adventure and story to get you excited to read more.

That said the nostalgia factor of these new Star Wars comics are going to be the death of them. I am 100% ok with this comic being what it is. It takes place between A New Hope and Return of the Jedi and centers around the original main gang. Star Wars is a big world though and it would have been nice to see some of these new Marvel Star Wars comics not center specifically around the characters of the original trilogy. Again I’m totally cool with there being this Star Wars and the Vader comic but do we really need a Chewbacca and Lando comic too? The Force Awakens is going to introduce a slew of new characters so hopefully that will push away from the original trilogy which has been done to death.

Star Wars: Vader Down Issue 1

First and foremost I really love this variant cover. It is the best cover I have seen of all these new Marvel Star Wars covers and something worthy of being framed. The comic itself is the first issue of a Marvel Star Wars Crossover event called Vader Down. Vader is investigating some intel on the location of some rebels and winds up overwhelmed surrounded by rebel forces. While he is able to take out a few X-Wings he is overtaken by Luke and crash lands on the planet of Vrogas Vas. Luke also manages to crash his X-Wing and the two begin searching for each other.

The overall story was good and I enjoyed the book. The amount of issues involved in this crossover is a lot and honestly it just wasn’t great enough for me to buy in like 10 issues to find out what happens. I might check it out in 6 months with the issues start appearing on Marvel Comics Unlimited.

Leave a comment | tags: comic block, comic block unboxing, Comic Books, Comics, Howard the duck, Marvel Comics, nerd block, nerd block unboxing, pacific rim, star wars, subscription box, subscription comics, unboxing, vader down | posted in Comic Books, Unboxing

October 20, 2015

Comic Block September 2015

By Jasomania

I am aware that we are half way through October before I am getting this up but I as George Washington famously said, “shit happens”.

First lets get the run down of all the goodies in this months box:

Deadpool Vs. Thanos 1 from Marvel Comics
Dangergirl 1 Exclusive Comic Block Variant from IDW
Mirror’s Edge: Exordium 1 from Dark Horse
Mad Max: Fury Road 1 Exclusive Nerd Block Variant from Veritgo
Saga T-Shirt with Prince Robot
Green Lantern light up ring

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Solid box top to bottom. Not only did we get a Green Lantern Ring and awesome Saga T-shirt but we got four comics this month instead of our normal three! I’ve mentioned this before but part of the promise of the Comic Block has been that we will occasionally get exclusive variant covers and graphic novels. While we have gotten variant covers o’ plenty there has yet to be a single graphic novel. Perhaps next month? I did read all the comics in the box and below are is my rundown of each issue.

Mad Max: Fury Road 1

Witness! From the best I can bet this comic book takes place between Mad Max: Beyond the Thunderdome and Mad Max: Fury Road. It starts with a couple page run down summarizing the events of the first three Mad Max movies which feels like way more information then we actually need. It then has Max go to Gastown to participate in a Battle Royal style Thunderdome situation in hopes to win a V8 engine. Max is victorious however killing of one of the members of the Buzzards gang attracts their attention. The Buzzards find where Max has been hiding, steal his engine, stab him, and tie him to the ground to be left for dead. Max passes out and a mysterious woman frees Max and bandages his wounds. The comic ends when Max wakes up. The mysterious woman enlists Max’s service for an unknown job in exchange for saving his life.

The comic was so-so. It spends too much time recapping the old Mad Max movies and not enough time moving the plot forward. Very little actually happens. The art is really inconsistent. At times it looks great and extremely detailed, but at other times the faces of people look like mushy blobs. They also go to great links to make Max not look like Mel Gibson or Tom Hardy which is a weird choice and distracting. This is only an issue 1 so it’s job is really just to set things up but I wished we had gotten a little more. With so little happening I wasn’t able to form any strong ties to anyone or anything so don’t have a lot of motivation to find out what happens next.

Deadpool Vs. Thanos 1

Deadpool has been up against a lot. He’s been up against X-Force, Hawkeye, Carnage, and now Thanos. I’m a little unsure on the actual plot of what happened in this comic, there were a lot of moving parts. There was some stuff about Death being kidnapped and so the dead on earth were unable to actually die. There was a fight between Deadpool and Thanos for the affection of Death. Thanos kind of killed Deadpool and then brought him back to life so they could team up and find Death. It was a little confusing, but there were a lot of jokes, breaking the fourth wall and talking about tacos.

I have real mixed feelings about Deadpool. I like him in theory but I find most of the fourth wall breaking and jokes to be more gimmicky than actually funny. The comics I have read with Deadpool up to this point have been ok but because of all the jokes and such there never really feels like there are any stakes. There were some genuinely funny parts in this comic but not funny enough to get me to buy more issues.

Mirror’s Edge: Exordium 1

If you don’t already know Mirror’s Edge is based on a video game for PS3/Xbox360/PC that came out in 2007. It was fairly groundbreaking at the time for being a first person shooter that involved little to no actual shooting. It is based in a futuristic society which “runners” use parkour moves to navigate around the city delivering messages. If I remember correctly the game sold ok but not stellar. Everyone loved the aesthetic of the world but the game itself was painfully short (4-6 hours long) so people didn’t want to shell out 60 dollars for it. I played it back in the day and remember liking it but also it giving me head aches from moving around so fast. Also, if I can bitch for a moment I really hate when games allow you to have weapons but actively do things to discourage you from using them. Either take the weapons out or make them usable don’t half ass it.

Anyway, they are finally making a sequel next year after being in some form of development over the last 7 years so this comic is most likely a tie-in or prequel.

The comic begins with Faith (our protagonist) on a mission. She gets two guards to chase her in order to allow her team access into a building in order to steal data. While running from the guards she accidentally interrupts some sort of deal between rival gangs and gun fire erupts. Faith tries to get away but is captured by the gang working for the crime lord Dogen. She is taken to Dogen who is impressed by her work and offers her a job. She declines and leaves, trying to steal some of Dogens art on the way out. Faith returns to her base of operations and their leader Noah is mad at her for the risk she took going on a rogue mission in the first place. The comic ends with Faith going back to Dogen and accepting his employment.

This was a really great first issue of a comic. A lot of things happen but they are presented in a controlled manner in which the reader can actually follow along. They keep talking about this beatlink thing which apparently most of the advanced runners have and Faith does not. Not having a beatlink is a slight to Faith and a cause of animosity between Noah and Faith. Call me old, but I actually side with Noah in this when he is angry at Faith for her risky behavior. He seems fairly reasonable and Faith just seems like a brat for not wanting to listen to him. Overall I really liked the comic and will probably pick up more of the issues as they come in. While I didn’t love the original Mirror’s Edge game, I did always like the world it created and liked revisiting it in this comic.

Sidenote I really liked that Dark Horse didn’t have any ads in this comic until the very end. It was a real pleasant reading experience to be able to go through the story and not be distracted by ads every other page.

Danger Girl: Renegade 1

I don’t know about you but I find this comic is best read while playing Mystikal’s Danger (Been so Long). So I know nothing about Danger Girl, and as if the comic was reading my mind, it was filled with exposition. It even took a pause halfway through to explain exactly what the Danger Girls are.

It starts off with Danger Girl Abbey Chase at age 12 running through the streets of Egypt. This scene was amazingly over the top. At one point she’s literally climbing a stack of woven baskets filled with snakes.

Abbey and her handler David move to Norway where there some more exposition about her Dad being on some super secret mission. The two are ambushed and David dies in the struggle. Abbey manages to escape and the comic jumps 13 years to a 26 year old Abbey in the Amazon jungle. Abbey is once again being Chased (see what I did there) and narrowly escapes a villainous woman with a snake eye (literally). The comic ends with Abbey giving more exposition and a glimpse of the weird emerald the Snake Lady was trying to steal from Abbey.

This comic was all well and good but nothing in it really grabbed my attention enough to want to read more. The over the top villains and ominous dark family history was just so typical that it almost felt like a parody. On the plus side the art was at least good and like Mirror’s Edge there weren’t ads in the interior of the book.

2 Comments | tags: comic block, comic block september, comic block unboxing, Comic Books, Comics, comics subscription, danger girl, dark horse, deadpool vs. thanos, idw, mad max fury road, Marvel, mirror's edge, monthly box, monthly subscription, nerd block, subscription box, unboxing, vertigo | posted in Comic Books, Unboxing

September 18, 2015

Comic Block August 2015 Unboxing

By Jasomania

August’s Comic Block came with the following items:

Bombshells 1 from DC Comics
X-Files Season 11 Issue 1 from IDW (Comic Block Exclusive Variant)
Red Sonja / Conan 1 from Dark Horse (Comic Block Exclusive Variant)
Heart and Brain Comic Block Exclusive Print
Spider-Gwendom T-Shirt

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First let’s take a look at the art print that came in the box. This is the second time that a box has include a art print, the very first box had a cool Batman Print. This month came with a print that was a Web Comic that was ok, but not particularly funny. I’m not familiar with the web comic and it had the level of humor of a Bazooka Joe wrapper. Regardless I would rather there be an art print than some of the random extra items that some of the other boxes have had.

Next was the Spider-Gwendom T-Shirt. It is a White shirt with the following print in the middle. While I’m happy to now have my first Spider-Gwen T-shirt, it is kinda of creepy.

Bombshells Issue 1

If you have been following my blog than you already know I am a big fan of the DC Bombshells. I picked up quite a few of the variant covers of the initial set back in August of last year, and have picked up even more of this years set. I was actually planning on picking up this issue myself at my local comic shop until I went online and spoiled myself that it would be included in this month’s comic block.

The first thing to know about Bombshells is that it is a Digital first comic. This means that it is released weekly on ComiXology with every 3 issues collected and released for print each month. So then it makes sense that this issue is split up into three parts.

The first part introduces Batwoman. Batwoman is the star player of the Gotham Knights and does vigilate work on the side. For reasons not really explained the players on the Gotham Knights all where disguises and keep their identity secret.

Batwoman breaks up a robbery at the Ballpark (which we won’t go into how ridiculous it would be to rob a ballpark), and we see her romance with Police Captain Maggie Sawyer.

It ends with a cliffhanger with Amanda Waller recruiting Batwoman to help stop the war.

The second part introduces Steve Trevor whose squadron is shot down by Amazonians as they unknowingly fly into their airspace. This is a much shorter section so not much else happens in it other than he is brought to Wonder Woman for questioning.

The last part takes place in Russia with Kara and Kortni Duginovana aka Supergirl and Stargirl. I’m not sure if both have powers but Kara definitely does. They are fighter pilots for Russia and during their first mission Kortni’s plane malfunctions and Kara must reveal her powers to save her.

I enjoyed this comic enough that I’ll start picking up the other issues as they are released.

X-Files Season 11 Issue 1

I did not like this comic much at all. I was in the process of giving up until I realized I only had 4 more pages to read. If you are into the X-Files this will probably be your jam but it has been since the late 90’s since I’ve seen an episode so I was more than a little confused.

For reasons unexplained Mulder and Scully are not together and the FBI is looking for Mulder who is on the Lam. We don’t know what he did or why the FBI is after him. Mulder finds the debris of satellite and there are some wolves. I don’t know. It’s a confusing mess and honestly I just didn’t care.

Red Sonja / Conan Issue 1

This is my first time to read either a Conan or Red Sonja comic so going in I am unfamiliar with the characters.

The story centers around Red Sonja and Conan preparing for a war in Kush. There are several smaller mercenary forces that are going to team up for this attack and it has been decided that the leader of each fraction will fight to the death until only one remains. Red Sonja and Conan decide that rather than fight each other that they will lead together. This upsets the remaining warlords so the pair make quick work killing them off. While this is happening a wizard named Kal’ang is in the final stages of making some sort of super potion that will give him immense power. He gives a couple of his men a taste of his unfinished potion that, while not giving them full strength as the completed potion will, still greatly increases their strength. The superpowered troops try to surprise Conan and Red Sonja and are quickly killed.

After the attack Red Sonja and Conan decide to immediately go to war instead of waiting until the morning.

Overall it was pretty good. I thought the art was great, it was a cartoonish style but not so much that the people stopped looking real. The level of violence felt inconsistent. It’s not that I even minded it but it seemed like it just jumped from being extremely mild to cutting off heads pretty quickly. It was just jarring because the level of sexuality and language was extremely tame so I just assumed that this book would be for younger audiences. I don’t think I’ll pick up the series but I liked it well enough and might keep an eye out if it falls in dollar bins.

Well that’s it folks. I’ll probably keep doing these posts monthly as I’ve been enjoying writing them and it encourages me to really read all the comics I get in the box.

Leave a comment | tags: bombshells, comic block, comic block august 2015, comic block unboxing, Comic Books, Comics, conan, dark horse, dc comics, idw, red sonja, subscription box, unboxing, variant covers, x-files | posted in Comic Books, Unboxing

August 9, 2015

Comic Block July 2015 Unboxing

By Jasomania

July’s box came with the following:

Star Trek / Green Lantern 1 From IDW
Negative Space 1 from Dark Horse
Star Wars: Lando 1 from Marvel
Arc Reactor Coaster
Ant-Man T-Shirt

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Here is a closer picture of the T-Shirt and Coaster

Star Trek / Green Lantern 1

First book on the list is Star Trek / Green Lantern which by the amount of variant covers they are putting out for it, is a flagship book for IDW. The comic starts out with a little alien dude who looks like he’s from Oa The Living Planet, he is over come by six different corps rings and dies on a remote planet. Cut to the Star Ship Enterprise discovering said planet and sending a ground crew to investigate. The crew finds the dead alien and six corp rings and take them back to the ship. Once back on the ship a cloaked Klingon Bird of Prey appears and threatens the Enterprise. While this happens Scotty accidentally energizes the rings and they find the nearest person attach to. A Yellow Ring (Fear) to a Klingon named Chang, a Blue Ring (Hope) to Pavel Chekov, a Violet Ring (Love) to Nyota Uhura, a and Indigo Ring (Compassion) to Lenard McCoy. The comic ends with Hal Jordon showing up and a big “to be continued”.

Overall the story was meh. I’m not going to buy more issues, but it was entertaining enough to read. The Star Trek people are based on the JJ Abrams movies which is a little offsetting. The art is very good, it’s just jarring to see the actors from the movie being portrayed in the comic. It looks like it could be an interesting story and IDW is really throwing it’s weight behind this series but these movie properties comics just aren’t my bag.

Negative Space 1

This is a weird ass comic. First off I will say that it did have excellent artwork. The art has very detailed pencil work that must have taken the artist a really long time to draw. As for the book it self, I’m on the fence. The main premise seems to be this. What if you had that weird organization from Cabin in the Woods Existed and their mission was to make people commit suicide. We follow our hero a writer named Guy as he is trying to figure out what to write in his suicide note. He seems to be taking too long for the mysterious organization so they cause his day to get worse to help him muster out the courage. Eventually Guy has a change of heart and it ends with him discovering the organization.

It was an ok, although weird, story and the great art really helped, but I’m not going to be pursuing this comic any further.

Star Wars: Lando

Since Disney bought out Marvel and Star Wars there have been a slew of new Star Wars Comics. You can tell we are reaching the bottom of the barrel when Lando gets a solo book. I’ve heard the quality of these Star Wars books was great and although I’ve purchased issue 1 of the Star Wars Main series and Princess Leia solo book I haven’t read them yet (my backlog be crazy right now).

I was actually pleasantly surprised with Lando. I was a decent, well written book, about a character I truly give two shits about. If the other Star Wars books are as good as this then I should be in for a real treat. I won’t be buying more Lando issues individually but I will be reading through some of these new Star Wars books that have just become available on Marvel Comics Digital Unlimited.

Full disclosure I was not paid for this post and bought this comic block with my own money. I am doing this unboxing for my own entertainment, however, if the people at nerd block wanted to give me free things I would love to take them and review them here.

1 Comment | tags: comic block, comic block july 2015, comic block unboxing, Comic Books, Comics, july comic block, lando, monthly box, negative space, nerd block, nerd block unboxing, star trek green lantern, subcription boxes, unboxing | posted in Comic Books, Unboxing

July 8, 2015

Comic Block June 2015 Unboxing

By Jasomania

A new month and a new Comic Block! I guess if I do more than one of these unboxings I’m going to convince myself I need to do them every month. The slightly odd thing about these Comic Blocks is that because they ship at the end of the month you don’t actually get June’s box until July so the month constantly seems off. It’s not that big of a deal I just don’t want the internets to feel I waited a whole month to post this, the box just came in the mail this week.

First lets look at the full box and all it’s glory

Here is the full rundown of items in the June Comic Block:

Groot #1 Exclusive Comic Block Variant Cover
Ghostbusters Get Real #1 Exclusive Comic Block Variant Cover
21st Century Tank Girl #1 Exclusive Comic Block Variant Cover
BVS. T-Shirt from ShirtPunch
Avengers Pen and Note Pad

Here is a look at the insert that comes in that box that explains all the items.

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This month every comic book was an exclusive Variant cover instead of 2 out of 3 from the May Comic Block which is awesome. Still no sign of the elusive trade paper back that we were promised would be in some of the boxes, so perhaps next month? The overall quality of comic books remains very high. The issue of Groot and 21st Century Tank Girl justify the purchase price of the box alone in my opinion (sorry Ghostbusters). It looks like the trend will be that all the comic books are number 1 issues of new ongoing series which is awesome. They are trying to get people on board new series rather than handing out random overstock back issues. We’ll start by taking a look at the non Comic Book items in the box. This month had a cool Batman vs. Superman T-Shirt which I like a lot more than I did last month’s Comic Book Guy T-Shirt. The box also came with a Avengers Pen and note pad which looks like something you’d find on the shelf at Wal-Mart or Target and is pretty meh. I would have rather they included an art print like they did last month then have something so generic as this pen.

Last month I posted my unboxing before I actually read the books so I thought it might be better this month if I read them first and wrote a little blurb about each one.

Groot #1

As Rocket famously stated, Groot “Don’t know talkin’ good…, so his vocabulistics is limited to “I” and “am” and “Groot,” exclusively in that order”. So when Marvel announced they were going to release a Groot solo ongoing series I was curious how it would turn out. While this may be a Groot solo series, Rocket is just as much a star and does the heavy lifting in the speech department. However, the end of this issue makes me think that Rocket and Groot won’t actually be with each other going forward like they were in this issue.

This comic was great. It had the humor and wit that the Guardians of the Galaxy Film brought and was a joy to read cover to cover. I’m still not sure I’m going to pick up Groot as an ongoing series but I will definitely be keeping an eye out for it to start appearing on Marvel Comics Digital Unlimited. My favorite part though had to be this little reference to Man of Steel.

21st Century Tank Girl #1

This is actually the book I was most exciting about. I don’t know much about Tank Girl so it was pretty sweet to find an issue in this month’s box. This issue (and series I’m assuming) is an anthology issue so it had 4 different stories with various writers and artists in it. All the stories were funny, raunchy, and violent. I don’t know if I will add this to my pull list but if future issues are in this anthology format this it will be good to know I can pick them up later and not be lost.

Ghostbusters Get Real #1

This is the comic that I was least excited about in the whole bunch. In general I am pretty weary of comic books that are based off of TV Shows or Movies. I’m sure that there are plenty of good books out there but it just isn’t my cup of tea. That being said this comic was ok. I’m not going to buy more of the series, but I enjoyed the issue well enough. The plot is that the elder God Proteus attacks the Real Ghostbusters (from the 90’s cartoon) causing them to go into the universe of the regular Ghostbusters.

I am vaguely aware that the Real Ghostbusters existed and that it is different from the normal Ghostbusters so I was able to understand that part. They give you all the information you need anyway so even if you aren’t familiar with the intricacies of Ghostbusters you would be able to follow along.

The target audience for this book is for children around 8 to 12 so if you got a kid that is into Ghostbusters this might be a good pick for them.

Leave a comment | tags: comic block, comic block june, comic block june 2015, comic block unboxing, Comic Books, Comics, ghostbusters get real, groot, nerd block, subscription box, subscription boxes, tank girl, unboxing | posted in Comic Books, Unboxing, Variant Covers

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