Steven W. Alloway (292)
In many ways, Tales of Discord plays out like a season of the show Lost. There’s a large ensemble cast and a number of concurrent storylines. There’s a present-day plotline, which is illuminated by flashbacks to the histories and origins of the various major characters. And, most importantly, it’s confusing to follow at times . . . but still addictively entertaining.
Doctor Who Classics #2 takes another old adventure from issues of Doctor Who Magazine, colorizes it, and assembles it into comic form. "Invaders from Gantac" is a three-part arc which has the Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy on the television series) stumbling into an alien invasion as only the Doctor can stumble.
It feels wrong to say that The Colonized has a lot in common with the movie Plan 9 from Outer Space, but it's technically true. The cult classic by Ed Wood has become so known for its pervasive awfulness and hilarious continuity errors that such a comparison would seem like I was saying The Colonized is somehow a bad or laughable piece. This is far from the case. But, they share some common plot points: aliens coming to Earth, finding a bunch of despicable and violence-loving humans, and resurrecting the dead.
There’s a lot of backstory to the It Girl and the Atomics saga, spanning several different series prior to this one, which provide the details of who these characters are, how they came to be, what they can do, and what their relationships are to one another. None of it really matters a whole lot to this particular issue. If you wanted to jump in with #9, with no prior knowledge of the series or the characters, you could do so without becoming too terribly lost. The only really important information is this: they’re superheroes. Everything else is pretty much incidental.
Danger Girl: Trinity #1 from IDW is pure, glorious entertainment. It has a little bit of everything: action and adventure, exotic locations, intrigue, beautiful women, fight scenes, explosions, and just a touch of humor. Combine that with a fast-paced, compelling plot, beautiful artwork, and a cliffhanger ending, and you’ve got a comic that’s just tremendously fun to read.
The Colonized #2 continues the story of the Carbon Falls Collective, a small, “off the grid” town in Montana with the incredible misfortune to be invaded by both aliens and zombies simultaneously, compounded by the incredible misfortune of having a lot of closed-minded xenophobes in its populace.
God the Dyslexic Dog is an epic story in three volumes, published over the course of several years. It’s sometimes strange, occasionally surreal, often existential, and more than a bit confusing. It spans time, from the dawn of the universe to the present, and into the future. It deals with history and myth, religion and science, God, man, animals, and everything in between. Often, it’s difficult to understand or keep track of. But, even when you have no idea where you’re going, it’s still a crazy ride and very entertaining.
Way Down in Chinatown is bizarre and often incomprehensible. Sometimes shrill and discordant, sometimes uncomfortable, and sometimes discombobulating. These aren’t criticisms of the film, merely observations. It was designed to be all of these things, and quite a bit more.
At its core, Skyward is filled with that childlike sense of adventure that makes a good children’s fantasy story. The story itself is somewhat familiar, at least in Issue #1, mapping out what appears to be the beginning of the classic hero’s journey. But, though the story is simple, there’s a lot of potential in it for great things.
Strange Attractors is a unique brand of science fiction. It’s not about starships or time machines or genetic experiments. Instead, it’s about the advanced mathematical equations that can find patterns in the complex systems that govern the chaos of our world. Sound boring? Not at all. The story doesn’t delve into any great detail about what these equations are, any more than Back to the Future delves into how the flux capacitor works. Instead, it shows us characters who are able to use these equations to shape reality and predict and influence the world around them.