Comic review- Doc Savage: The Spider’s Web #1- And the award for the stupidest comic book of 2015 goes to……..this one.

Writer: Chris Roberson
Artist: Cezar Razek
Publisher: Dynamite Entertainment
Released: 2nd December 2015



Here’s the plot: 1935, America, and an evil inventor/industrialist has a portable weapon that melts people, and entire buildings. He attempts to sell it to the US Government, but (unbelievably) they are not interested.

So, rather than selling it to foreign governments, or to the numerous independently wealthy private individuals who would no doubt pay him billions for such a weapon, he comes up with a devious plan to change the US government’s mind and to get them interested in it.

Here’s his plan. Melt a couple of cops, evaporate a warehouse, frame the Germans, get the US government to perceive a German threat, and then they’ll come running back to you to buy your portable WMD. Will it work or will the heroic Doc Savage foil his evil plan to, err, sell a weapon to the US government, the very people that (in the real world) would be more than happy to buy it off of him?

If you want to find out what happens next, buy this book. If, however, you find this entire plot to be completely, unbelievably stupid, then don’t.

What on earth is going on here? Are we supposed to believe that the US government (In 1935) would NOT be interested in a powerful (portable) weapon that can dissolve people and entire buildings into a puddle of goo? And are we also supposed to believe that having found out about this technology that they would leave the inventor alone to do whatever he likes with it? Wouldn’t this be a serious national security issue? Didn’t the US invade Iraq because they THOUGHT that they had WMD’s? Okay, I know that was a lie, but the point stands.

There is no way in Hell that the US government of 1935 (or any other time in world history) would find out about a devastating weapon of mass destruction, and then do absolutely nothing about it other than politely say no when given first refusal.

How the Donald Duck am I supposed to take any of this seriously. The whole thing is completely preposterous. There’s suspension of disbelief, but suspension of the intellect as well?

Chris Roberson, you’re asking too much of your readers. Your story is nonsense, and I have to call you out on it. When the fundamental core of your narrative makes ZERO LOGICAL SENSE how the heck am I supposed to engage with it?

I’ll answer that. I can’t. It’s absolutely impossible to engage with something sooooooo mindnumbingly stoooopid. Aggggghhhhh, my head hurts now. Somebody give me some brain juice please, my intellect is literally pouring out of my ear holes.



Rating: 0/10 (I can’t even remember the last time that I read something as stupid as this comic book)

50-Word (comic) review: 2000AD-PROG 1959- Reflections on a world gone wrong

Writers and artists: Numerous
Publisher: Rebellion
Released: 2nd December 2015



2000AD, you really are spoiling me. What can I complain about when your stories are about Police brutality, political corruption, false justifications for war, resistance to tyrants and the ‘highest’ being questioned by the ‘lowest?’ This is how you get with the times. This is how you actually say something.


Rating: 10/10

Check out the following quotation from ‘Defoe//London Hanged’ by Pat Mills- 

‘By what authority are the highest in the land to be questioned by the lowest?’ 

Look at the front cover on this issue of 2000AD (by Cliff Robinson) where an unrepentant Judge Dredd is caught on a camera phone beating a civilian to death for the crime of talking back to him. 

Read ‘Bad Company//First Casualties’ a story where ex-soldiers find out that the war they risked their lived for was based on fear propaganda and lies. 

Something happened to 2000AD recently. I don’t know how or why, but something clicked, and rather than being lost in the silliness of identity politics (like US comic books) they started to reflect real world concerns within their narratives. 

When I read a typical DC, Marvel (and most of the 'indie' US books as well) I read nostalgia, style over substance, identity politics and the worship of collectivism and state authority. 

When I read 2000AD I read about individuality, resistance and the desire to be free from those that wish to enslave and control. PROG 1959 of 2000AD has three excellent stories: Dredd, Bad Company and Defoe. These three stories are UK stories. You will only get them in 2000AD. 

When people ask me- ‘Why should I bother reading 2000AD in 2015?’ I will point them to these three stories. If you care about the world around you, about what is happening now, then you will get a heck of a lot more insight from these stories than anything that you will read coming out of the almost completely worthless US comic book industry. 

For a story to excel, it has to reflect the times in which it is being written. We don’t live in the 1990’s anymore. The cold war is over. Things happened. They continue to happen all around us as I type these words. Comic books need to reflect these realities. We are not children, and we don’t need a ‘safe-space’ to protect us from harmful reality. 

When we get with reality, things change. Politicians cannot fob us off, as they always try to do, and they have to actually engage with the people that they are supposed to represent. 

That’s us, we are the people that are supposed to be in charge, not corporations, not banks, and not arms dealers. We get with reality and things start to change, so when I read 2000AD reflecting the real world of 2015 back into their narratives, that makes me very happy indeed.

Reality Cat is worried about: New Comic Book Day (A webcomic about new comic book day)

Marvel Comics: New releases-2nd December 2015


1: All New All Different Avengers #2 (Threat book with the separated superheroes needing to get together in order to beat the outside threat. Umm, sounds like a western style ‘intervention’ is needed. )

2: All New Inhumans #1 (Superhero girl has the task of helping people out after a comic book catastrophe. Does she work for a NGO? Hey perhaps she can help out in Syria or the Ukraine as well?)

3: All New X-Men (2015) #1 (Brave teenage heroes fight against the prejudices of society. What year is this again? Perhaps it’s set in Saudi Arabia?)

4: Daredevil (2015) #1 (Daredevil is a district attorney now. Hey, perhaps he can investigate some real criminals for a change and not just cartoon gangsters? Nah, just kidding. I know that’s not going to happen. It’s the Kingpin again isn’t it?)

5: Doctor Strange (2015) #3 (Issue #1 was like a 1990’s Constantine comic book, but with all of the non PC edge taking out of it. If you want something safe and with Doctor Strange acting like a playboy professor, then this is the book for you.)

6: Extraordinary X-Men (2015) #3 (More humanity versus the mutants guff again. Something new, please?)

7: Guardians Of Infinity #1 (Friendly characters go on chucklesome adventures around the galaxy. Quips, puns and one-liners guaranteed.)

8: Howard The Duck (2015) #2 (Howard the bloody Duck? What year is this again?)

9: Invincible Iron Man (2015) #4 (Tony Stark has relationship issues. Lucky old Tony.)

10: Miracleman #5 (Do you like the 1980’s? If so, this is the book for you.)

11: Nova (2015) #2 (Nova has to save the world from an earthquake cause by a monster. Fracking?)

12: Red Wolf (2015) #1 (It’s about a cop, in samurai get up. Next…)

13: Spidey #1 (Young Spiderman worries about girls. One for the pre-teens.)

14: Star Wars 2015 #13 (Princess Leia against Darth Vader. You go girl.)

15: Totally Awesome Hulk #1 (Asian Hulk, no really.)

16: Vision (2015) #2 (A book about the vision family. Sounds intensely uninteresting.)

Government Girl vs. The Truther (A webcomic about the deliberate suppression of truth)

Comic review: 2000AD- PROG 1947- Some Light Within the Darkness

Artists and writers: Numerous
Publisher: Rebellion
Release Date: 9th September 2015



There is a reason why I stick with 2000AD. It’s not nostalgia, and it sure as hell ain’t consistency, it’s the moments, those brief, fleeting moments when the writers say something, and in PROG 1947 that happens, something is said, and so here is my review, to analyse, and to record it.

Tharg’s bit is passive aggressive this week, and the conclusion of the Dredd- Enceladus arc says nothing. Does Dredd ever say anything? To me, he says love authority, worship uniforms, do what you are told, rely on the state, rely on others to protect you. That’s all he says to me. He’s a villain, always has been.

The Alienest messes up this week. Why? Because the main protagonist shows a disregard for human life, killing a man because he was about to reveal her secrets, she kills him, and doesn’t appear to particularly care about it, at all. I can’t root for her. I can’t invest in a character that shows so little regard for human life. This story is starting to fail, and the pretty art can no longer redeem it.

Apocalypse Anonymous ends this week, and it manages to sneak in some meaning, at the end.

‘The question is- How can we keep the legions of Hell at bay when so many monsters already live among us?'

Do they really want an answer to that? My answer is the same as it always has been. You change the system by refusing to join it. The ‘heroes’ in this comic book story wore uniforms of the state. That is not how you change things. You change things by abandoning statism, and by going your own way. That’s the message, and that’s the truth that people do not want to hear.

Grey Area has one moment, a moment that exposes the pathetic psychological block that stops many western people from doing anything to make the world a better place. I’m thinking of Christians, Buddhists and ‘New-Agers here. I’m thinking of the kind of people who say a lot, and do nothing. The attitude is summed up in the following line:

‘We are too enlightened to defend ourselves.’

Yes, so enlightened, so enslaved. Christianity, Buddhism and new age spiritual enlightenment. Do nothing philosophies, ideal for the state, ideal for the New World Order. Lambs to the slaughter, doing nothing, and lining up for the slaughter house.

Dreams of Deadworld- Mortis has a tie in to that philosophy, that idea that ‘good’ people carry with them, that idea that makes them prey to a sociopathic predator like the modern state. However, in this tale, the predator is a monster called ‘Mortis,’ and not the soft, collectivised, smiling BBC ‘progressive’ monster that we have in the real world.

The story follows a group of explorers. They arrive on a planet destroyed by monsters, and the first person they meet is one of the monsters that killed off the planet, that being Mortis. They greet him warmly, optimistically. He views them as voter dupes, as fresh meat. The explorers open up to him tell him of their ‘human resources,’ resources that he will inevitably feed off. He smiles, coos nice words of support, of friendliness, and then he kills them. Hey Mortis mate, with talent like that you should be working for the BBC, or some other New World Order PR firm.

The message in this story is clear. If you go through life thinking that everybody you meet has morals, that everybody feels the same way as you, that everybody is ‘nice,’ well, reality has one heck of a surprise lined up for you. It’s a meat wagon, and it’s waiting outside your house, line up, line up, women and children first, we’ll take the men later.

Do you see now why I stick with 2000AD? It stumbles, it mumbles, it messes up, it confuses itself, and it’s very much stuck within the collectivist statist, New World Order, banking tyranny matrix.

However, as it stumbles, blindly through the dark, occasionally, just occasionally, it comes across a light switch. It’s hand lurches, fumbles in the dark, finds the switch, and all of a sudden, the room is seen for what it actually is.

It’s a slaughterhouse, and here I am, on my daft little blog, to take a snap-shot of that slaughterhouse, put up the evidence, on-line, to detail it, fingers crossed that somebody will see, and who knows? Perhaps one day, we can start to do something about it? Hey man, I’m an idealist, that’s why I write, and that’s why I stick with good old 2000AD.


Rating: 8/10 (Dave Kendall's art in Deadworld is awesome. Sick, dark, diseased awesome)