Before we get to the fun part where you read Jesse and Ross' reviews, I'd like to take a moment and mention how happy I am about the fact that IndieComiX has been open for a year now. Many, many thanks to everyone who has supported the site! And its my hope the site will be around for a long time to come! Anyways.. Enjoy!
- Robert McClelland
- Robert McClelland
Intrinsic Volume 1 review part 2
The Intrinsic Vol. 1 Part 2 of 2
Arcana Comics
Written by Sean Patrick O’ Reilly, Erik Hendrix, Casey Jones
Pencils: Allan Otero
Colors: Chandran Ponnusamy
Letters: Erik Hendrix, Amanda Hendrix
Reviewer: Jesse Brown
Chapter: 4
Summary: Previously a group of super powered warriors driven by a common goal to save reality traveled to another dimension to confront an evil overlord from destroying the throne and reclaiming his queen. Meeting up with him in the throne room the group is challenged by his newly summoned generals. Will they be able to overcome this threat n time to stop the world from collapsing, or will evil have its way?
Chapter 4 opens with the entire group in the throws of battle fighting heavily to survive against giant and horrible creatures with powers equal or greater than there own. The situation worsens when 1 of the heroes is transformed into an elderly woman, and the smallest hero is seemingly swallowed by a massive snake monster. The rest are failing to overcome their opponents. To make matters worse evil overlord Apollyon has struck the throne that maintains reality in an attempt to destroy it and release his would be wife. The damage allows her to escape and she makes her way to the groups. However when confronted by Apollyon, she turns against him.
Backup arrives for the good guys and the battle restarts, with the heroes motivated. However it seems like nothing can stop Apollyon from annihilating the throne until an unlikely candidate seizes it for himself along with the power it contains. Alex uses the throne’s god like power to force Apollyon into another dimension and thus save the universe, the only consequence is that he can never return to earth or leave the realm.
Review: The action this time was amped up a couple notches and really blew the roof off. There was fighting all over the place. With the addition of the giant 3 headed snake monster, the character art sails to new heights, showing us the diversity of the artist and the scale of his/ her great imagination.
As the battle ensues the plot unwinds as each character makes their best effort.
It is rather chaotic but in such a way I can appreciate. I was surprised to see “the queen” turn on Apollyon, yet disappointed that it had little impact on the plot. That was pretty much the only complaint I had.
It was quite unexpected to see Alex take the throne and transform into Dr Manhattan esque physicality. It was an interesting turn of events and a welcome ending as far as I'm concerned.
All in all, the comic was very entertaining and full of quality. The final battle lived up to its expectation and beyond. I would recommend this to any action aficionados and Sci-Fi fans.
Editor's Note: Now that Jesse has brought us the second half of his review for the first volume of Intrinsic, check out the Arcana site to see how you can grab yourself a copy of the title!
Arcana Comics
Written by Sean Patrick O’ Reilly, Erik Hendrix, Casey Jones
Pencils: Allan Otero
Colors: Chandran Ponnusamy
Letters: Erik Hendrix, Amanda Hendrix
Reviewer: Jesse Brown
Chapter: 4
Summary: Previously a group of super powered warriors driven by a common goal to save reality traveled to another dimension to confront an evil overlord from destroying the throne and reclaiming his queen. Meeting up with him in the throne room the group is challenged by his newly summoned generals. Will they be able to overcome this threat n time to stop the world from collapsing, or will evil have its way?
Chapter 4 opens with the entire group in the throws of battle fighting heavily to survive against giant and horrible creatures with powers equal or greater than there own. The situation worsens when 1 of the heroes is transformed into an elderly woman, and the smallest hero is seemingly swallowed by a massive snake monster. The rest are failing to overcome their opponents. To make matters worse evil overlord Apollyon has struck the throne that maintains reality in an attempt to destroy it and release his would be wife. The damage allows her to escape and she makes her way to the groups. However when confronted by Apollyon, she turns against him.
Backup arrives for the good guys and the battle restarts, with the heroes motivated. However it seems like nothing can stop Apollyon from annihilating the throne until an unlikely candidate seizes it for himself along with the power it contains. Alex uses the throne’s god like power to force Apollyon into another dimension and thus save the universe, the only consequence is that he can never return to earth or leave the realm.
Review: The action this time was amped up a couple notches and really blew the roof off. There was fighting all over the place. With the addition of the giant 3 headed snake monster, the character art sails to new heights, showing us the diversity of the artist and the scale of his/ her great imagination.
As the battle ensues the plot unwinds as each character makes their best effort.
It is rather chaotic but in such a way I can appreciate. I was surprised to see “the queen” turn on Apollyon, yet disappointed that it had little impact on the plot. That was pretty much the only complaint I had.
It was quite unexpected to see Alex take the throne and transform into Dr Manhattan esque physicality. It was an interesting turn of events and a welcome ending as far as I'm concerned.
All in all, the comic was very entertaining and full of quality. The final battle lived up to its expectation and beyond. I would recommend this to any action aficionados and Sci-Fi fans.
Editor's Note: Now that Jesse has brought us the second half of his review for the first volume of Intrinsic, check out the Arcana site to see how you can grab yourself a copy of the title!
The War Machine GN Review
2000 AD/Rebellion
Writers: Dave Gbbons and Michael Fleisher
Artists: Will Simpson, Steve Dillon, and Kev Walker
Reviewer: Ross Rivers
Summary: Bred for war, they were created to be the ultimate warriors. Impervious to the poisons and contagions of an endless future conflict on an alien world. They were the cloned, blue-skinned Genetic Infantrymen.
And they were betrayed.
Review: Rogue Trooper has been around for a while, now. First printed in British anthology 2000AD, it became quite the success. It even spawned a pretty decent video game! But, like a lot of 2000AD’s stories, not everything is made available in America.
But now you lucky Americans get to experience Dave Gibbons’ and Will Simpson’s reboot of the classic Rogue Trooper series!
There are a few changes in this, compared to the original series; Rogue’s friend’s personalities aren’t downloaded into biochips and attached to his equipment (helmet, backpack, and gun) and Rogue isn’t the same Rogue. In fact, he’s not Rogue! Instead, we have a Genetic Infantryman called Friday.
Friday, along with his fellow G.Is, has been raised from birth to be the ultimate killing machine. He’s a clone who knows nothing except war and orders.
Thrown on to a hostile planet, filled with enemy troops, monsters, and a toxic atmosphere, Friday fights alongside his brothers in a world he was born for. He mows down the enemy humans and watches only a couple of his fellow G.Is fall.
When they complete their objective, capturing a hill that seems to have no strategically sound advantage, they await further orders from their commander, Highside.
What comes instead is an army of more advanced, more aggressive G.Is, who then kill every one of Friday’s comrades.
As he watches his brothers fall, he finally begins to question his orders and the war itself. Before, he was just a soldier or a machine. He didn’t question who he killed or why.
Gibbons’ intention for this book is clear from the start; he wanted to take the character he co-created in ’81 and explore the themes he couldn’t back then. He wanted to look at the nature of war, the effects of brainwashing and conditioning, the ethics of cloning and so on.
It’s difficult to explore all those themes in one comic book and, to be honest; I don’t think Gibbons pulls it off so well. In such a short amount of time, he does what he can but it could have benefitted from more pages, more issues.
The villain’s motivation could have used more development. It’s somewhat anti-climactic and taints Friday’s journey a little bit. It almost seems as if Gibbons decided “yeah, that’ll do” when coming up with it.
But these problems with the book are pretty minor, compared with what Gibbons did write with the script.
Friday’s inner monologue perfectly matches the action. It’s presented in short, punchy lines with no unnecessary adjectives. It’s how you’d expect someone like Friday to think.
Friday is developed pretty well, as the story progresses. He sees things on his search for revenge that makes him question human nature and, despite the violence and grim atmosphere, this is pretty uplifting and positive.
But the best thing is, despite the ending where the bad guy reveals his plans, the writing is pretty simple, making it a very enjoyable experience. It’s not bogged down in long monologues, descriptions, or lengthy dialogue scenes. In fact it’s rare to come across dialogue in the book that isn’t the shouts of dying soldiers or orders from command.
But, as enjoyable as Gibbons’ slightly flawed script is, Will Simpson is the star of this show. Every panel is gorgeously coloured and pencilled and every character is distinct. The action scenes, of which there are many, never get stale and are always fun to look at.
In fact, every panel looks is as incredible as the splash pages. And this is coming from someone who thought he was one of the worst artists in Hellblazer’s history.
If you’re new to Rogue Trooper, this is a good read and doesn’t require any knowledge from previous books. If you’re a fan of Rogue Trooper, this could go either way depending on how much you loved the biochip buddies. Either way you should pick it up just to look at it. It sure is pretty, I tell you what!
Editor's Note: If you have yet to see this in your LCS, head on over to the 2000 AD Facebook page and see where you can be directed to order it!
2000 AD/Rebellion
Writers: Dave Gbbons and Michael Fleisher
Artists: Will Simpson, Steve Dillon, and Kev Walker
Reviewer: Ross Rivers
Summary: Bred for war, they were created to be the ultimate warriors. Impervious to the poisons and contagions of an endless future conflict on an alien world. They were the cloned, blue-skinned Genetic Infantrymen.
And they were betrayed.
Review: Rogue Trooper has been around for a while, now. First printed in British anthology 2000AD, it became quite the success. It even spawned a pretty decent video game! But, like a lot of 2000AD’s stories, not everything is made available in America.
But now you lucky Americans get to experience Dave Gibbons’ and Will Simpson’s reboot of the classic Rogue Trooper series!
There are a few changes in this, compared to the original series; Rogue’s friend’s personalities aren’t downloaded into biochips and attached to his equipment (helmet, backpack, and gun) and Rogue isn’t the same Rogue. In fact, he’s not Rogue! Instead, we have a Genetic Infantryman called Friday.
Friday, along with his fellow G.Is, has been raised from birth to be the ultimate killing machine. He’s a clone who knows nothing except war and orders.
Thrown on to a hostile planet, filled with enemy troops, monsters, and a toxic atmosphere, Friday fights alongside his brothers in a world he was born for. He mows down the enemy humans and watches only a couple of his fellow G.Is fall.
When they complete their objective, capturing a hill that seems to have no strategically sound advantage, they await further orders from their commander, Highside.
What comes instead is an army of more advanced, more aggressive G.Is, who then kill every one of Friday’s comrades.
As he watches his brothers fall, he finally begins to question his orders and the war itself. Before, he was just a soldier or a machine. He didn’t question who he killed or why.
Gibbons’ intention for this book is clear from the start; he wanted to take the character he co-created in ’81 and explore the themes he couldn’t back then. He wanted to look at the nature of war, the effects of brainwashing and conditioning, the ethics of cloning and so on.
It’s difficult to explore all those themes in one comic book and, to be honest; I don’t think Gibbons pulls it off so well. In such a short amount of time, he does what he can but it could have benefitted from more pages, more issues.
The villain’s motivation could have used more development. It’s somewhat anti-climactic and taints Friday’s journey a little bit. It almost seems as if Gibbons decided “yeah, that’ll do” when coming up with it.
But these problems with the book are pretty minor, compared with what Gibbons did write with the script.
Friday’s inner monologue perfectly matches the action. It’s presented in short, punchy lines with no unnecessary adjectives. It’s how you’d expect someone like Friday to think.
Friday is developed pretty well, as the story progresses. He sees things on his search for revenge that makes him question human nature and, despite the violence and grim atmosphere, this is pretty uplifting and positive.
But the best thing is, despite the ending where the bad guy reveals his plans, the writing is pretty simple, making it a very enjoyable experience. It’s not bogged down in long monologues, descriptions, or lengthy dialogue scenes. In fact it’s rare to come across dialogue in the book that isn’t the shouts of dying soldiers or orders from command.
But, as enjoyable as Gibbons’ slightly flawed script is, Will Simpson is the star of this show. Every panel is gorgeously coloured and pencilled and every character is distinct. The action scenes, of which there are many, never get stale and are always fun to look at.
In fact, every panel looks is as incredible as the splash pages. And this is coming from someone who thought he was one of the worst artists in Hellblazer’s history.
If you’re new to Rogue Trooper, this is a good read and doesn’t require any knowledge from previous books. If you’re a fan of Rogue Trooper, this could go either way depending on how much you loved the biochip buddies. Either way you should pick it up just to look at it. It sure is pretty, I tell you what!
Editor's Note: If you have yet to see this in your LCS, head on over to the 2000 AD Facebook page and see where you can be directed to order it!