Star Trek comics have been around for pretty much as long as the series itself and this is the latest incarnation set around the continuity of the 2009 film. It’s an ongoing series that started back in September of last year, published through mainly licensed properties based IDW Publishing. While featuring an updated set of faces based on the characters of old, the stories thus far have adapted the screenplays from the old and somewhat dated Star Trek: The Original Series episodes.
Avenging Spiderman is the latest throw back to a popular mainstay in Marvel Comics, the enduring ‘Team-Up’ books. The reasoning behind these is Marvel’s head-honchos seeing dollar signs in their eyes and combining two, if not more, of the companies extremely popular superheroes together for a one-off or in this case ongoing adventure, with Spidey having a different crime-fighting partner each issue. Although they have tried the ‘Team-Up’ ongoing series formula before with varying levels of success and failure, they must of thought with the utilisation of arguably the companies most popular character, Spiderman, they couldn’t go wrong. And in some ways, so far they’ve thought right because this comic parties like it’s 1994 all over again!
The Prophet originally began during the glory days of comics in 1993 by controversial, love him or hate him (he’s mostly hated but you gotta admire his never say quit attitude!), Rob Liefeld as a production of his company Extreme Studios in conjunction with the newly-founded Image Comics. Flash forward nearly two decades later and the title has made a surprise reappearance as part of Image Comics 20th Anniversary in comic-land along with a whole bunch of other extinct titles the company plans to relaunch such as Youngblood, Bloodstrike and Glory. This reboot starts the series up at issue 21 (orignal series had a run of 20 issues) and is described by the creators as a re-imagining of the earlier Prophet comics.
Mudman is the latest comic creation from British writer Paul Grist, who has built a large following on the back of previous cult favourites, superhero series, JackStaff and crime comic, Kane. Mudman is the serialised tale of average British chav, Owen Craig, who unintentionally has superpowers inflicted upon himself, giving him the ability to change his body into mud whenever he chooses. Luckily for him this comes in handy when being shot at by local crime figures or traipsing across a quagmire.
Batman Noel written and illustrated by comics wunderkind, Lee Bermejo, takes a stab at one of, if not the only classic christmas tale, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. It’s hard not to be a little underwhelmed at the prospect of reading through yet another rendition of the story which has been adapted many, many hundreds of times throughout all different forms of media but not even halfway through, you know you’re reading something special.
Reed Gunther is a all ages, creator-owned, western comic published sporadically throughout the year through Image Comics. It is the creation of brothers Shane and Chris Houghton, Shane (Peanuts, Caspers Scare School) handles the writing/scripting and Chris (MAD Magazine, Kung Fu Panda) does the inking and pencils.
Penguin: Pain and Prejudice is a five-part mini-series which began in October, written by crime novelist and screenwriter, Greg Hurwitz (The Punisher MAX) and illustrated by Szymon Kudranzki (Spawn). Oswald Cobblepot III better known as The Penguin has been a regularly featuring mainstay in DC Comics since his first appearance way back in 1941. The gruesomely ugly, umbrella wielding villian first came to my attention in 1992′s Batman Returns, wonderfully portrayed by Danny Devito. This mini-series explores the dark and sordid past of the Penguin, from his childhood days, to his growing criminal empire and attempts by the dastardly ‘Caped Crusader’ to thwart his malicious plans.
Axe Cop began originally as a web comic created by brothers Malachai and Ethan Nicolle in December of 2009. Malachai, aged 5 at the time of original release; now 7, is the creator of the Axe Cop persona. The idea arose one day after Ethan was playing pretend with his younger brother and Malachai started talking about an axe wielding, bad guy killing, police officer. Ethan working on a graphic novel at the time, thought this was a great idea and intended to use the Axe Cop character to practice the medium online. During playtime, Malachai would come up with countless ideas using the figurines and other toys in the yard to represent the characters in the world of Axe Cop. This would all be translated into words and images by Ethan after the fact.
HEART is a four issue mini-series published by Image Comics based around the increasingly popular world of Mixed Martial Arts. It is written by American TV show host and MMA diehard fan Blair Butler and illustrated by independent artist Kevin Mellon. It tells the story of Oren “Rooster” Redmond and his journey from a down on his luck nobody to the hottest property in the elite world of competitive mixed martial arts.
Ok, Schism‘s long story short was basically Cyclops and Wolverine having a giant tizzy, culminating in an epic ocean side fistfight because they didn’t agree on how each other were running the show so Cyclops packed it in and headed off to Utopia (a protected island for Mutantkind) with a bunch of mutants and Logan was left in charge of the rest, back at the X-Mansion/School. Spawning from the aftermath of the mini-series were two titles, one brand new titled Wolverine and The X-Men and one new but with an all-too-familiar title, Uncanny X-Men.
