Category: Reviews

December 8 / / Guides

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2014 has been a pivotal year for comics – we’ve seen a lot of new creators hit the scene, old characters refreshed, and some heavy hitters still going strong. Image continued its streak of bringing us incredible creator-owned series from the likes of Brian K. Vaughan, Robert Kirkman and Rick Remender, and Marvel and DC continued to pump out new storylines from our favorite franchises.  Spider-Man, Thor and Captain America all have new personas, and we were all charmed by a young lady who goes by Ms. Marvel. The indie scene continues to flourish, and digital comic book sales continue to rise with a new generation of digital-first readers. Yes, we have plenty to be proud of this year (including the launch of Shortboxed), which made it very difficult to choose our Top 10 Best Comic Books of 2014.

See which books made the the Top 10 Best Comic Books of 2014 after the jump!

December 2 / / Image
Thoughts of saving the world, being a hero and chosen ultimate warrior is affixed in all our imaginations. Meeting fairies, fantastic creatures and battling armies and overloads is what day dreams are made of. But what happens after the adventure is over is anything but living happily ever after.
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Birthright #2
December 1 / / DC

The holidays are finally here! Just as we may all celebrate in different ways, we each have our own unique taste in comics, so we’ve put together a diverse list of comic books that would make great gifts for anyone in your life. We’re sticking strictly to trade paperbacks and graphic novels – they simply make better gifts because they collect multiple issues in one easy to read book. It’s also much easier to give them to friends and family that aren’t “into comics” because many of these collect entire storylines in one package. We also only chose books that were released this year in 2014 – some comics were published earlier but came out in trade paperback form this year. The most important criteria – they’re all great stories! You really can’t go wrong with any of these. Well, you probably wouldn’t give Sex Criminals to your 7 year old niece (Ms. Marvel is likely a safer bet in that case).

Age of Ultron

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Get acquainted with the most dangerous robot in the universe before he makes his big screen debut in next year’s Avengers: Age of Ultron. The artificial intelligence known as Ultron has fought for years to eradicate mankind…and now, it has all but succeeded. The few remaining heroes are battered, broken, almost beaten and left considering desperate measures – some more desperate than others. But when Wolverine breaks ranks and pursues his own plan to defeat Ultron, will his drastic action cause more problems than it solves? This is a complete story that collects the entire Age of Ultron run, issues 1-10. Get it on Amazon for $23.

November 18 / / Marvel

Spider-Man meets Sixteen Candles.

At its most basic level, Ms. Marvel is about a teenage girl coming of age who also has to deal with being granted superpowers. However, author G. Willow Wilson takes it one step further and gives us Kamala Khan, our awkward Pakistani-American Muslim teenage girl protagonist from Jersey City. How’s that for pushing the envelope?

November 17 / / Image
November 13 / / Reviews

Monsters, demigods, heroes and Acropolis, a city in chaos. With a mandatory curfew to curb child abductions from monsters and ghouls, there’s only one thing this city needs – a hero. That’s where the town superhero, Haggard West, comes in. Except there’s one small problem – he just got blasted out of the sky by the ghouls. Now what?

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November 12 / / Oni Press

What would you do if you found out that you and your friends would be responsible for the end of the world? That’s the very question five friends – Grady, Heidi, Natasha, Daniel, and Billy – had to face in the opening pages of The Bunker. As they were about to bury a time capsule, they uncovered a bunker that contained letters written by their future selves warning them about the impending apocalypse – that they caused. Knowing that they cause a near extinction of the human race, the friends are each faced with their own demons and internal struggles. Can they change the future, or is their destiny written in stone? Are the letters even real?

November 10 / / Image
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Deadly Class cover, courtesy of Image Comics

Deadly Class is Kill Bill meets Dazed and Confused meets Saved By The Bell. Did you hear that? Highly-trained, deadly teens attending an assassin high school get into wacky hi-jinks. But instead of ruining a dance off at The Max… well, you know… what assassins do. With a Remender story and Wes Craig’s beautiful art Deadly Class is one of my favorite titles of the year. Find out why after the jump.