Reviews - BGCP Comic Con

Review – Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers/TMNT

20th December 2025

Review – Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Publisher: BOOM! Studios/IDW Writer: Ryan Parrott Art: Simone Di Meo with assistance by Alessio Zonno (Issues 2-5) Colouring: Walter Baiamonte with assistance by Igor Monti Release Dates: 18 December 2019 It’s Morphin’ Time! Picture this: it’s Saturday morning, say around 10am. You’re excited as in 15 minutes will be your favourite cartoon. Those 15 minutes feel like a lifetime as a kid but eventually you hear that familiar tune; “Go, Go, Power Rangers…” / “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles…” For the next 20 minutes you are glued to the TV. Nothing gets in your way. No outside sounds. Just you, the TV and your favourite heroes on screen. Dear reader, this was exactly how I felt reading this comic! It was a nostalgia trip from beginning to end. I could hear the characters in my head. The theme tunes were running amok inside my child-like brain. I was transported back to that Saturday morning I mentioned. Story For the first time ever, the Heroes in a Half Shell meet their colourful counterparts; The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Arriving in New York, the Rangers are in search of their friend and teammate Tommy Oliver-aka The Mighty Morphin’ Green Ranger. They however discover that he has joined forces with Shredder and his Foot Clan, the Turtles sworn enemy! They themselves join forces with the Turtles to battle Shredder and his new cohort: Rita Repulsa! Ryan Parrot’s writing helped bring these superpowered groups to life. Art Along with Parrot’s writing, Simone Di Meo’s art, (with the assistance of Alessio Zonno who penned issues 2-5), takes us on an epic journey where we meet familiar faces as well as some new ones (Turtle Rangers, anyone!?). Walter Baiamonte and Igor Monti’s colouring makes every page of this comic just pop! It was honestly as though I were watching a TV show rather than reading a comic. As a kid who grew up watching both these shows, I would honestly love to see a live action crossover one day! Verdict I was slightly hesitant of reading this, truth be told. I liked the look of the cover but felt a slight pang of “Oh no, what if this is just childish?” However, I was very much proven wrong! Who cares if it was childish? I watched these shows when I was younger and this was no different. It brought back all my fond memories and I loved it from beginning to end. I highly recommend this to anyone of all ages. If you enjoyed this review, please leave a comment and/or your own rating!

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Review- Ghost of Tsushima

20th December 2025

Review – Ghost of Tsushima Studio: Sucker Punch Productions Genre: Third Person Action Platforms: Playstation 4 Release: July 17 2020 Introduction Released in summer 2020, Ghost of Tsushima is a Playstation 4 exclusive from Sony’s first party Sucker Punch Productions studio. It is a third-person open world game set in 13th century Japan. Playing as a samurai named Jin Sakai, the game sees you fighting to free your home island of Tsushima from Mongol invaders. The gameplay, on the surface, is standard third party action. Closer to earlier Assassin’s Creed games, than Uncharted or The Last of Us. Ghost of Tsushima also gives the player the freedom of choice to play the game as a straightforward action game or a stealth game. Story From a story perspective, Ghost of Tsushima balances the complexity of a rich world with a basic story that’s easy to follow. The main campaign is just about clearing out the Mongols and their big bad, saving your uncle along the way. There’s plenty of homages and inspiration from classic Japanese cinema that make the game feel familiar. The writers throw in some spicy story beats along the way, but in general the plot is pretty straight forward. The depth is really added in the game’s side quests. Whether they be stories for ally characters or just simple side quests in the Tales of Tsushima, these missions stand out. The quests as a whole are more elevated than standard fetch and escort quests. The writers make almost all the quests feel like they have meaning. Either in supporting allies who stay with you throughout the game, or advancing your campaign against the Mongols, whilst playing through the game it always felt like the quests were helping you build towards something. Furthermore, Sucker Punch avoid overwhelming your map in the style of The Witcher 3. Some ally missions felt more engaging than others, depending on which allies you liked more. I was really into hunting down the wayward archer, or helping a fallen samurai house get vengeance. Meanwhile, my cousin’s experience leaned more towards the monk who was on his own quest against the Mongols. More important than the surface level writing, though, is the world and the island of Tsushima itself. The game is stunningly gorgeous, encompassing a diverse variety of terrain and vistas. It offers a lot of off the path story beats and things to discover. The island is Jin’s home, and a character in itself. At times it is a peaceful, gorgeous Japanese island and at other times it’s a warzone being ravaged by foreign invaders. By the end of the game I felt attached to the island and invested in its future. You get to choose audio settings for your game too and there’s something special added to the experience if you choose to exist on this island with Japanese audio and English subtitles. Gameplay If you’ve played more recent Sucker Punch Productions games in the Infamous franchise, you might expect a morality system in the game. The game is actually kind of set up for it early on, with the dichotomy between stealth Ghost gameplay and more “honorable” samurai gameplay being a story beat. The game literally had me questioning if it was something that was coming up as they made me feel dishonorable for taking advantage of the stealth gameplay. It feels as if they may have dabbled with it early on, then pulled it to just focus on the story. This ends up being a positive, as the story is beautiful, but selfishly the idea of a branching story is appealing if only as an excuse for more time in this fantastic game. What really surprised me when playing Ghost Of Tsushima for review, was how big the world and story were. The map is always fogged over until you explore it, so it’s hard to know from the start how much there really is to do. Whether I missed some early clues or just didn’t follow news of the game closely enough, I found myself genuinely shocked about 20 hours when I “finished” the island only to realise it was the first of three sections on the island. I had thought the first act was the whole game, and the first third of the island was the whole island. Pleasantly surprising, for such a beautiful and engaging game. You can’t talk about the gameplay of this game though without discussing the samurai gameplay. The game sports a handful of different sword stances, as well as secondary weapons to aid you in your mission. The swordplay is fluid and satisfying. To that point, the samurai showdowns, – both mandatory and optional, – are beautiful and brutal. The animations leading up to the duels get a little redundant by hour 40. That said, you still have to admire how good it feels in game. There are multiple difficulties to choose from, with the standard difficulty being more standard video game. The harder difficulty goes for more realism in how many slices from a sword a human being can truly withstand. Overall Ghost of Tsushima is a jewel in the crown of Sony’s first party. It’s a reason to own a PS4 and a sequel will be a system seller for PS5. It belongs in the conversation with God of War, Horizon, Spider-Man, & Uncharted. It’s the samurai game so many of us have wanted for years, while also scratching that stealth itch. I hope the folks at Ubisoft played this game, because Ghost is a better Assassin’s Creed game than any of the actual AC games that have been released in a long time. Sakai’s journey to becoming the Ghost is tragic and exciting, and I won’t soon forget the character. I’m not sure how the game will continue, after that ending. Regardless, I can’t imagine Sony will leave this game without a sequel in the coming years.

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Review – Tom King’s Vision

20th December 2025

Review – Tom King’s Vision Publisher: Marvel Comics Writer: Tom King Art: Gabriel Hernandez Walta (Issues 1-6, 8-12), Michael Walsh (Issue 7) Coloring: Jordie Bellaire Lettering: VC’s Clayton Cowles Cover/Back Art: Mike Del Mundo (Issues 1-4, 7-12), Marco D’Alfonso (Issues 5, 6) Release Dates: January 2018 (Complete Collection) INTRODUCTION Tom King doesn’t generally write happy stories with happy endings. If you’ve read any of his work on Batman, Heroes in Crisis, or his celebrated Mister Miracle miniseries, you already sort of know this. King likes to write heroes who are really dealing with their traumas and their darker sides, which doesn’t always work (again; see Batman, maybe his most divisive work), but when it does, it does to tremendous effect. So it is with Tom King’s take on The Vision, a character who has gone from one of the most obscure Marvel heroes only a few years ago, to a dining room table name thanks to the MCU movies and the extremely successful WandaVision streaming series. Vision is a series that deals with a multitude of heavy topics, all weaved together in a complex story line that feels longer than the twelve issues that it occupies. It poses questions about what it means to be human and how we all deal with trauma in a few different, yet equally relatable ways. In our review of Tom King’s Vision, we’ll take a look at how effectively King broaches these subjects, and maybe answer one other question: How far would you go for your family? STORY The premise of Vision is simple: In his ongoing quest to understand humanity and distance himself from the cold, genocidal machinations of his ‘father’ Ultron, Vision has built himself a family. A traditional, white picket fence, all American nuclear family with a wife and two teenage children, a son and a daughter. Vision and his family have recently moved to Virginia to accommodate for a job that Vision has taken up as the Avengers liaison to the White House. All Vision wants to do is have a normal, unassuming, suburban life. He has ‘dinner’ at the table with his family every night (they don’t eat, as we learn within the first few pages, but they all sit around a table and beam recorded experiences of their day to each other). Vision leaves for work every morning and waves to his neighbors (while floating through the air), and sends his kids to school every morning (where they’re dogged by the other children for being what they are). Alright, so his life isn’t quite normal. It’s an approximation of a human family life, and if these almost-human activities make you feel a little uncomfortable, that’s somewhat intentional. Very quickly within the story, an event occurs that sends things spiraling nightmarishly out of control. I don’t want to spoil anything too deeply, but this traumatic event is the catalyst that Tom King uses to really explore the humanity of these characters, and somehow manage to effectively portray PTSD in artificial life forms that barely understand their own feelings. Vision’s son, Vin, noticeably develops a sort of obsessive compulsive trait. He becomes enamored with Shakespeare and spends almost all his waking time at home loudly acting out his favorite passages in what I can only imagine as a Patrick Stewart like manner. Virginia, Vision’s wife, begins to become stuck on some words, repeating them two or three times, and finds herself lying multiple times to protect her family. These personality quirks that emerge in these synthetic humans work as a fantastic contrast to their otherwise very robotic behavior. In one very early scene, Vision and Virginia debate the meaning of ‘kind’ vs ‘nice’, and somehow King manages to make their dialog seem both cold and logical, and compelling and loving. His ability to write these characters as both chillingly robotic and charmingly human is maybe his greatest strength in this book. You want to root for the Visions, even as you become slowly more horrified by them. All of this is put together in a way that asks the question of what it really means to be human. Vision isn’t human, technically speaking, but he understands the idiosyncrasies of humans and attempts to mimic them. Virginia isn’t human, yet she lies to protect her family like any human mother would, and she cries over memories that aren’t hers (read the book for the backstory on that particular nightmare). Viv, Vision’s daughter, isn’t human, but he develops a crush on a human boy and replays the memory of the one conversation she has with him over and over to herself, even though she doesn’t fully understand the feelings she’s expressing. So do you really have to be flesh and blood to be human? Do you have to have a soul? I don’t have the answers to those questions, but what I can tell you is The Visions are one of the most human comic book families I’ve ever read. The style of the story is very much echoed in the later work King did on Mister Miracle, juxtaposing banal family life against life or death comic book shenanigans. If you read that book, and liked it, this will absolutely be right up your alley. You’ll feel for this family, you’ll fear for the family, and at points you will fear the family. Upon review, Tom King’s Vision is his work at its best, and it’s a narrative not to be missed. ARTWORK Gabriel Walta’s artwork in Vision is a perfect visual style for Tom King’s domesticated drama. His panels are clear, big, and colorful. His characters are emotive, full of vibrant facial expressions and body language that clearly and effectively evoke the emotions running high through the book. Just as well, when the story moved in to darker or more disturbing territory, the art changes to match this as well. This is most noticeable in the coloring, performed by Jordie Bellaire. The hues are warm and inviting when we’re following

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Review – Hellboy (2019)

20th December 2025

Directed by: Neil Marshall Produced by: Martin Bernfeld Written by: Andrew Cosby Starring: David Harbour & Ian McShane Release Date: April 11th 2019 (UK) Review – Hellboy (2019) Whilst taking notes for my review for Hellboy 2019, I realised that if the movie actually has one thing going for it; it’s that it’s impressive. It is impressive in the sense that it actually made me question the futility of time and why I was wasting my short time on this earth re-watching this atrocious piece of trash. There were several times whilst watching the film that I actually couldn’t quite bring myself to believe how bad what I was witnessing onscreen really was. This might be the worst film I have ever seen. It without a doubt took the crown of the worst superhero movie ever made from Fan4stic when it was released and is frankly downright insulting to Hellboy fans. I still cannot believe that they chose to make this trash over another movie with Ron Perlman and Del Toro. Almost every single aspect of this movie is garbage and there are hardly any redeeming features. Let’s talk about the main character; this movie’s version of Hellboy. We all knew going in that David Harbour had some pretty big shoes to fill, as following Perlman’s take on the character was never going to be easy. In Harbour’s defence, pretty much the only slightly positive aspect of this version of the character is the fact that you can tell that Harbour is doing the very best with the extremely poor material he has been given to work with. Most of his lines are awful and the way that his character is written as a moaning, whiny teenager is actually insulting to the character. Also, the excessive makeup he is wearing means that he is hardly able to emote with his mouth. When he is talking, his mouth simply opens and closes like a puppet and it is painfully obvious that the dialogue has been dubbed in later and even that has not been done very well. The other slight positive in this movie was getting to see Hellboy in his full demonic getup with long horns and donning the flaming crown and sword. While this sequence was pretty cool, unfortunately this is the only fleeting glimpse of coolness we get before we are right back to the crap. One of the most memorable elements of the Del Toro Hellboy movies were the cast, unfortunately they have been substituted with an insufferably annoying lot of replacements. The actress playing Alice may give the worst performance that I have ever seen in a comic book movie, (and I saw Polar!) Every single line that she uttered was extremely cringe-worthy and poorly delivered. Daniel Dae Kim was almost as bad as Hellboy’s other sidekick. Again, a lot of his lines were ADR’d in later and really shoddily done. Ian McShane plays Broom, the scientist that found Hellboy and adopted him and he is clearly sleepwalking his way through this role for the sake of an easy paycheck. As is Milla Jovovich, who plays a stereotypical villainous witch and does absolutely nothing new here that we haven’t seen her do before in other movies. Over my years of watching almost every comic book movie that releases, I have seen my fair share of cheap, cartoony looking CGI, but this takes the cake. Almost every scene in the movie features some kind of CGI creature and they are all on a similar level of quality to an unfinished student project. One moment where it really stood out was the fight with the giants, – where we were subjected to not only one bad CGI giant, but three of them. The scene is also shot in broad daylight, which really does the bad CGI no favours. Not once did anything in this movie look better than the effects in the Del Toro movies which came out 10+ years ago. At this point in my Hellboy review, I’ve decided that I’m going to spoil the end of the movie, because seriously who even cares at this point? The absolute worst part of CGI in the entire movie, is during one of the final scenes where Ian McShane comes back to speak to Hellboy as a ghost. The CG in this scene is genuinely on par with the Rock’s CG in in the Scorpion King. Yes, it really is that bad. The soundtrack is so misused here also. The songs featured themselves are all half decent songs, but they do not work in the context of this film and they add absolutely nothing to the scenes that they are used in. The editing is also horrible. There were several times that I was reminded of the cheap editing in shows like Buffy The Vampire Slayer. The last thing that I want to talk about is the tone and humour, (or lack of,) present throughout the film. The movie opens with a flashback scene showing King Arthur chopping up the witch. The scene is being narrated by Ian McShane and it is chock-full of diabolically awful dialogue and insufferably cheesy line delivery. Whilst watching it I thought, “Oh they are really hamming it up here and going for a really corny tone for these flashback scenes.” I then swiftly came to the soul-crushing conclusion that no, – this was how the next 2 hours of this movie was going to go. The awful sense of humour is actually comparable to that in a poor quality kids film, with gross out burp and kiss jokes to boot. What happened to the darker, more horror orientated tone that we were teased with when the movie was in pre-production? Any semblance of that is sorely lacking here and it is a real shame because I would have quite liked

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Review – Jedi: Fallen Order (2019)

20th December 2025

Developer: Respawn Entertainment Publisher: Electronic Arts Starring: Cameron Monaghan Director: Stig Asmussen Release Date: November 15th 2019 Review – Jedi: Fallen Order (2019) Going back to review Jedi: Fallen Order, brought me back to how I felt when I first finished the game; I remember feeling profoundly confused. Not because of some complex twist or story revelation, but because on paper by all rights, I should have loved every minute of this game. You take the parkour movement and sense of adventure from a game like Uncharted and you give it to a Jedi, who we follow during some of the darkest days in the Star Wars lore and what do you get? Apparently you get something that doesn’t feel anything like Star Wars. I have a fair number of problems with this game, so I’m going to go ahead and list them and explain why they bothered me so much during my experience playing through Fallen Order. First of all, when this game dropped and did pretty well commercially and critically. EA were commended in the games media for having the guts to release a single-player, story based Star Wars game with no online play. When the reviews dropped just before the game’s release and this news was revealed, it got me really hyped as I have never been much for online gaming and much prefer story based games over anything else. Now whilst EA did give us a single-player, offline Star Wars story, they did so in such a sloppy, janky, half-finished fashion. I lost count of the amount of times that I had to restart my game because of loading errors or game breaking bugs. Almost every time I would enter a new area the characters would initially appear in a T-pose position and remain that way for a good few seconds until I approached them. Onscreen prompts would often fail to appear making the game’s already confusing exploration methods even more unclear. I have not seen this much pop-in in a videogame since the launch version of No Man’s Sky. Almost every area was covered in murky textures upon initially entering them, with some entire structures and areas failing to render. During a few boss fights, the AI character would fail to attack me and would just stand still and no matter how many blows I would land on them, their health bar would not budge until I fully reloaded the level. This sort of thing was present during every one of my play sessions and at a few points the game became almost unplayable due to it’s glaring technical glitches. Also, I got this game as a Christmas gift and played it at the start of 2020, so it had been out for a decent amount of time by then. A game of this calibre, that had been out for months at the time I played it, from a major studio like Respawn and a publisher like EA, not to mention being from a major franchise like Star Wars, – the fact that it is in the current broken state that it’s in is frankly unacceptable. The next issue I want to highlight and something that really stood out to me when replying Jedi: Fallen Order for review was the story and characters in the game. The game’s protagonist Cal, is an unsympathetic, whiny bitch of a character that got on my nerves every time he opened his mouth. The rest of the crew were also pretty bland, unendearing and lacking in much personality. I grew up loving the Star Wars universe, yet I found myself trying in vain to skip almost every cutscene and really not giving a crap what happens to any one of the characters. The villains were unengaging and the other side characters like Cal’s master and the old dude that left holograms for Cal to find got increasingly annoying every time they appeared. The only character I found engaging throughout the whole game was Sister Merrin. I always thought Jedi Knights were supposed to be extremely capable, powerful warriors, yet at no point in this game do you ever feel powerful in any significant way. The whole time, you feel on par with the non descript enemies that you are fighting. While I agree that the last major AAA single-player Star Wars game, The Force Unleashed was too easy, at least you felt powerful while playing as that character. The combat never feels as satisfying as it should due to the lack of dismemberment. The decision not to allow the player to chop off limbs makes it feels more like you are hitting enemy shaped piñatas with a big stick, rather than welding a laser sword of pure, raw energy. I also felt that there was a lack of variation in the combos and moves-set and found myself watching the same animations over and again no matter what combination of buttons I was mashing. Every fight in this game is hard and not in a fun,challenging way, but instead in a grinding, irritating way. The ridiculously long loading times also made dying even more frustrating. If you are going to design a game where the player is going to die frequently, you HAVE TO have a snappy respawn system in place à la Super Meat Boy or Hotline Miami. (Especially when your goddamn studio is called RESPAWN, but I digress.) They were clearly going for a more defensive, methodical approach to the combat system, which is fine, but they should have given you a choice between that and a more aggressive, offensive skill tree, meaning that more play styles could be catered to. Another majorly annoying thing was the way that the game justified unlocking new skills for Cal, with him having out-of-the-blue flashbacks at seemingly random points in the story where he would suddenly remember that he could wall-run or double-jump. I hate when games do this, it feels extremely lazy and unjustified within the context of the

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Jim Cornette Presents: Behind the Curtain

20th December 2025

Jim Cornette Presents: Behind the Curtain Published by IDW Publishing Written by Brandon Easton Art by Denis Medri Released – August, 2019 INTRODUCTION Jim Cornette Presents Behind the Curtain is an illustrated episodic docu-comic about the golden age of professional wrestling and it’s dark but brilliant veil of commitment. Presented by Jim Cornette himself -doing his best Rod Serling impression, we dive deep into the wrestling’s Twilight Zone. Yes, this is a comic book. All of the traits of a comic are here; superheroes and supervillains with super strength, super intelligence, regenerative powers and high-risk world-shaking stakes. However, these stories are not fake. They are Kayfabemania running wild and they are very much real. Step into the story-time squared circle with Jim Cornette and prepare to get slammed. STORY If there was one person capable of sharing how off script the predetermined world of professional wrestling goes, it’s the all-around wrestling businessman and notorious, Jim Cornette. Say what you will about Cornette, the man knows his wrestling history and does a great job in touring the reader through the backstories of wrestling’s works as well as his own involvement within the infamous Montreal Screwjob. To the best of my knowledge as a diehard wrestling fan along with some research, his telling of the stories is 100% factually accurate…which is both utterly fascinating and terrifying to think about! I hope that the predominant belief that “professional wrestling is fake” will be slammed to the mat, pinned for the 1, 2, 3 count and retired while the crowd chant in unison “THIS IS AWESOME!!!”. Just to lay some perspective myself. For those who aren’t convinced of the reality of professional wrestling, your favourite shows like Game of Thrones and Coronation St. are absolutely predetermined and fake. Cornette puts it best himself when he says that professional wrestling is a three-ring circus of sport, theatre and psychological manipulation. For the most part, it is live entertainment; No stunt doubles, no redoes, the botches although rare, are still inevitable for beholders to witness and are there to remind them that this industry is indeed still real, damn it! Cornette and through the art of gripping storytelling with no one to interrupt him, produces thought provoking arguments against the state of modern professional wrestling when emphasizing the bleak and almost military approach to kayfabe. With the rise of the internet and social media, the walls of kayfabe and commitment to character can be torn down by just a simple click to the point where over the top gimmicks have all but been buried in the dirt. In the golden age of wrestling however – and much like every superhero ever, professional wrestlers would withhold the locker room law of protecting your real identity from the public so to abolish any criticism of faux fighting, sometimes to questionable and devastating levels of commitment; like Daniel Day Lewis being cast as The Joker. Yeah, THAT kind of commitment. ART Medri’s artwork presents wrestlers with details and proportions that are wholly unrealistic for the most part; Ric Flair was not Goliath in stature, he was a guy. This, however, is not a criticism as the style beautifully represents the nostalgia of a fan recalling their memories of awe-inspiring icons under the spotlight from the front row of the arena as a child. Cementing the legacy of these very human legends as superhuman Superstars. That being said, oh god the eyes. THOSE HORRIBLE EYES!!! As mentioned before, Cornette appears to be narrating the Twilight Zone like he’s the Rod Sterling of wrestling as it unfolds around his every fourth wall breaking word. OUR REVIEW Overall, no matter your opinion on Jim Cornette, his telling of wrestling’s no holds barred history is fully engaging and earth shattering whether you are a wrestling fan or not. What has fascinated me most is that I had never heard the stories before and I am dumbfounded, gobsmacked and worked that Hollywood hasn’t picked up one story in particular that would change the world of storytelling forever, ironically just as the heel in question did for humanity back in his day. The novel is a great way for existing fans to expand on their knowledge of the wrestling world and maybe even introduce them to classic matches if they are relatively new fans of the sport. I myself have more respect for the grandfathers of wrestling than I ever had, now that I have found this book and will recognize names like Sputnik Monroe, Jerry Lawler and even Jim Cornette himself, as some of the most influential characters in the art and sport of professional wrestling. So, whether you’re a mark for wrestling or a guy called Mark that doesn’t know what a kayfabe is, this book is the main event and is a stunner throughout. PS. If you don’t know what Kayfabe is, this book also works as a wrestling dictionary!

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Review – Shazam! (2019)

20th December 2025

Directed by: David F. Sandberg Produced by: Geoff Johns & Dwayne Johnson Written by: Henry Gayden & Darren Lemke Starring: Zachary Levi & Mark Strong Release Date: April 5th 2019 (UK) Review – Shazam! (2019) Being the big ol’ geek that I am, I usually know the source material of the superhero movie I am going to see pretty well. Shazam was an exception to this, – other than the infamous Captain Marvel/Shazam copyright battle between Marvel and DC’s lawyers over the years and the fact that he is a teenage boy who transforms into a grown man who looks like Superman with a similar power set, – I didn’t know much about the character going in. Watching Shazam for review, I enjoyed certain aspects of it, but it does fall short in other areas. Something that I always wonder is how Mark Millar managed to get away with creating his own, ‘original,’ comic book character called Superior. Superior bears multiple similarities to Shazam, – to the point that I am surprised that DC have never attempted to sue Millar for blatant plagiarism. In a word, Shazam is fun. I enjoyed my time with it and although this was only my second viewing of the film, I would still watch it again. I enjoyed seeing Mark Strong hamming it up as the movie’s villain and Zachary Levi does a great job in the titular role. Also, his chemistry with Jack Dylan Grazer’s character is a huge highlight of the film for me. The SFX are on point for the most part other than the fairly cartoony representations of the 7 deadly sins monsters. There is also a charming, dumb, pure, innocence to the movie that really shines through the entire thing. My biggest issue with the movie is Asher Angel as Billy Batson when he’s not Shazam. Not necessarily because he is a bad actor or anything, but more because of how he chose to play the role. He comes across as broody and introspective, almost the total opposite of how Zachary Levi comes across as Shazam with his over the top playfulness and silly puns. This discrepancy is prevalent to the point where the illusion that these two actors were playing the same character is entirely broken and it is as if they are just playing two totally different characters with entirely opposite personalities that are just never seen in the same room. I feel like a bit of smoothing out could have been done between the actors to come to a compromise where they could both deliver their respective lines whilst still believably playing the same character. Also, something that you should probably know going in is that this is a comedy with lessons about family and responsibility before it is a Superhero/Action movie. It does make sense within the context of the film that there are no epic action scenes as Billy is just an untrained everyday kid that has been given a bunch of amazing powers that he is still getting to grips with, but don’t expect any mind-blowing action scenes on par with MCU movies etc. Even though I guess it makes sense that there wasn’t anything too impressive in terms of action scenes, I remember being left a little bit unfulfilled as I left the cinema after seeing the movie the first time, that the film is more insistent on showing us tender family moments rather than huge scale superhero battles. Overall, Shazam is dumb fun. Don’t think too hard about it and you will almost certainly have a great time watching it. This movie was the first to suggest that the fun factor of DC films seems to be on the up and they had dropped the dour tone of their Batman/Superman stories set up by Zack Snyder. It seems now that they seem to have almost totally abandoned the idea of following in Marvel’s footsteps of tying movies together in order to lead up to a team up blockbuster altogether and this movie was an early sign of that. That move was for the best and was what they should have been doing from the start rather than trying to win a losing battle and play catch up with a franchise that has been building for an entire decade at that point.

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Review – All Star Superman

20th December 2025

Review – All Star Superman Publisher: DC Comics Writer: Grant Morrison Penciller: Frank Quietly Inker: Jamie Grant Colourist: Jamie Grant Letterer: Phil Balsman & Travis Lanham Release Date: November 2005 – October 2008 Getting to review All Star Superman was great as it allowed me to revisit one of my favourite comics ever written, bearing in mind that I am not someone who has ever necessarily been a massive fan of the Man of Steel and have always preferred him as a side character in a Batman story. The book was written as a jumping in point for wannabe comic book fans, meaning that you can go into this story with little to no prior knowledge of Superman and still have a great time and appreciate everything going on within the plot. That being said, even if you are well versed in Superman’s lore, you will probably still very much enjoy this book and Grant Morrison’s take on the character. Morrison’s writing moves the book’s plot along at a brisk pace, but is careful not to convolute itself. They manage to keep even the most out-of-the-loop readers abreast of what is going on, without ever having to talk down to them or be condescending in their writing. I also love how he opens the book with a single page showing Superman’s origin story, before cutting immediately to a beautiful two page spread showing the Man of Steel in all of his costumed glory. As may be expected when it comes to Grant Morrison, the book doesn’t shy away from going cosmic on us early on, showing Superman flying around the circumference of the sun. I also really enjoy Morrison’s take on Kal El and Lois’ relationship and how that relationship changes and evolves over time. Any relationship that includes a person from another world is going to be a complex one with multiple layers and facets to it. The other major relationship in Superman’s life is the one that he shares with Lex Luthor. I really enjoy how Morrison writes Lex here as an unflinching sociopath who is willing to go to any lengths necessary to see his plans through to their conclusion. Quitely’s art smoothly compliments the story being told and is key in making this book as well-loved as it is. I love the clean, crisp illustrations and I am actually a fan of the Superman built like Desperate Dan and appreciate the homage that Quitely pays here to the comic books of his youth. Jamie Grant’s choice of colour is also a big part of what makes the book iconic. The pages of this book are instantly recognisable at even the briefest of glances due to to the bright, varied colours throughout each page. However, pages still manage to never look garish or gaudy; instead the colours all work to compliment the illustrations and bring each panel to life. Coming away from having re-read All Star Superman for review, I enjoyed my time with it just as much as I did the first time I read through it. Grant Morrison really hit the nail on the head with this take on the character and gave us the quintessential alternative version of the Man of Steel. Whether you are a big Superman fan or not, go read this book and you will have a great time. Oh and it’s just a little bit better than its All Star Batman and Robin counterpart by Frank Miller and Jim Lee!

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Review – The Walking Dead Volume 1: Days Gone Bye

20th December 2025

Review – The Walking Dead Volume 1: Days Gone Bye Publisher: Image Comics Writer: Robert Kirkman Penciller: Tony Moore Inker: Tony Moore Letterer: Robert Kirkman Release Date: October 2003 – March 2004 The Walking Dead comic recently came to an end, so getting to go back and review Days Gone Bye, – the first volume in the series, – was an opportune chance to revisit how this pop culture juggernaut came about. The Walking Dead tells the story of Rick Grimes; an Atlanta sheriff who gets flung headfirst into the zombie apocalypse, which throws an overwhelming amount of un-dead corpses his way and exposes the brutality required to survive this harsh new world. Where most other zombie media focuses on the actual zombies and monsters killing human characters, The Walking Dead instead chooses to focus on the human relationships within the group of survivors that we follow. Although this has become somewhat of a trope over recent years, reading The Walking Dead was the first time that I saw the concept of ‘fight the dead, fear the living,’ actually realised and at the time I thought that it was fantastically original and refreshing. Unfortunately, we have been somewhat bombarded with zombie media to the point of parody since this book’s debut and the market has become extremely saturated in the years since it released, but credit is still due to the story that started it all. This idea has been parroted many times since because it was an awesome idea to begin with. Beyond the initial innovative idea though, the writing has to be there to back it up. Robert Kirkman is brilliant at building his universe and really making his characters and settings feel fleshed out. This was also one of the first comic books I read, where I really felt the constantly present threat that the characters had to live with on a daily basis and it honestly does feel like no character is ever truly safe. Kirkman does somewhat lean on shock value to keep readers engaged in this book, which is not always something that I am a huge fan of. He also isn’t afraid to explore extremely dark themes and sadly doesn’t always do so with the most subtlety or grace, resulting in some tactless excess and some poorly handled choices. Tony Moore manages to capture a brilliant level of detail and expression in every frame of this volume. I also love the clarity of his artwork; there is never a point in this book where I felt confused as to what I was seeing. The version of the book I read for review had also been coloured, however when I originally read the book, it was in black and white. To be honest, I think I prefer the B&W approach as it fits the horror theme of the book better and doesn’t look as cartoonish. Admittedly, as much as I enjoyed Tony Moore’s work in this volume, Charlie Adlard took over art duties from volume 2 onwards and I much prefer his work. Adlard’s drawing style is wildly different to Moore’s and it does take some getting used to, but once you settle into it, it is great. Overall, I really enjoyed going back and reading Days Gone Bye for review. It is pretty amazing when you consider all of the other media that has spawned from this single comic. Some of the writing can be fairly clumsy at times and Moore’s art carries a certain cheesiness to it, but there was enough talent onboard here to bring this franchise to life and the rest is history at this point.

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Review – Planet Hulk (2006-2007)

20th December 2025

Review – Planet Hulk Publisher: Marvel Comics Writer: Greg Pak Pencillers: Alan Lopresti, Carlo Pagulayan & Gary Frank Inkers: Danny Miki, Sandu Florea & Jeffrey Huet Colourist: Chris Sotomayor Letterer: Randy Gentile Release Date: April 2006 – June 2007 So I just finished re-reading Planet Hulk for review and honestly it was a bit of a slog to get through. I first read this book back-to-back along with World War Hulk when I seriously first got into comics back in 2013 and I remember really enjoying it. The reason that I made sure it was one of the first books I read when getting into comics was because it was so often recommended in a ton of articles and online forums as a highlight for Marvel and as a must-read book. When I read through it for the first time and put it down, I really thought that it deserved all of the high praise and accolades that it received and it has really held a spot in my mind over the years as a prestige of comic book storytelling. After revisiting it though, I realise that there is a good chance I was looking back at it through rose-tinted glasses. I also wonder if my memory has been somewhat clouded due to my enjoyment of Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok, which took a number of elements from Planet Hulk. In actual fact, Planet Hulk consists of a meandering plot and lacks the punch that’s carried by most other classic Marvel stories. The book starts off by making the Avengers members that decide to send Hulk away, (AKA The Illuminati) look pretty cold and heartless. I appreciate that these characters aren’t totally one dimensional good guys all of the time and have occasionally did some questionable, shady things through the years, but for them to just randomly send away one of their greatest assets without any real motive seems very out of character. Once Hulk arrives on Sakaar, this could essentially be any random sci-fi comics and there is no real reason for the story to be a Marvel book any longer. The entire plot feels incredibly detached from the Marvel universe to the point that I found it quite hard to care about any danger or peril that the characters were faced with. It also doesn’t help that the one character we follow that we do know is probably the hardest Avenger to relate to since he is a hulking green monster that rarely says more than one word sentences. I realise that the following statement may be sacrilegious to some comic book geeks, but I have never really been a fan of when the Hulk speaks. I am okay hearing him say the occasional throwaway word or short phrase, but when he is speaking in long detailed, articulate sentences, I struggle to buy it and by the end of this book, he is strategising and governing like he has studied the Art of War. It makes him feel even less like the Hulk character that we know from Marvel comics and makes this story feel even more detached, like some kind of Elseworlds tale, but no this is all still apparently taken place within main Marvel 616 canon. I have heard a few people argue that this book works as a set up for the more exciting follow up, World War Hulk. However I really don’t think that 330 pages of set up were necessary to tell that story. Reading the book felt like somewhat of a chore this time around and dragged on far more than I remembered which resulted in me really struggling through it. The artwork in the book is decent and is consistent throughout. I really enjoyed the pencils and inks throughout the book. Honestly the only issue that I had was that I felt that Alan Lopresti’s, Danny Miki’s and Chris Sotomayor’s talent were wasted here to a certain extent. Somewhat similar to how I felt when witnessing Jim Lee’s stunning artwork in All Star Batman and Robin, although maybe not quite to that extent. Frankly, this is a book that I wish I had never revisited. It really let me down in terms of it’s level of quality in my mind and I would actually recommend against revisiting it if it is a book that you enjoyed a number of years ago.

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