Comic review: Time Warriors #1- A strong central idea and lots of laughs

Writer: Guy Hasson
Artist: Juan Manuel Almirón

Publisher: New Worlds Comics

Release Date: 12th May 2015 (Get the book early by clicking on link below)
http://newworldscomics.com/?p=1403



Time Warriors #1 is an independent digital comic book that I got for a couple of quid online, two weeks before it’s official release date of Tuesday May 12th.

I liked both the marketing strategy, and the plot idea behind the story. That marketing strategy and plot idea combined to win me over, to get me to buy the book, so it’s already a success for the independent comic book creators at New Worlds Comics.

So what did I think of it after I actually read it?

I thought that it was fun, it made me laugh, and overall it was well worth my £2. The art was messy, but messy in a good way. The mess created it’s own little (yes, I’ll use the word again) messy little world, and that (here it comes again) messy little world worked very well with the script, not distracting, and not being too out there to stop me from knowing exactly what was going on plot-wise.

The plot idea that hooked me, the idea that time travelling soldiers get information, and are then killed, only to be brought back to life later was played out mainly for laughs in this first issue, and the serious implications will no doubt follow in the up-coming issues. The soldiers knew they were going to die, but it was their first time, so they were understandably a bit nervous about it. Writer Guy Hasson cleverly played with this, creating different personality types who all dealt with this weird situation in their own individual way. This led to naked street running, sex, drugs and dying on the toilet.

What would you do in your last moments before your temporary death? I’d probably do what I’m doing now, eat a sweet and type out a review, but I’m an odd guy, as anybody who has ever met me, or had any correspondence with me will be well aware of.

That self-indulgent reference to myself brings me to the end of issue #1 and a reveal that didn’t exactly surprise me. I’ve had some brief correspondence with writer Guy Hasson and I’ve asked him why he writes his main protagonists as rebellious young girls when he himself is obviously not in that demographic. It puzzled me, and his answer that he just always did that, puzzled me even more.

Is it a male guilt thing perhaps? The idea being that men are terrible, that all of the problems in the world have been caused by evil men, so it has to be a young woman who comes along to save us all? Come on Guy, feminism is so 1970’s man. Get with the kids, it’s all about the MRM (Men’s Rights Movement) today dude.

I’m just messing here. Well, just a bit. Put aside that whiff of third wave feminism and I liked Time Warriors #1. Okay, the title doesn’t exactly win any points for originality, but the actual idea, the central core of the book is very original indeed and has a heck of a lot of mileage in it. This first issue took that idea and had some fun with it, so issue #2 is already intriguing as I’m sure that strong central idea will be developed a lot further as the story progresses.

Get the book. You’ll like it. I did. We need to support people like Guy Hasson and debut artist Juan Manuel Almirón. They are doing interesting work outside of the boring, safe, lame, tired mainstream, and if you are like myself and constantly bemoan the lack of originality or new ideas in contemporary comic books then you’re sure to get a lot of enjoyment out of Time Warriors #1.


Rating: 8/10 (A strong, intriguing #1 with lots of silliness, laughs and hints of darker things ahead)

Miss Morality, in ‘The Tunnels of Intolerance’- Part Three

Written by: Mark. A. Pritchard
Released on: The Rorshach Rant- 13th March 2015


Screaming and crying from the back of a Police van, a dishevelled, distressed and disturbingly inebriated Miss Morality railed against the injustice, the misogyny and institutional sexism of the Police force.

‘Ya f*****g b******s, I’m gonna f*****g sue every single last one of you c**** *** **** ****, if it’s the last thing you do, you rapist m***********s.’

It was a sad sight indeed as our brave feminist warrior was carted off to the nearest cell to sober up, calm down, and sleep off the half a bottle of vodka and six beers that had reduced her to this sorry state of inebriation.

As she was taken away the watching criminal mastermind known as ‘The Dissenter,’ enthusiastically detailed the next stage of his plans.

‘Good job mate. Keep her locked up for a good ten hours and that should be enough for us to sort her out for good. Her days of social justice campaigning are over forever, ha ha ha ha ha.’

‘Ha ha ha ha ha,good one boss,' replied the pig like arresting officer as he struggled to regain his composure. ‘Ding, dong, the witch is dead, ha ha ha ha ha.’

The hateful patriarchal laughter of the two women hating villains rang sinisterly throughout the early evening traffic. They enthusiastically shook hands, winked the secret wink of patriarchy to each other, and left to complete the remainder of their evil plans. The arresting officer going back to the Police station to make sure that poor Miss Morality spent the night in the cells, and the Dissenter off to cause more mischief and put the next stage of his evil plan into operation.

When social services arrived at the now deserted home of Miss Morality they were alarmed (but not surprised) to hear the distressed cries of a hungry baby girl. Her mother was in jail, but where was her uncle?

Where was the blameless and pure Rufus? Surely he wouldn’t abandon his sister's baby at this most inopportune time? No, of course not, but that’s exactly what it looked like to the social workers. This was not good news for our brave social justice warrior at all.

After a quick call to the police, and a battering ram to the door, baby Sojourner was whisked away, and sent straight into the loving arms of the expert child-care specialists working for the BBC Jimmy Saville care-home for abandoned and vulnerable young girls.

‘Stage two of the operation is complete boss,’ said a hateful manly figure in black as baby Sojourner was delivered to the home. ‘We know what to do from this point on, same routine right?’

‘Oh yes, my conspiratorial colleague,’ replied the Dissenter.

‘Same routine as before, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.’

It was 11am the next morning when a sick as a female parrot Miss Morality woke in her Police cell. Suffering from a stinging headache and no memory of the night-before she banged angrily upon the cell door demanded to know what was happening.

‘Help, help where am I? What is happening here? I demand to see a female solicitor. I'm being held against my will. My female rights are being violated.  Help, help, help, help.’

Her cries for help were answered by a familiar whistling coming from the bottom of the corridor. The whistling got slowly louder, and louder as it’s source walked calmly, slowly, sinisterly towards the trapped feminist social justice warrior.

A trembling, terrified and deeply distressed Miss Morality recognised the whistling immediately. She knew it well. It was a whistle she had learned to fear as a small, innocent frightened and abused little girl.

‘Hello love,’ said a smiling, hairy, ugly brute of a man as he glared menacingly at Miss Morality through the tiny little window of her prison cell.

‘What do you think of my uniform? I look rather masculine in blue, don’t you think?’

‘Oh my mother goddess,’ replied an almost fainting Miss Morality.

‘No, no, no no, no. This can’t be real. This can’t be happening.’

 ‘Daddy, it’s you.’


END OF PART THREE



Miss Morality will return next week (Friday 20th March) in ‘The Tunnels of Intolerance’- Part 4. Is all hope gone for our brave social justice warrior? Where is Rufus? Is baby Sojourner going to be safe in the BBC Jimmy Saville care home? How is Miss Morality going to escape the masculine oppression of her own father? All will be revealed next week. DON’T MISS IT.


* If any artist would like to illustrate this story, then please let me know.

Comic review: Ant-Man #3- Be a Man, not an Ant-Man

Writer: Nick Spencer
Artist: Ramon Rosanas
Cover artist: Mark Brooks
Publisher: Marvel (Disney) Comics
Released: 11th March 2015

I only bought this book for the cool looking front cover. As for the inside story, I already knew what I would be getting.

I read issue #1 of Ant-man, so I knew that the story was going to be about an emasculated loser getting bossed around by his ex-wife. I knew that the dialogue was going to be soft, cosy, and full of quips with self-deprecating interior monologues from the titular dork. I knew that everything would be treated like a joke, that nothing would feel real, and that there would be no dealing with any of the issues that I always talk about on my blog.

I knew all of this before buying the book, so I’m not going to complain about it here, well not very much. Ant-Man, as written by Nick Spencer, is a very modern feminist liberal apology of a man. He exists to be bossed around by alpha females, and is domesticated, pathetic, desperate, lonely and weak. In other words, he's the perfect embodiment of the modern man in 2015, as programmed by the new world order friendly corporate whore mainstream media. Hey comic book fans; here's a depressing truth-

THIS GUY IS SUPPOSED TO BE YOU. 

Don’t be Ant-Man kids. Self deprecating jokes and getting bossed around by women doesn’t make you a nice guy. It makes you a loser, the kind of guy who women secretly despise. Ant-Man is the kind of guy who cries himself to sleep (alone) every night as he ties himself in feminist liberal knots trying to understand why all of the ‘jerks’ get the girls, and all he gets for his ‘niceness’ is friendship zoned.

Don’t be that guy. Be a man, not an Ant-Man.

I didn’t like the artwork in this book. It was flat, the colours were dull and it lacked detail. The narrative structure was very good, but the story didn’t interest me, and it wasn’t saying anything about the world that I live in.

Ant-Man #3 has a great front cover by Mark Brooks, but the story inside ‘features’ an emasculated comic book reader type as the protagonist. The story is about him trying to keep out of trouble with his ex-wife, lest she takes his daughter away from him for good. That’s a bit depressing really, seeing a ‘superhero’ going through the same crap that men have to put up with in the real world, dominated as it is with female friendly courts and a man-hating culture that is deliberately trying to emasculate men.

I bought this book only for the cover, so I’m not angry about it. That cover is great, and it’s going up on my wall, but the rest of the comic is pretty useless to me, other than to use it as an example of mainstream anti-male propaganda that unfortunately contaminates contemporary comic books today.

Rating: 4/10 (Great cover, interior story is well structured, but Ant-Man is no hero to me)