“This BW site is really cool!” (Hey, how often do I do that?)
Collective Of Heroes
Free Comic Book Day 2015
From what I can tell this is a digital book promoting an aggregate site for different superhero webcomics. I would link to the comics previewed here, but the list isn’t very well maintained. Some of the links don’t work, one went to a completely different comic, and the lineup in the comic includes things no longer on the site. So this will just be a look at the various comics previewed here.
Three Minute Max by Bob Forward (writer) & Max Forward (artist)
I have no idea what’s going on with this one. Something about a guy being dead, another guy trying to find his daughter, some kind of armored car heist, and then the main character is set up to do…something. I can’t review it because I don’t know what’s going on, and it doesn’t inspire me to check the comic out.
The Flying Ferret
A parody of superheroes, the Flying Ferret supposedly has the ability to smell evil, but we don’t see it in action. He also punches a knock-off Spider-Man (like the Marvel universe doesn’t already have a ton of those these days) for demanding his favorite brooding spot. Was I supposed to find this funny? Because I didn’t. Give me The Tick any day.
Giant Girl Adventures by Sabrina Pandora, Koen Luyten, & Wendie Goers
What’s black and white and red all over? This comic. Why is red the only color? As for the story? Giant Girl, and I think you can guess what her powers are, is asked by her sidekick, Little Big Girl (yes, really), about how she got her powers. Instead she’s asked by her mentor to recite the five most popular origin theories on the internet. So far I’ve only seen one here ABOUT to fight crime…I think…and the other two have just been goofing around. At least this one is technically a complete story on its own.
The Hero Business by Bill Walko
I think I may have discussed this before or interviewed the creator for one of the convention interview videos. It’s a comedy about a company that promotes superheroes and the people who work there. This is a collection of short skits, and it’s better than some of the Golden Age anthology “comedy” stories I’ve suffered through and ignored. Some of the stories are reprints, but this the closest I’ve come to enjoying the book thus far.
Our Supermom: “The Walking Dad” by Scott D.M. Simmons (plot & art), Scott Bachmann (writer/letterer) & Ross Hughes (colorist)
For the “cover” maybe, but this is a black and white comic. Okay, if I followed this right, the kids have a babysitter or nanny or something, and the parents come home early. The son, hearing his dad wanting coffee and having just seen a zombie movie, races to get dad his coffee before he becomes “such a zombie” like his mom was saying. Am I close? Do I care? Is there any superheroing in this superhero collective book?
Magellan by Grace Crowley
It’s a superhero academy story. The idea predates My Hero Academia or Sky High, but there’s a reason it still works. At least when you aren’t thrown a bunch of characters at you and expected to care. If there’s a main cast, we should have had a story focused on them, not a war games scenario where I know nothing about the characters’ full abilities. This could be interesting if the characters had gotten a better appearance.
Phineas: The Hollow Earth: “Down The Rabbit Hole” by Barry Linck
Shoutout to logo designers Chrissie Linck, Glenn Csonka, Kevin Hayman. Okay, even when I know what’s going on with this book I don’t know what’s going on. There’s some backstory about Phineas and his friends being attacked in their home, some plans by a cult, and then our heroes are underground fighting a monster when some modern day knight appears and punches it through the mouth and literally knocks his brains out. Cool scene, but nothing that invests me in the series. That’s been the problem this whole book, but I’ll get to that in the overall analysis. At least we finally got some action this superhero book. Which isn’t in an actual superhero story.
Scapula by Aidan Casserly
A supervillain who sucks at being a supervillain. I had a boss like that. (Hi, Ozzie!) In this story he gathers a gang of equally loser versions of “evil” and goes after San Francisco. Sounds like he’s doing us a favor, actually. We’re supposed to root against him, right? A few too many sex jokes for my taste, but I could see someone finding this interesting. Just not me.
The Specialists by Shawn Gustafson & Al Fukalek
This isn’t even a story. It’s a bunch of bios on World War II superheroes…and yet it does more to get me curious about the characters than any of the stories in this issue.
Supervillainous
A supervillain’s daughter gets into her dad’s experiments to turn her hair blue and mutates herself into a supergenius. This almost seems interesting, unlike the other supervillain focus story. Despite the weaker art, I’m more invested in this.
Tales Of The Emerald Yeti by Minter & Pruitt
We’re back to not knowing what’s going on. The “cover” is in full color but the story is in black & white. During the Vietnam War a soldier wakes up to find his arm and leg are missing after being attacked by a tiger. Some general gets splashed with blood after the soldier’s panic causes his IV to come out. And that’s it. Somehow somebody found a way to do less of a sell of their concept than Three Minute Max. I like the art, but that’s about it.
Vanguard by Dan Butcher & Gary Cohen
What if Superman showed up in World War II on the battlefield? Kingsword is our stand-in, but he’s coughing blood while still being bulletproof, running cover for the British troops to get a move on. At least I think it’s WWII since we don’t get a good look at the bad guys before the story stops just as the action starts. Come on, guys, how hard is it to a short superhero defeats villain story? Captain PSA has more superheroics.
Wonder Weenies: “Freebie Frenzy” by Corey Kramer
Our final story for the comic…or rather a collection of comic strips, newspaper style but in color. Three superzeros are talked into do a Free Comic Book Day appearance. I couldn’t even finish this one. The jokes are so not my style. It’s like the opposite of The Hero Business, right down to working for a superhero company. (The group of the title, headquartered in a former giant robot.) This was just not for me at all.
overall
This feels more like a collection of stories for existing fans than anything that would get someone excited to check any of these comics out, and of course now you can’t check out a good chunk of them. There are a few I might have looked into, but overall they did not choose the best moments to introduce their comics. I hope they fix that in one of the future issues, but for the length I think I’m going to wait until I have time to read that many stories at once. Reviewing long anthologies takes time, and I’m already doing that on Fridays.
BW Media Spotlight 