Conan the Avenger #18- Conan the Barbarian, and the legion of strong independent feminist warriors

Writer: Fred Van Lente
Art: Brian Ching
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 30th September 2015



There was something very mainstream about this book. It didn’t read like a traditional ‘Conan’ comic book to me at all. Instead it read like a Gail Simone book, or any other feminist tinged contemporary comic book coming out of the US comic book industry today.

I couldn’t envision Robert. E Howard writing a story like the one I had just read, and so I checked, and no, he didn’t write it. The story in Conan the Avenger #18 comes directly from the mind of writer Fred Van Lente, and has nothing whatsoever to do with the original stories.

I don’t insist on writers endlessly recycling the original stories, but Howard’s tales are all about rugged, independent, heroic masculinity, and when you strip that from a new ‘Conan’ story what do you have left?

Conan the Avenger #18 reads like a dime a dozen modern pro-feminist narrative. It has Conan on the cover, but the book is more concerned with empowering women than doing anything with the Conan character.

Having a pretty young girl matching Conan in one on one combat is not very believable, but it’s very PC, and that’s exactly what you get in this book. It’s also what you get in Marvel books and DC books, this wilfully stupid idea that women are the equals of men when it comes to physical strength and sporting/fighting prowess. It’s stupid because it’s not true. You don’t have males versus females in competitive sports. If you did it would be a mismatch, and that is why you will never see men versus women in a MMA fight or on the football field. Sorry feminists, but men and women are different, and although political correctness can’t get with that truth, that doesn’t make it any less true.

There’s nothing in Conan the Avenger #18 that differentiates it from the Avengers, BatGirl, Red Sonja, Spider Woman, Wonder Woman, or any of the other comic books on the market place today that are in faithful PC obedience to the insanity that is the modern feminist movement.

I read Conan books as a brief respite, as an escape from the lies of the modern feminist movement. So when I read a book like Conan the Avenger #18, a book that is identical to all of the other mainstream comic books in 2015, it’s disappointing.

I want my Conan books to be Conan books, and what I have read in Conan the Avenger #18, whilst not bad, is not a Conan book. It’s just another average, contemporary mass-market, mainstream comic book with a six packed bloke, and some warrior kick ass women matching him blow for blow. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I expect something different from my Conan books.

What I want from Conan is old school damsel in distress action. I want brave manly men and gratefully rescued girls. I want men to act like men, and women to act like women. I want Conan to be a testosterone fuelled, over-sexed, super aggressive, male chauvinist pig, not a pretty boy that spar/flirts with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I’m well aware that I sound like a misogynist old fossil in saying that, but that’s what I want from Conan the Barbarian. He’s a ‘Barbarian’ for Crom’s sake, not a metrosexual hipster.

Conan is a simple character. He has wonderfully sexist adventures using his mightily phallic sword to rescue pretty young girls from evil sorcerers and their pet monsters. It’s a bit ridiculous, but that’s what he does, that’s what makes him Conan, and if he’s not even allowed to do that anymore, well, he’s not really Conan, is he?

Rating: 6/10 (A decent comic book, but there’s no trace of Howard here)

Comic review: Neverboy #6- A call for experience, individuality, creativity, renewal and life.

Writer: Shaun Simon
Artist: Tyler Jenkins
Colours: Kelly Fitzpatrick
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 5th August 2015



This concluding issue of Neverboy poses essential questions regarding the drained pool of creative inspiration that is currently stifling the comic book world and leading to a period of comic book stagnation, dominated by corporate, careerist ignorance and a refusal to deal with the vital socio-political issues of our times.

Old heroes, done to death, the well runs dry.

Comic books are stuck. Not because they are an antiquated, anachronistic form of old media desperately trying to cling on to relevance in this wonderful new digital age, but stuck because they refuse to reflect the age in which they currently inhabit.

That is my view, and I recognise that it’s not held by the majority of comic book readers in 2015. This is reflected in sales figures and the popularity of depressingly awful movies like the childishly bad set piece, pun and quip-a-thon, Avengers Ultron.

It appears that the majority wants unreality, silliness, the cool factor, explosions, quips, puns, one-liners, old references and tight uniforms. But just because the majority wants to put their collective brains in a jar and watch the Gladitorial games of our times, whilst the world around them burns, that doesn’t mean that I have to go along with them.

If something is stupid, then I’ll say that it is stupid, and I couldn’t care less if that makes me an unpopular social outcast. Telling the truth isn’t supposed to be easy. It never was in the past, so why would that be any different today?

I used to buy lots of comic books, but it’s getting less and less now as the weeks and month’s pass. I used to buy over ten books a week. This week I purchased three. This saddens me immensely, as I’ve always loved comic books, and I want to buy lots of them, but if all they are going to do is bread and circus, that no longer appeals to me.

I’m 42 years old now, and I cannot act like a child anymore.

My problem is that I’m a bit of a reality junkie. I pay attention to the world. I see what is going on, and it interests me. But then I pick up a comic book, and what do I see? I see the 1990’s being replayed, and it doesn’t interest me. I see nostalgia, and I see a love of government authority, mixed with race, gender and sexuality politics, attempting to put a new gloss onto what is a very old, tired and childish superhero toybox.

It’s not just a superhero problem though. I collect issue #1’s. Not because I think that they will be worth something in the future, but because I hope that they will be good, I read them, they suck, and I don’t buy issue #2. Hang on, I’ll just pop into my wardrobe and bring out my folder of issue #1’s.

The following is a random list of these #1’s and an explanation of what they were about:

1- 68 Bad Sign #1- 1960’s US serial killer and zombies.
2- Beyond Belief #1- 1950’s upper class detectives. Cute, charming and very anachronistic.
3- Savior #1- Plane crash and superpowers (like that old Bruce Willis movie).
4- Fight Club 2 #1- Weighed down by the 1999 movie, and doing nothing new.
5- Constantine- The Hellblazer #1- More 90’s reworking.
6- Weirdworld #1- Conan the Barbarian, but weirdly whiny and soft.
7- Doomed #1- Spiderman with slightly different powers and a smartphone.
8- The Tomorrows #1- Identity politics, Blade Runner and old art school references.
9- The Shrinking Man #1- Comic book adaptation of a 1950’s novel.
10- John Flood #1- Constantine clone who looks like Edward Cullen.

Now, here’s a quotation from Neverboy #6:

The imagination of a child, creating something new.

‘You’ve been using other people’s imaginations, and it’s destroying it for everyone. Paint something real- Something real to you, not to anyone else. Something that only you can see.’

Neverboy is a call for originality, individuality and genuine artistic creativity. It’s asking you to put down your isurveilance device, to put down your old comic books, and to experience something genuinely new. It’s asking you to go out into the world, to look around you, to experience life, then go back to the computer, back to the easel, and create something NEW, something that genuinely comes from within YOU. It is a call to the imagination of a child, of the new-born creative mind, unencumbered by the weighty backlog of what has come before.

It’s 2015, and the world has changed in so many ways since the 1990’s. Writers and artists need to tap into what is happening now, forget the past, and reflect what is happening in the world today.

A revolution is needed, and no, I’m not talking about a revolution based on Internet identity politics and university approved cultural Marxism. Social media arguments about race, gender and sexuality are not going to cut it. If comic books are going to start to reflect the real world then writers and artists will need to experience some of that real world, and that doesn’t mean arguing with a politically correct social justice warrior (or a right-winger) on twitter. Perhaps we all need to switch off, live a little, and then come back to this comic book thing again?

Be wacky, be weird, just do something new.

Neverboy has been a fantastic comic book, bursting with creativity, originality and vital, urgent philosophic questioning about the nature of artistic inspiration, about the wellspring of imagination, and what happens when the well begins to dry up and people continue to take, take, take without putting anything back. The art itself has been great, a celebration of life, not life indoors on the computer, or life with headphones on, but real scent life, vivid, colourful, beautiful, exhilarating, a bit weird, a bit wacky, but exciting, essential, exhilarating human life.

This wonderfully, genuinely creative title has concluded it’s short run with a message about doing something new that comes from within, not from the past, or a fake computer life. It’s a message that we all need to take onboard, myself included, and as I finish off this review/rant I take that message into myself.

I need to stop typing, stop complaining, stop twittering, stop reading, and to go out into the big old, beautiful colourful world, to find inspiration, to energise, create, reflect and live my life as it is supposed to be lived.

That’s quite a revelation, and one I took from this beautiful, rare gem of a comic book. I’m going to miss this one, but the message of life, experience, renewal, creativity and individuality that it contains will linger for a long time yet.


Rating: 10/10 (An intellectually engaging, fun, wacky and creatively inspired comic book)

Cookie Monster Debuts In Conan Comic Book- Review- Conan the Avenger #15

Full comic title: Conan the Avenger- Xuthal of the Dusk, Part Three.’

Writer: Fred Van Lente
Artist: Guiu Vilanova
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 24th June 2015



I love me some Conan. Give me some scantily clad maidens in need of rescue, horrible monsters, scheming sorcerers and their dodgy daughters and Conan himself with his big phallic sword and I’m as happy as a banker on bonus day.

I was having a great time reading Conan the Avenger #15. Conan had fallen through a trapdoor, a naked maiden was tied to a dungeon wall, and a monster was lurking, but then something very strange happened.

THE COOKIE MONSTER SHOWED UP.

If you don’t believe me, buy the book for yourself, turn to page ten, and tell me that isn’t the Cookie Monster. I was looking for an image of the page somewhere on the Internet to include in this review, but I couldn’t find one, so I’ll just have to use another picture instead.

What else is there to say about a Conan book that features a surprise special guest appearance by the Cookie Monster? You don’t get any better than that, and even though this version of “Xuthal of the Dusk” is noticeably inferior to the 1977 version in ‘The Savage Sword of Conan #20’, that version, good as it was, didn’t have the Cookie Monster in it.

If you haven’t yet read the book, then you need to get it immediately. Trust me on this one, it’s not every day that you get the big blue guy showing up in a Dark Horse Comic book, and if you miss his absolutely hilarious debut in Conan the Avenger #15 you’ll be kicking yourself for the rest of the year.


Rating: 7/10 ("Me want cookie! Me eat cookie!")

Comic Review: Fight Club 2 #2- Repackaging Fake Cool Revolution

Writer: Chuck Palahniuk
Artist: Cameron Stewart
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 24th June 2015



There’s no shining up this one. Fight Club 2 #2 has now officially plopped down, and the only thing to do with it is to flush it away as soon as possible, open the window and spray the heck out of the room to remove the foul stench of it’s existence.

Can we finally bury the 1990’s now, please? No more attempts at nostalgia cool, it’s getting a bit embarrassing and very desperate now. Yes, I know that Nirvana were great, but the dude died in 1994, find something new, find something that says something about NOW, not then.

Fight Club #2 is Nirvana, grown up, married, buried, not dead, but it might as well be. The narrative follows a bored suburban couple. The man is old, tired and useless, his wife is having an affair, but because it’s Fight Club, she’s having an affair with the married bloke’s alter ego, Tyler six-pack. Throw in a child kidnapping (Yawn, somebody call Liam Neeson) and vague references to change (call Obama) and you have your book.

It’s very boring, the jokes are ‘cool’ and meaningless, and nothing about it holds any interest to me, mainly because, as I said before, it’s a 1990’s relic, rejuvenated for nostalgia cool, and not something that should be read by anybody under the age of about thirty-five.

I’m over the age of thirty-five, and I remember the movie when it was first released. It was cool, we thought it was saying something, and it probably was, but what it said was largely back-drop to the all pervading ‘cool.’ The world watched, took nothing from, it other than entertainment value, and carried on doing the same voting, buying and moaning that they always do.

Fight Club was a movie that appeared to be revolutionary, but that was surface, as this comic book now proves. No revolution is happening here. Don’t expect it from career cool people, and don’t expect it from those hanging onto 90’s glories.

I decided to give Fight Club 2 a chance. After two issues I’m done with it. Nirvana were great, move on, get something new. Fight Club was great, move on, get something new.


Rating: 3/10 (Redundant)

Comic review: Rebels #2- In the Forrest with Mr. Wood

Writer: Brian Wood
Artist: Andrea Mutti
Colourist: Jordie Bellaire
Publisher: Image Comics
Released: 13th May 2015


The most note-worthy moment in Rebels #2 occurs after the story has finished, and writer Brian Wood engages with his readers in an essay about American flag waving.

I found that to be illuminating, because what it really is, is an attempt by Wood to convince his liberally minded readers that, don’t worry lads/lasses, I’m still one of you, I’m still a left leaning good guy.

That’s okay, I understand it, especially given his history where he has written books that have savaged the right wing types, putting all of the blame for the world’s ills (and imagined future ills) onto the racist, homophobic, intolerant right wingers.

The problem in 2015 for long-time liberal minded writers is that the paradigm of left versus right, or good versus evil is not quite as secure as it once appeared to be. Brian Wood then is like a lot of long-term leftists, negotiating within himself and trying to work out just what went wrong, why his ideological foundations are now looking a bit on the crumbly side.

I’ll leave that for him to figure out, and talk about Rebels #2 for a little bit now.

The book will probably read better in tpb, but that doesn’t mean that the single issues are not worth getting, because they are. It’s just that in this age of instant box-set access the month long wait can seem a bit prolonged, especially when a book is taking it’s time and telling a well structured fully rounded story.

This issue is about one guy, older than he looks, and I like that touch because it feels genuine, and how he is a new husband, and a revolutionary soldier, and how he manages to handle that balancing act. The story is told through his POV, and that has its pluses and minuses. The pluses being that it means you build up more emotional connectivity with the story because the bloke is talking directly to you, the minus' being that you know he’s never going to be taken out by a random red coat bullet because then who would be telling the story?

You lose some tension with this story-telling technique, but you gain bucket loads of empathy as his nearest and dearest will inevitably pay a huge price for what he is engaged in. I can live with that, and I like the slow pace of the book, despite what I said earlier in the review, it works well, because life isn’t all fast, all action, there’s lots of slow bits in it as well.

The key to the story is making it seem real, and the art is a big plus here. There’s a grit and darkness to certain panels, then bright white to signify the freshness of a day in the countryside. The people look like real people, there is spittle in their mouths, there’s no big muscles here, and I really enjoyed the dramatic splashes of colour during the action scenes as well. 

I have some good news for left leaning comic book fans, and let’s face it, that’s probably about 90% of the comic book reading audience of today. Brian Wood is no right wing gun nut, and you don’t have to feel bad about reading his book. He’s hanging, doggedly onto the left, but I do feel that his grip is loosening, and in that sense he’s no different to any other long time hope and change boyhood Marxist type. He’s got a good book here in Rebels #2, and I’ll continue to read along, not just to see where the story goes, but to follow the journey of Mr Wood as well.


Rating: 8/10

Comic Review: Conan the Avenger #13 (Xuthal of the Dusk- Part One)-Lack of effort sinks updated version of a Conan classic

Writer: Fred Van Lente
Artist: Guiu Vilanova
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 29th April 2015

I’ve already read this Conan story, in one of my old comic books, and unfortunately for this version, the art and story telling in that old version is a lot better than in this one.

The old version I’m talking about here is ‘The Slithering Shadow,’ by artist John Buscema and writer Roy Thomas. Released back in 1977’s ‘The Savage Sword of Conan’ that older version of the story was absolutely amazing. This new version by writer Fred Van Lente and artist Guiu Vilanova is okay, but when the older version is absolutely stunning, just being okay isn’t really doing anything for me.

The script in this new version is almost identical to the older one, it’s just that it’s not as good, the art isn’t as detailed, and all I get here is a comic book that doesn’t really bring anything new to the story. It’s a shame, because I love just about every Conan story, but what I have here is a noticeably inferior version of an old comic book, and it would be dishonest of me not to acknowledge that in my review.

So how to grade it? If the 1977 version didn’t exist then it would be easy. I would say that the art looked a bit static, and that the script felt a bit different than usual, old fashioned even. I would say that the story was intriguing, but the art wasn’t really doing it for me, and I would have given it a 7/10 rating.

Of course the reason for it seeming a bit old fashioned is because it’s the identical script to the 1977 version, even down to the bit where Conan pats his girl on the backside to show her that she’s not a disembodied spirit. The problem though is that the original butt pat was a lot funnier, and a lot more obviously over the top 1970’s sexist. In this version it is done in a couple of small panels and the impact is minimal. It’s almost like writer Fred Van Lente has taken that old script, copied it panel by panel, and handed it in to artist Guiu Vilanova to do something new with it. His art isn’t bad, but it’s not particularly great either, and all he has done here is remind me of just how good an artist John Buscema really was.

What else can I say? I love Conan stories, but this one isn’t really trying very hard, and because of that lack of effort I have to give it a rare bad rating for a Conan comic book. I hate to do so, but a slightly below average rating is what this comic book actually deserves, so that is what it will get.


Rating: 4/10 (Get the 1977 version instead)

For a better version of Robert E. Howard's 'Xuthal of the Dusk' tale get your hands on a copy of The Savage Sword of Conan #20 from July 1977. You should be able to get a copy on ebay. Here's what the cover looks like:

Review: Robert E. Howard’s Savage Sword #10 (Featuring ‘Demon In a Silvered Glass’)- Drugs Come Out of Boredom Babe

Main story: Demon in A Silvered Glass, by Doug Moench & art by John Bolton. 

Publisher: Dark Horse Comics

Released: April 1st 2015

Note- The images in this review are of the 1981 black and white version of the story. The 2015 version in Savage Sword #10 has been beautifully coloured by Jim Campbell, so to enjoy the coloured version please buy the book.

Savage Sword #10 was a reminder of quite a few things, of feelings, of moments in my life. It triggered a recollection of boredom, and of what can (or will, to be more precise) happen to you when you let the hooks of inertia dig deep within your psyche. Boredom will kill you, it will leave you open to the Reptilian part of your nature, that old demon that lurks, waiting for an opening, before pouncing at your moment of weakness, taking you over, killing your body and rotting your soul.

The book also reminded me of being a kid. Of being a young boy in love with comic books where brave heroes battled against evil sorcerers and their seductive, yet equally as dangerous daughters. It reminded me of that boyish suspicion of all things ‘girl’ related, that there is something alluring there, but be careful son, that beauty has a heck of a bite on it as well.

The story I’m talking about in Savage Word #10 is the old one, the story about a bored King and what happens to him when he gives into adult boredom, and the boyish fear of all things girlie is ignored. It’s the longest story in Savage Sword #10, and by far the best. The title of the story is ‘Demon In A Silvered Glass,’ written by Doug Moench, and with art by John Bolton. The story was first released in 1981, and it really stands out because you don’t get anything like this anymore. It’s too good, too clever, too intelligent, too insightful about the nature of power, boredom and human nature. It’s brilliant, and you don’t get that many brilliant comic books in 2015.

I hadn’t read the story as a kid. How I missed it I do not know, but I did, so reading it here for the first time is pure pleasure, a mix of nostalgia not only because the story (and art) is in a different league to anything available today, but also because it brings me back to my boyhood of reading cool American comic books with manly heroes who you could really look up to as being the personification of the man you want to grow up and become when the lazy days of boyhood fights and tree-house adventures sadly comes to an end.

Like I previously mentioned, the story is about a bored King. He gives in to the animal side of his nature, and becomes something akin to the neo-liberal democratically selected leaders that we have in the morally bankrupt west today. The spiritual, moral side of his nature, the very thing that makes him a man slowly ebbs away as he lives a life of authoritarian pleasure. He reverts to the Reptilian side of his nature, and by doing so he leaves not only himself open, but his entire Kingdom open for take-over as well.

This is a book that could have been written by David Icke himself. What this is about is the leaders of humanity being taken over by Reptilian outsiders who have hacked into the DNA of our species, implanting their evil into our brains in order to corrupt the species and eventually take it over and use it for their own ends.

The only difference between this book and our real world is that in this book the Reptilian outsiders are eventually defeated and the spiritual, eternal soul of man wins over the grounded, animal part of our nature. In our world the Reptilian elements have yet to be defeated. They haven’t yet won, but they are largely in charge of the world and are currently running it for their own benefit through the use of their Reptilian (influenced at least) front-men in the political sphere. Look at the world, look at what is happening, look at who is running it, and then ask yourself this question:

Is the world being run for the benefit of the human race, or is it being run for the benefit of something else?

I know how it looks to me. It looks like a world being controlled by the kind of woman/man who has given in to boredom, the kind of human who has completely given in to the animal side of their nature who want to kill, to destroy, to rape and pillage and indulge their baser instincts. If there is a God, he is not in charge of this planet. What is in charge is an animal/reptilian man who sits on a throne of boredom and decadence. He looks at the world and hating humanity, bored with it all, wants to set it all on fire, and warm his toes as he watches it all burn.

‘Demon In A Silvered Glass’ then is not just a silly boyish nostalgia tale from the early 1980’s bought back to life for a new generation of comic book readers. It’s much more than that. To me it is a warning of what happens when you give in to boredom and see yourself as nothing more than just another beast in the field. But more than that it’s a warning about what happens when you allow that kind of mindset to be the dominant mindset of the leaders you allow to control your world. That is the mindset of the neo-liberal consensus leaders who are controlling our lives today. We stupidly vote for them every four years or so and expect ‘change,’ then when we get none we are confused and angry. That is stupid, really stupid. We get what we deserve. We vote for the reptilian, the animal, so that is what we get.

This 1980’s comic book gets to the heart of the matter. It is telling us not just what is wrong with society, but what is wrong with each and every one of us. We are potentially independent, powerful and self-governing human beings, but we have become inert, lazy, and are ruled by the worse of us because we have allowed ourselves to be ruled.

We would rather be bored, owned animals than the strong, powerful, self-determined heroes that we should be. The comic book heroes that we read as children had important moral, ethical, societal and spiritual messages to impart to our young minds. These lessons have gone unheeded, and what we have today on this enslaved, chaotic, archon infested planet is just the natural result of what happens when a lazy species allows itself to be enslaved.  This is what is always going to happen to a bored, decadent, indifferent, lazy, selfish, animalistic race of beings who refuse to learn and insist on repeating every single mistake of the past.

When a King gets bored and lazy his Kingdom decays, the people revolt, outsiders capitalise on the disorder, and eventually it collapses. So what happens when an entire species is suffering from the same disorder? I ask that question because that is what is happening to the human race right now.

We are bored, lazy and ruled by those with a Reptilian mind-set. Collapse is inevitable. It’s not if, it’s when. That is the warning that is contained within this comic book. Whether or not we act on this warning and start doing something to stop the decline, well as always, that’s up to us. We have been too decadent, too indolent, and too indifferent for too long. The Reptiles are in charge now, we let them get in charge, and the only question left is whether or not we are too far-gone to do anything about it.



Overall Rating: 8/10 (Best of the rest was ‘The Sea Dog’s Tale’ by Ron Marz. A very good parable about evil, false religion and mind-control)

Demon In a Silvered Glass: 10/10 (Perfect)


Note about the heading, 'Drugs Come Out of Boredom Babe'
The quote comes from a Manic Street Preachers Song called 'Another Invented Disease.' Click link to have a listen: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PK133q19lg

Graphic novel review: Sergio Aragones’ Groo: ‘The Hogs of Horder’- It’s the end of the world, and I feel fine

By: Sergio Aragones
Wordsmith: Mark Evanier
Letterer: Stan Sakai
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: August 2010


On the surface this book is about a big old twit of a man (Groo) and his funny little dog (Rufferto) as they travel around the world causing chaos and mayhem whether they go, having fights, destroying factories (or wherever they work) and sinking every ship that they sail on. That’s the surface, but what this big old twit of a man actually represents is random chaos and the likelihood that what can go wrong will go wrong. It’s the reaction of the people around them to these disasters that’s telling. The catastrophes that befall them in ‘The Hogs Of Horder’ sound very familiar to me. Here’s what I spotted.

- USA entering a period of truce with China after the civil war and eventual victory of Mao Zedong’s Communist party in October 1949.
- USA beginning to outsource it’s manufacturing base to China, in order to cut costs of wages.
- USA seeing beginning of mass unemployment caused by this policy of outsourcing.
- The idiocy of the US car industry, insisting on making big cars that nobody wants, or can even afford as the jobs have now all been outsourced.
- Managers and executives of US corporations caring only about their own inflated salaries, and not thinking about their workers.
- US industry thinking they can solve problems caused by their outsourcing policies by borrowing money from bankers.
- Business owners deliberately destroying their businesses in order to apply for loans.
- US going to war in order to protect the business interests of their wealthy elite. Justifying it by calling the dictator that they themselves installed, a ‘Despicable Madman,’ even though he was a valuable ally just a week previously.
- Ridiculous propaganda used to justify these wars for the rich.
- The continued idiocy of the US car manufacturing industry, insisting that customers want something that they neither want, nor can afford.
- Products flooding western markets cannot even be purchased as nobody has any money to buy them.
- Bankers stop giving out loans, as they are not being repaid.
- US industry destroyed by outsourcing, with the knock-on affect of unemployment and businesses not being able to repay their loans to the banks.
- Banks go belly up, and get bailed out by US government.
- Big businesses also go belly up, and are bailed out by US government.
- US government backs itself up with wars for resources.
- US wars cause tribal battles between competing religious factions (Sunni/Shiaa) in the countries that have been liberated/destroyed.

- US war propaganda makes less and less sense as reality kicks in.

- Price of oil for normal people does not go down, despite all of the wars that were based on oil.
- US begins to borrow money from China.
- Refugees from war-zones start to flee to US in order to escape from the tribal conflicts stirred up by the US invasions.
- Huge problems in US, the public looks for scapegoats, and immigrants are blamed.
- Banks are charging huge interest rates for loans, and average people are still broke despite government bailouts of banks and industry.
- People can’t afford homes.
- Or anything really.
- There are no jobs.
- Wages are going down because of immigration and influx of cheap labour.
- Army/Police is sent in to beat up the people, ‘I am only following orders Mother.’
- Sports and theatre are used as distractions in order to pacify an angry population.
- US goes to China asking for loans.
- China, scared of the US war machine, and eager to get Americans to buy their goods, agrees to loan US the money.
- Loaned money goes to the people who caused all of the problems, not the suffering people.
- Average US people still broke.
- Wealth inequality grows.
- China buys up everything of value in the US.
- China now owns the US.
- The end of the United States.
- Centralised control system of wealthy elite’s operating out of China own everything and everybody.
- A New World Order?

That sounds pretty depressing doesn’t it? It’s the tale of the decline of an entire country, and we’re not just talking about the US here, we’re talking about all of Europe as well. An entire western civilisation collapsing because of stupidity, greed, war and debt. All to be replaced by a Chinese system of centralised control system slavery. That’s not the future, it’s what’s happening right now, but this book ends on an optimistic note. It leaves the reader with a final message that, yes we are collapsing, but just because we are coming to the end, that doesn’t mean that we can’t begin to start again. And how do we start again? We do things on a local level, we start our own businesses, learn skills, and trade with each other on a local level.

It’s a great way to finish the book, giving real solutions to the mess that the world is currently in. It’s not the end of the world, it’s the beginning of a new one, so let’s do a better job this time. You don’t have to join the armies of this collapsing system, you don’t have to join their control systems, and you don’t have to go to them with a begging bowl, like a servant, like a slave. You can do things for yourself. Stop being reliant, and start being independent and self-sufficient.

That’s what I took from this daft comic book about a big old twit of a man and his funny little dog. It’s a fantastic achievement to have so much content and real world analysis in what is ostensibly a silly little comic book. This book really is outstanding. Funny, silly, ridiculous ‘The Hogs of Horder’ is as good an analysis of the causes for the impending collapse of western civilisation as you’re likely find not just in a comic book, but in any book.

Rating: 10/10 (The decline, decline and fall of western civilisation)

Comic Review: Neverboy #2- There’s something magical about this one

Writer: Shaun Simon
Artist: Tyler Jenkins
Colours: Kelly Fitzpatrick
Cover: Conor Nolan
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 1st April 2015


The first issue of Neverboy was such a joy, bringing forth a new idea into the comic book sphere, and doing it so very well. But so often in the comic book world a good start flatters to deceive and that one initial idea is pretty much all that the comic has to offer. Bearing all of that in mind, let’s get the following question answered as quickly as possible:

Is Neverboy #2 any good?

In short, it’s excellent. It brings new elements into the narrative and is just as exciting, enjoyable and creative as that tremendous opening. Did I ever have any doubts that this second issue wouldn’t be as good as the first? Not really, strange though that may seem, I just knew that this one would be good before I even read it.

Something is going on with the writing here, as it’s absolutely inspired. The main protagonist of the story doesn’t even make an appearance until the half-way point of the book, with the first half spent introducing a down on his luck, out of work and out of inspiration artist. It’s quite ironic really as writer Shaun Simon has introduced his complete opposite here, an artist running out of ideas, when he himself is very apparently overflowing with them.

The technique of introducing this character (and even featuring him on the front cover) works so well, and there is a gentle, slow, pondering sadness to the pacing in this first half that creates an impression of going nowhere, of having stopped. As the book reaches the half-way point it absolutely explodes with life as the manic, drug hunting, trying to cling to this reality, yet bristling with energy and inspiration Neverboy arrives on the scene, injecting new life into the suicidal artist.

There’s something special happening here, and it’s difficult to fully describe it. Like a really good magic show this book is just something that you have to experience for yourself. A review can attempt to capture what is going on, but you need to experience it yourself to fully appreciate and understand the context and subtle texture of the experience.

I’m not sure if other reviewers have mentioned this before, but the writing here reminds me of Neil Gaiman, when he was young, when he was new, and when he was bristling with energy and creativity that leapt of the pages of those early Sandman comic books. And just like those books, it’s the art being in perfect synch with the writing that really kicks Neverboy into another level. 

There’s a connection between writer and artist here. They understand what their world is all about, they both get it, and their vision is combining quite beautifully to create a book about art, about creativity, about inspiration that is overflowing with all of these qualities itself. 

Neverboy is a portal, much like Sandman. Something hugely exciting is beginning here. It’s overflowing with that elusive, much sought after, yet rarely found element of new life that is birthed within superior works of creative art. It’s rare, very rare, and I run the risk of going overboard here, but there’s something magical about this one.


Rating: 10/10 (Absolutely superb second issue, with so much promise for what is still to come)

Comic review: Conan the Avenger #8- Individualism versus corporate collectivism

Writer: Fred Van Lente
Artist: Brian Ching
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 26th November 2014


I always go back to my old Conan comics, reading them again and again to remind myself that comics can be good, if done properly. I need the reassurance every now and then, especially after reading bloody awful, intelligence insulting mainstream comic books that obsess over race, sexuality and gender politics, whilst deliberately ignoring the important issues of our times.

Break down their centres of control

You know what I’m talking about here, right? I’m talking about corporate/banking criminality, endless wars against media generated villains, a lack of political representation for the 99% of ordinary people, unthinking statism and the worship of order following abusers in positions of lawless state authority. These are the pressing concerns of today, not skin colour, race, religion or sexuality. These are the issues that comic books should be addressing. They are not doing so, and you don’t have to be a genius to understand why.

A good Conan comic is about individuality, and standing up for yourself whilst sticking to a strict set of moral codes, punishing the corrupt and being kind to the weak. Conan is not a government agent; he’s not an uniformed enforcer, he’s not an order follower, he’s not a good corporate slave. He would be completely out of place in the Marvel comic book universe of 2014 where order following state slaves are portrayed as heroes and true individual, independent masculine heroes no longer exist. It’s not a ‘conspiracy,’ it’s a corporate thing.

Marvel/Disney is a corporation that relies on consumer slave culture, and so it pumps out consumer slave heroes. It’s only natural for them to do so. They can turn Captain America black, or turn Thor into a woman because that is perfectly allowable within a corporate culture that sees humans not as individuals, but as passive consumers. How do you double your consumers? You get women to buy your crap as well as the men. Marvel doesn’t turn Thor into a woman because it cares about women’s rights. They turn Thor into a woman because they care about female consumers. It’s not about morality. It’s about business. What Marvel cannot do is push stories where the hero is an individual; a man who works outside of the collectivised, government sponsored Avenger/Corporate status quo. Pushing individualism is bad business for a corporation that relies on herd mentality consumer repeaters.

Conan the Avenger #8 is a good old fashioned Conan tale. It’s lacking an element of magic and sorcery at the moment, but it has political intrigue, a gorgeous slave girl for our hero to rescue and a despicable villain who is suppressing the people through threats of violence. It’s what all villains do. Threatening people with order following goons and bureaucrats is at the heart of what government is all about. It’s what your government is doing to you and your family right now. It’s what all governments do, and that’s why we need to get rid of them, all of them.

Conan ends up as King Conan at the end of his life, so he’s not perfect. But he’s always a sad King, a reluctant King who doesn’t really enjoy the position that he has attained. He’s not the power tripping type. He’s melancholic, a bit confused, and a bit in need of a book about anarchy if you ask me, because that’s what all of his adventures are about. They are about fighting against control systems, against kings, governments, wizards and every other kind of scumbag who has set himself up in a big White House on the hill. That’s why I like him, and that’s why he’s my comic book hero.

This particular Conan book is very well drawn, it has some gruesome battle scenes, it has a good villain and it closes on a cliff-hanger where Conan is staring down a wall of archers. Oh no, he looks in trouble this time. How is he going to get out of this one? I like that in my comics. Give me a cliff-hanger, give me a reason to look forward to the next issue, don’t rush things and have some fun with it all.

So far Conan the Avenger is a pretty decent Conan book. Conan is young, he’s not that talkative, he’s taking things in, learning and strategizing as the adventure progresses. It’s good stuff, far better than the cops and government agent crap you get from DC and Marvel. If like myself you get fed up with corporate Police state propaganda then you’ll get a kick out of it. Conan is still Conan in Dark Horse comics. They haven’t turned him into a girl. Not yet anyway.  He’s still fighting against control systems, and he’s still the main man, the number one hero in the comic book world of 2014, just as he was in the 70’s and 80’s and 90’s and 2000’s. All hail King Conan, the melancholic, anarchist hero who doesn’t want to be a King.

Rating: 8/10

Comic book review: Criminal Macabre- The Third Child #1: Not for the young and messed up

Writer: Steve Niles
Artist: Christopher Mitten
Colourist: Michelle Madsen
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 17th September 2014


The main protagonist of Criminal Macabre is a ‘Pill popping, alcoholic degenerate’ by the name of Cal McDonald. He has great hair, looks like a movie star, has a glass of whiskey in one had, a gun in the other, a cigarette perpetually dangling from his mouth and an air of super cool alienation and dissatisfaction with everything and everyone around him. In other words, he’s the kind of twit that can act as a dangerous role model for a lot of lost and lonely young men out there.

You know the kind of young man that has no direction in his life? The kind of man who cannot find his place, so he dives into books and sees a weird outsider like himself, but this outsider is cool, really cool, dark and interesting. This fictional character might be sick and alienated, just like the lost young man, but he’s really, really cool, and that’s what the young man wants to be. He wants to be cool, dark and interesting, not just messed up, lonely and bored. Looking for a role model he can identify with, he’ll find one here.

You can probably guess why I’m saying this, right?  I used to be the lost young man that I’m referring to here, and putting myself back into my old shoes of self imposed isolation and misery I can see myself getting a kick out of the character of Cal McDonald. That’s not to say that I would try to act like him, that I’d try to dress like him, try to talk like him. No, that would be too obvious. I was pretty stupid, but not that stupid. On a subconscious level I would more than likely identify with the character. See, I would say to myself. Just because you are a mess it doesn’t mean that you can’t be cool. The character is probably taking it even further than that. On one level he’s telling readers that the way to be cool and interesting is to be completely messed up. That’s bullshit. It’s a really, really terrible message to be putting out there into the world. Here’s a revelation.

THERE IS NO ‘COOL’ IN BEING A MESS.

Is the Cal McDonald character dangerous to young male readers? He kind of is you know. He doesn’t encourage you to change. He encourages you to wallow in your alienation and misery. Drink another drink, smoke another cancer stick, it’s cool you know? I’ll tell you what. I’ll let Cal McDonald explain himself in his own words:

“I’ll do what I want and when I want. Got it?”

“Why don’t you get off my back?”

“No, don’t touch me.”

"Is this an intervention?”

He sounds like a pretty messed up young man, doesn’t he? He sounds like a man with problems, with people trying to help him out, but he’s fighting against the help and fighting against his own self hate. Again, it’s very cool, very teenager, very young man, and it’s very stupid.

If you are an unhappy, messed-up, alienated young man, then don’t buy this book. You might enjoy it, but it won’t be doing you any good. You’ll probably end up identifying with the Cal character, and he’s not the kind of person that you want to be identifying with. He’ll end up giving you the deceptive belief that being messed up makes you interesting. That’s not how reality works. Being messed up does not make you interesting. It makes you sad, and pitiful and very, very lonely. And don’t kid yourself that girls have some kind of weird fetish for messed up, ‘dark’ and introspective personalities. They don’t.

Having got that monkey off my back I want to say a few nice things about the book as well, because it is not a bad book. The Cal character is funny, engaging and likeable. He’s the narrator, and when he talks it’s like he’s a best buddy talking directly to you. The book follows Cal and his buddies as they save the world from weird monsters whilst Cal looks super dashing and tormented in his long black trench-coat, with his designer stubble, spiky haircut and dangling cigarette. The story is simple, and Cal is cool. He is dangerously cool, but I’ve already discussed that.

I know I don’t always talk a lot about the art in my reviews, but that’s because I’m not an artist. I don’t want to give you a misinformed, uneducated view, so I keep it short and just tell you whether or not I liked it. What did I think about the art in this book? I liked it. The narrative is set at night and the colours along with the frenetic, almost casually unfinished style of pencilling works very well to create a super cool atmosphere perfectly in keeping with the Cal character. I enjoy art when it gets a bit rough, wild and wonky, and that style is perfect for this book.

Get this book if you want a brief splash of silly sick cool in your life, but don’t get it if you are a messed up young man. If you are, and if you are still under the misapprehension that being fucked up is going to make you appear to be cool and interesting then I wouldn’t bother with this one. Get something that celebrates health, not illness. Get something like Conan the Barbarian, a book that celebrates masculine pride and strength and getting your arse off of the couch and doing something with your life other than moping around feeling sorry for yourself.

‘Criminal Macabre: The Third Child’ is a book with a messed up protagonist that tells you that illness and disease is super cool. It’s a book that tells you that alcoholism and alienation is something to aspire to. The book is a liar. It’s not cool to be messed up, it kind of sucks, actually it sucks a lot. Look at the shaky old man who drinks by himself in the pub during the day as happy young families enjoy a lunch-break around him. That is the reality behind Cal McDonald, and it’s about as far from cool and interesting as you can possibly imagine. I did like the book though, dangerous as it is. The art is very stylish, the colouring is very nice and the dialogue is a lot of fun as well. Buy it, but only if you have successfully passed the messed up young man stage of your life.

Rating: 7/10

Comic book review: Grendel Vs. The Shadow- Book One- Starring Grendel, the biggest douchebag in comic book history

Writer & Artist: Matt Wagner
Colourist: Brennan Wagner
Publisher: Darkhorse Comics/Dynamite Entertainment
Released: 3rd September 2014

I was a little confused with one of the lines in the opening segment of this book. A sociopathic asshole called ‘Grendel’ appeared to go through some kind of time travel device and whilst surveying a New York city skyline (I knew it was new York because it featured the unmistakable image of the Empire State building) asked, Where are the twin towers?’

My initial reaction was very favourable. Brilliant, I thought. I’m finally going to get a Shadow story set in a post 9/11 world. I’m finally going to see the Shadow deal with contemporary concerns like NSA surveillance, criminal wall-street banksters owning everything and everybody, illegal foreign wars based on lies, the deliberate collectivisation of a dumbed down, television watching slave population and all of the other nightmarish realities that are rapidly destroying America in 2014. But no, after reading on I quickly realised that the reference to the missing twin towers didn’t mean that he was in the present, no he was in the past, before they were built. In the 1930’s, and that’s unfortunately where the Shadow still was.

The obvious question then is, what era is this Grendel piece of crap coming from? After a quick Start Page search (I refuse to use the NSA search engine of choice Google) I learnt that this Grendel moron (I immediately took a vicious dislike to him) is a 1980’s creation by Matt Wagner. So rather than bringing him into the present day (which would make him far more relevant and interesting) I guess he’s still stuck somewhere in the 1980’s. That’s a choice of convenience. It’s the easy choice. You have your character staying in the safe 1980’s and you don’t have to talk about any of the issues that are effecting the world today. I hate it when my comic books do that. I find it cowardly, very cowardly.

Having got all of that off my chest I want to quickly state that I didn’t hate this book. It was enjoyable, and as long as you don’t think about things too much it’s a good little comic. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll list the pluses and minuses of the book, and see whether or not I can recommend it. First off, the pluses:

The colouring in the book is vivid, dramatic and very effective. It creates an atmosphere all of it’s own, and together with the BADDA BADDA BADDA textual sound effects (that was a gun) it’s almost like a cheesy episode of Batman from the 1970’s. It’s silly, very silly, with very bad villains and very good heroes. The plot is childishly simple to follow and the Shadow himself keeps popping up in the err, well Shadows with his trademark HAHAHAHAHA laugh. It’s a lot of fun, it’s just well, it’s a lot….silly.

The minuses of the book are very apparent. The female characters are either angels or sultry, seductive vixens. They are add-ons to the male characters, and that really does stand out in 2014 where female characters are portrayed as the protagonists. A lot of modern readers will hate that. I don’t hate it; I just find it a little strange, a little old-fashioned and a little bit insulting, even though I myself get fed up of contemporary comics where the females are always in charge.

The character of Grendel, as you’ve probably already noticed from my brief descriptions of him, is extremely unlikeable. The guy is pretty much the living dictionary definition of a complete and utter twat. A drug dealing kingpin who doesn’t value human life, at all. In this book he’s portrayed as a super dashing, ultra-cool, handsome, debonair, erudite Nietsche ubermensch. In other words, uggggghhhh, he’s repulsive and I want to see the Shadow hand his ass to him for two books straight. I can’t believe that this twat was a major character for so long in the 80’s and 90’s. What the Hell were people thinking, buying books about this repellent douchebag?

This assbag Grendel character comes across as a wish-fulfilment fantasy character for writer Matt Wagner. In this single issue Grendel uses his awesome acrobatic ability and the super technology of a knife on a stick to bring an entire Mafia family to it’s knees. Oh, and he’s also a brilliant author as well, somehow knocking out a society adored best seller in about ten minutes flat, and he’s extremely handsome and all of the hot girls want to sleep with him, obviously. Oh God, this is verging on the laughable. It’s like a bratty, twatty fourteen-year-old has written himself into a comic book. Aggghhh, unbearable.

So why did I largely enjoy this book? It wasn’t just the colouring, was it? Strangely enough, I think it largely was about the colouring, and the knowledge that the Shadow is lurking in the backgrounds just waiting to kick lumps of crap out of the bag of shite douchefarm known as Grendel. You know what? I’m going to get the next two issues of this book. Matt Wagner has made me hate his Grendel character so much that I want to hang around to see him get kicked out of the 1930’s and sent back into the safe, nowhere land of the mid 1980’s, hopefully to never return and darken the Shadow’s path ever again.

I would have been absolutely thrilled to read a book with the Shadow in a post 9/11 world, but I didn’t get it here. Hopefully somebody out there in comic book land is reading this rant/review and they can do that? Go on, be brave. DO IT. But for the time being I’ll take what Shadow action I can get. His red scarf looks really cool in this book, and I’ll keep on reading just to see him hand Mr 1980’s Grendel his ass in a handbag.

Rating: 7/10 

Comic book review: Prometheus Fire and Stone #1- A very bad start to a very long event

Writer: Paul Tobin
Art: Juan Ferreyra
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 10th September 2014

This introductory instalment of a seventeen issue, crossover event has to be good. Actually, it has to be very good.  It has to hook the readers into the story immediately and make them want to get every single issue of the run. It has to make the reader salivate in anticipation of what is going to happen next. It’s a teaser, a sample of the product that is yet to come.  If this issue fails to excite the reader then the entire crossover event is immediately in jeopardy. Issue #1 of Prometheus gets off to a very wobbly start. It then proceeds to trip, lose it’s balance, step on a banana skin and do a double somersault before landing flat on its face, arse in the air and pants around it’s ankles.

Why does it fall so spectacularly? There are a number of reasons. First off it fails to follow the last story (as seen in the big budget movie ‘Prometheus’) from its most interesting point. The movie ended on an unsatisfying note because it failed to answer the big question. If aliens created man, who created the aliens? You didn’t get that answer in the movie, and unless I’m very much mistaken it looks you are not going to get that answer here either.

Perhaps that question will be answered later on in the event, but there are no hints that this is where it’s going to go, and as that is the most interesting selling point of this entire arc why not hint about it here in the first issue? All I get from this first issue is the impression that we are going to get some Alien versus Predator fight scenes. That might be enough for some, but I want a bit more than that in my comics.

The dialogue in this issue felt a bit off to me as well. Sorry, that’s being a bit too nice. The dialogue felt very off. The characters were in witty banter mode and it felt completely unnatural. They were talking like characters in a cheap and cheesy action movie rather than as real people engaging in believable conversations with each other. The individual characters were impossible to identify with, as they were two dimensional, and drawn from the laziest of action movie cliches. The feminist liberal, sexually attractive, independently spirited young female leader. The overcompensating male chauvinistic macho show-off. The scientist with a secret. These people exist in bad movies, not in real life.

The art felt rushed, like it was half-done, like it was not quite ready for publication. Some of the backgrounds were lacking in colour and detail, the faces looked like rough sketches and the colouring was dull and lifeless.

The issue ends with a good cliffhanger, with the protagonists in danger from something lurking in the background. That’s good, but there’s a big problem. The problem is that the stilted characterisations and dialogue meant that I found it impossible to empathise with any of the characters, and I couldn’t care less about what happens to any of them.

It’s a horrible start to an event series, and a jumping off point already for this reader/reviewer. I’ll keep on checking out the other reviews, just to see if this event tackles the big question that the movie avoided, but at the moment I can’t find any reason to justify me spending my money on this long seventeen issue event. I really do hope it gets better, but this is no way to hook readers onto an event story that is going to play out over the next five months. The event needed a good start, but it doesn’t get it here.

Rating: 3/10

Comic book review: Lobster Johnson- Get the Lobster Part 5 of 5: Not very smart, but worth a quick read

Writers: Mike Mignola and John Arcudi
Artist: Tonci Zonjic
Colours: Dave Stewart
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 13th August 2014

**********Spoilers in review**********

This end of the arc issue has our ridiculously named superhero dispose of the bad guys, in suitably dramatic fashion, and emerge from what must have been certain death with a quip and attitude intact. Along the way the puppet masters behind the main villain are disappointingly brushed over with a vague reference to mind-control and Russia, and the cops still don’t trust Lobster, even though he has revealed that their Police of Chief was a mind controlled villain.

That Chief of Police wasted a lot of money hunting down the Lobster, and it’s announced that the money will now be put into ‘Housing and Schools,’ because ‘There is very little evidence that the Lobster was ever a direct threat to the Police force.’ Sounds great, doesn’t it? But in the very next sentence it’s announced that the cops actually will still be wasting money on trying to hunt down the Lobster, just under something called the Federal Division of Investigation instead. So who’s paying for that then? I guess it’s okay because they have their own ‘special’ money that doesn’t come from taxes, right?

Yeah, it’s pretty stupid, and I had to read it a couple of times over just to make sure I wasn’t missing anything. I wasn’t. This is just an aside, but people must know that the main role of any Police Force is to control the people, not to protect them. The Police are corporate enforcers, and their role is to make sure that the slaves on the corporate plantation don’t get too uppity and start to challenge their owners. Perhaps if comic book writers realised this basic truism we might start to progress and get up to date with some of these stories?

The enjoyment to be had out of this run hasn’t really been the threadbare story; it’s been the artwork by Tonci Zonjic and colouring by Dave Stewart. The weakest page in this book is the bland front cover, but the interior art is really great, the action scenes in particular have an almost animated quality about them, and I give huge credit to Dave Stewart for this. Two panels standout in this book, and they are the two most important panels in the story, the demise of the villain, and the return of the hero.

So the story wasn’t up to much, it left me feeling a bit unsatisfied, but the hero himself, a moody recalcitrant, moral law upholder who does what is right and punishes those who deserve punishment remains a personal favourite. He’s stuck in the post WW1 period though, so you get no contemporary concerns here about lawless government, NSA spying, endless foreign wars for the benefit of the rich, and rapid expansion of a Police state in western countries where governments see their own civilians as their number on enemy. None of these concerns are explored here, and the socio-political commentary, out of a ranking of one to ten, is a big fat zero.

What you do get here though is a strong civic-minded individual driven by a duty to see the bad guys get what they deserve. He is a civilian, and he works for the people, not the corporate enforcers with their ridiculous uniforms, silly moustaches and ignorance about how the system really works to protect the rich and enslave the poor. Lobster has no special powers, just his own strength, agility, smarts and a team of dedicated people helping him out with the latest gadgets available in the 1920’s. Let’s face it, he’s Batman under a different name.

I’d prefer him to be getting the bad guys in 2014 rather than some time in the 1920’s, but I guess he’s going to remain in this safe comic book period with evil Nazi’s, Russian spies and the clearly defined good guys all having American accents. This period of world history is so beloved of contemporary comic book writers as they have uncontroversial, easily defined villains. They don't have to deal with all of the uncomfortable truths of today, with our own governments acting like comic book villains and our soldiers and Police forces mindlessly obeying orders just like the loyal and patriotic Germans did in the late 1930’s and 40’s.

That’s the biggest issue that comic book writers have to deal with in 2014, just who is the good guy and who is the bad guy now? They either don’t know, or they are being deliberately ignorant about it. That is why so many of these books still have old WW2 era Nazi’s, not the modern Ukrainian Nazi’s of course, as they’re on our side now, just like the ‘rebels’ in Syria. Oh, they are ISIS now, are they? Are they still the good guys now they are tearing children in half? We funded them after all, and look, they are running around in American army jeeps. And I thought we invaded Iraq because of terrorism, so why is it being over-ran by terrorists right now?

Do you see what I mean? Comic book writers need to get a handle on the contradictions of our time if they want to be relevant, and smart about what has happened to this world post September 11th 2001. This book isn’t very smart. It’s stuck in that safe Nazi ‘s and Communists period, and I guess that’s where Lobster will remain.  It’s not a particularly great book, but the art; dramatic colouring and strong character of Lobster himself makes it at least worth a quick read.


Rating: 6/10

Comic book review: King Conan Conqueror #6- A Kingdom of Dust

Writer: Timothy Truman
Artist: Tomas Giorello
Colours: Jose Villarrubia
Publisher: Dark Horse Comic
Released: 30th July 2014


‘But of what worth are power and the treasures it brings…if there’s no one to give them to?’

So says an elderly King Conan as he concludes his tale of the glory days of battle and how he re-gained his kingdom, and his Queen.

After the glorious battle, after the mighty sweep of his sword and vengeance gained, the defeat of his enemies and the destruction of the wizard Xaltotun, the book ends not with a celebration, but with a melancholy lamentation.

It’s that feeling of melancholy that I will remember the most from this latest take on Robert E. Howard’s Hour of the Dragon story. This final edition celebrates Conan’s victory with gloriously illustrated panels that depict the key moments of battle.

The standout panels are the destruction of the wizard himself, in a swash of blood and furious, aggressive muscular vengeance. It’s the colouring that does it here, but in the quieter panels there is a look in the eye of the elderly King Conan. Still mighty, still a towering colossus of coiled muscularity, but the eye, surrounded by scars, it is sad, very sad.

The good news is that this creative team is going to return. There are no details as of yet, but as soon as I hear about them I’ll put it up on my blog. I don’t usually announce comic book news here, but with this creative team working again on Conan; I’ll make a happy exception.

King Conan The Conqueror Part 6 of 6 is a book of blood, battle and glorious vengeance for our eponymous hero. It was a great victory, but now as an elderly King Conan re-tells the tale of his most glorious hour, there is no joy there, no celebration, no boastful elevation of his own legend. No, there is only sadness as he surveys the life he is now living, and how everybody he knew, admired, loved or hated are no longer of the world.

All that remains is a melancholy old King with a kingdom of material riches but with nobody to share them with. Worse still, he has no heir apparent to the Kingdom he spent his life’s energies and passions to secure, and as he looks over the body of his dead wife the past is all he has. The present is numb, and the future offers nothing but dust.


Rating: 10/10