Geek Of The Week : Lady Mechanika # 3

Blimey . . . Tha’ Is One Very Big Arse

In Lady Mechanika # 3 from Aspen, the title character continues on her quest to learn the secrets of her past. A mission that had brought a dead mechanical girl across her path. When the mechanical girl’s body is stolen, Lady Mechanika sets off to track her down.

The trail takes Mechanika to the Cirque du Romani. Once there she is confronted by several of the circus performers. Her questions to find the mechanical girl aren’t met well, and this leads to Mechanical scuffling wit ht he circus’s knife thrower and his big cat.

The owner of the circus, Madame Divinite, breaks up the fight and things calm down. With cooler heads thinking, it is discovered that the mechanical girl is Seraphina, the daughter of the knife thrower, and she isn’t dead. It is revealed that the promise of fame and fortune lured Seraphina and her boyfriend away to join another circus. Although the it is deduced that the two lost performers weren’t lured away by another circus, but rather they were tricked to follow a mercenary working for the Blackpool Armaments Company.

After learning the new information Lady Mechanika and her associate travel to Mechanicon, the Annual Mechanika City Convention of All Things Innovative, Scientific, and Industrial. It is here that they find Nathaniel Blackpool, the person that Lady Mechanika believes is holding Seraphina. At the opening ceremony for Mechanicon, Blackpool introduces his Helio Arx, a giant airship and fortress that Mechanika believes she will need to infiltrate if she is to find the mechanical girl.

Lady Mechanika is an interesting and enjoyable comic book set in a steampunk world. The characters, costumes, and environment are all amazing. There is a great style and flare to this comic. The comic is written and drawn by Joe Benitez, with Peter Steigerwald providing colors, and Josh Reed on lettering. The story and characters are engaging, and the artwork is beautiful. This is a comic book that you should be buying.

Geek Of The Week : Zombi # 2

The action and weirdness continues in Xombi #2 from DC Comics. Picking up where the last issue ended, David Kim, Catholic Girl, Nun The Less, and Nun Of The Above take on a horde of ghouls from long ago Halloweens. As they battle, a portal is discovered that must be the escape route of the prisoner that Kim is after. Leaving the nuns behind to deal with the ghouls, David jumps the portal to track his target.

The nuns regroup after their battle and learn that there may be more to the person that they thought David was trailing. David and a Rustling Husk, a homunculi hit man created from the ghosts of wasps and yellow jackets, that were driven mad with desperation from trying to get through a closed window, find their quarry. Someone named Annie Palmer facilitated the escape of James Church, a person who has become the crude, disgusting, embodiment of the fictional Mr. Hyde character.

Working for Roland Finch, a man who had been posing as a prison guard, Annie Palmer tries to convince Mr. Hyde to change back to James Church. Its then that David and the Rustling Husk jump in to recapture Church. Held at gun point, Mr. Hyde finally relents to the demands to change back to his other half. Only he reveals that he isn’t who everyone thought he was. And David Kim may have way more than he can handle.

Catholic girl with religiously charged powers, and nuns firing novena bullets, bullets that are embodied with the attributes of saints, taking down a mob of ghoulish trick-or-treaters. A creature created from the desperate spirits of dead wasps and yellow jackets. The physical embodiment of a fictional monster from classic literature. And an ancient creature that is rage incarnate. The Zombi team continues to bring the action and wiedness in this issue.

John Rozum writes Zombie # 2, with Frazier Irving creating the artwork, and Dave Sharpe doing the lettering. The writing and art is fresh and unique. A few more pieces of the story are revealed. And the characterizations, details, and textures that the creative team puts into these issues, continues to make Zombi one of the best comic books being published.

Geek Of The Week : Xombi # 1

“It’s happening all around the world. Things that aren’t where they’re supposed to be slipping free of the confines of their containers, all signaling the advent of one event in particular.”

Xombi #1 has some mysterious forces seeping into the world. The initial signals may seem small, but it appears to be pointing to something bigger that is coming. When these signals set off alarm bells for those who monitor the super natural, the call is sent out to David Kim, Xombi.

David Kim was a medical researcher who has been infested with nanomachines. These nanomachines keep David young, and in peak physical condition. His body is super efficient so that he doesn’t produce waste, he doesn’t get sick, old, drunk, or fat. The nanomachines also gives him the ability of molecular reconstruction, allowing him to turn one object into something else. Although In this issue he only shows that he can do it with small scale objects. And in David’s words, this makes him an”immortal weirdness magnet.”

So David is sent to a secret prison beneath Dakota to make sure that the prisoner kept in the green house doesn’t escape. Its a cryptic message, but you can feel that its serious. The prison is said to be under the care of The Church, and when David arrives there he is met by a few of The Church’s agents, Nun Of The Above, Nun The less, Catholic Girl, and Father Maxwell.

Locked in the basement of a larger building, the prison is a village of houses that have been shrunk down to the size of doll houses. Yet they keep their mass so that they are just as strong as when they were full size. The prisoners are shrunk down to 1:18 scale and kept in the miniature prison.

Nun The Less uses her power to shrink down and goes in to investigate the prison. She finds that all of the prisoners have been brutally murdered, except for the prisoner in the green house. He’s missing. David now learns that the prisoner was James Church, who was infected by a copy of “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” This caused him to develop a Hyde personality of his own.

While Kim is trying to get a handle on this information they are attacked by a trio of ghostly aberrations. Father Maxwell seems to die of horror while Catholic Girl generates a force field to protect her and the two nuns, and David engages the ghosts. And while these ghost have given the group a little freight, the rear horror in yet to come.

This is a cool comic book. John Rozum writes the story of weird happenings and mystery. I like that everything isn’t being fed to you right up front and that things are being revealed as you read along. I like that its a little cryptic and mysterious. And this issue gives you a sense that there is a lot going on in this world. Some of it might be peripheral to the main story, and everything isn’t examined in depth, but it adds a lot of texture to the story. Rozum has created a weird and interesting world that is inhabited by weird and interesting characters.

The art is does an incredible job of feeding this story. Frazier Irving handles all of the art on the comic, with Dave Sharpe doing the lettering. This issue is excellently rendered and has good story telling. The thing that is really going ot stand out to you is the coloring. The different places are colored with a different over all hue. Some scenes are colored so that everything has a yellow cast to it, and some are cat in a green, blue or purple. This really adds to the work and helps to create some stunning visuals. It also helps to create the unworldly feeling of this comic book.

Xombi was created by the late Dwayne McDuffie during his days with Milestone Media. And this issue is a great tribute to what he added to the world of comic books. Xombi #1 has an interesting setting with a lot goiong on around it. The characters are unique. And the artwork is awesome. The little story and reveal at the end is creepy and has me wanting the next issue. This is a cool, weird, unique comic book that you should be reading.

Geek Of The Week : The Intrepids # 1

Dante, a genius mechanical engineer, rescues four children from the streets and gives them the chance at a life with adventure and purpose. Years later Doyle, Rose, Chester, and Ms. Crow have become special agents with honed skills and augmentations that they use to stop the terrors that mad scientists unleash on the world.

The Intrepids #1 opens with the quartet attempting to infiltrate a Russian research facility. When the stealth action doesn’t go to plan, it becomes a guns blazing, jet packs flying fire fight. And if being pinned down by snipers isn’t bad enough, Ms. Crow and Doyle find themselves having to take down a rampaging cybernetic bear that comes crashing in on them. some big punches, and a perfectly placed bullet down the bear and allow for the team to make their escape.

Later, Dante debriefs the team about Doctor Mutovin, and his experiments to implement cybernetics in animals. And while they investigate further into that case, Dante informs the team that they will be going after his former partner, Doctor Koi. During their college years, Dante and Koi developed technology to replace people’s lost limbs. But Koi wants to use the technology for military purposes. When they can’t reconcile their differences, Koi steals their prototype and destroys their lab. They plan to track Koi through an associate of his, the mercenary Darius Dread. They have a lead on Dread, and if they can capture him, then they can find Koi.

This is a fun read. Its high octane action, with a sci-fi pulp kind of feel to it. Kurtis J. Wiebe writes a stroy that throws you into the action right away. As you are getting a taste of what this team is, there are flashbacks peppered through out the issue to give you a little more background on Dante, Doctor Koi, and of how Ms. Crow was taken in by Dante at a young age. This was a good introduction to the series, and hopefully future issues will continue to add more to the backgrounds of the characters.

Scott Kowalchuk is the illustrator on the issue, with Justin Scott on colors, and Frank Zigarelli is the letterer. The art looks great. Its a more cartoony style of art that’s a little reminiscent of Darwyn Cooke. And the color schemes add a lot to this issue. The colors for the present day scenes look terrific. Then when there is a flashback scene of Ms. Crow’s early time with Dante, those pages have warm yellow and orange tones washing over the page. And then the flashback with Dante and Koi has a cold tone to the page. The colors really add a lot to the overall art and story telling of the comic. Between the more adrenaline fueled scenes, and the quieter character moments, the art team presents top notch story telling in a good book.

This is one of the best comics that I’ve read so far this year.

Geek Of The Week: Fables # 102

I have not read the Fables comic book in the past, but when I saw that the comic was starting a story arc that would take the characters of classic fables and put them in to a super hero type of story, I decided to give it a try.

Fables # 102: Super Team! Part 1 of 5 from DC’s Vertigo imprint takes us to the kingdom of Haven, a fantasy realm where the characters of classic myths and folklore live. As the story opens we follow Flycatcher as he meets Bigby, brings him back to Haven, and briefs him on the current situation. The Dark Man roams the boarders of Haven where he is kept at bay by an invisible barrier that is maintained by Frog. The Dark Man claws against the barrier, using his power to weaken it more every day. It is only a matter of time before the powerful villain will break though.

To prepare themselves for an inevitable battle the denizens of Haven are assembling a team that can take on The Dark Man. And they plan to do this by following classic archetypes of comic book super hero teams. The reason for this is that magic draws power from belief and strong conviction. So, as Pinocchio reasons, going the super hero route will give them added power from the belief of generations of comic book readers. The stage has been set, now we wait for part 2 to see who makes the team.

I enjoyed this issue. Bill Willingham’s story about fairy tale characters preparing to follow in the classic archetypes of comic book super heroes was a lot of fun to read. I love Pinocchio’s explanation about the role that he will play on their super team, and of why the comic book super hero team dynamic is needed in this adventure. And it cracks me up that he’s “smoking” a pipe that makes bubbles and is carrying around a stack of comic books for reference. The land of Haven with its population of mythical characters provides a great background for the story. And even though this story has its light hearted moments, the great evil lurking at the gates adds a sense of urgency. This looks like the set-up to a classic adventure. The artwork looks great. Mark Buckingham pencils this issue, with Steve Leialoha inking, Lee Loughridge providing colors, and Todd Klein providing the letters. And fittingly, they create a comic that is reminiscent of the art from 70s era Marvel comics.

There is a lot of history to Fables that I don’t know about. And there are many characters in this issue that I’m not familiar with, and some that aren’t even named in this issue. Still, I think this is a good issue to pick up on. Willingham does a great job of setting the stage so that you can get into this particular story even if you don’t know about everything that came before. And you don’t need to be able to know each character on sight to be able to understand what’s going on. This is an extremely well told story. You can just dive right in and you pick up on what’s going on as you read along. This is a must buy issue.