Chaos Campus: Sorority Girls vs Zombies 'Orientation' TPB ~ This volume, available here from Indyplanet, contains the three preview issues, the Student Body Survival Guide (all reviewed here) and a black and white printing of issue one (reviewed here), plus a big load of sketches and pinup art and assorted extras - the whole volume clocks in at 186 pages by my count (which hopefully wasn't too erratic, with Law & Order SVU on in the background; Mariska Hargitay is entirely too yummy to concentrate). Everything's black and white, but it's still not bad value - most of the content was produced that way, while the reprint of issue #1 transitions well from colour to B&W with no murky shades or so forth. See the previous reviews for more on the content, but in short it's like Shaun of the Dead meets South Park's sense of humour by way of Baywatch's eye candy.
Ythaq: No Escape #2 ~ While we're on the subject of Ythaq, issue #3 of the first miniseries 'The Forbidden Planet' showed up at my comic shop, so I'm no longer missing an issue. I gather they're not meant to be shipping to Australia at all, but so long as the shop keeps getting them, I'm not going to be asking inconvenient questions. With 'No Escape' #2, well, it's business as usual: fast-paced, edge-of-your-seat adventure, thrills and spills galore, and lots of subtle machinations going on behind the scenes. Granite shows that she's acquired some mettle from having been kicked about the planet since crash-landing and puts it to use getting Dhokas to explain what the mystery of Ythaq is, although - inevitably - they're interrupted before he can reveal everything, though by the end of the issue we get a pretty firm hint at what's happening, and it's damn cool. Narvath is putting his technical nous to work shoring up the battered Comet's Mist wreck against the forces laying siege to it, while Callista, naturally, is in the bar letting the crew do the heavy lifting while she sips her drink and complains - she may have shown there's more to her than a pretty face in earlier issues, but that doesn't mean she's not still a bitch, albeit an amusing one. Khengis, the local warlord laying siege - who gets some fascinating background this issue by the way - comes up with a devious plan to take the Comet's Mist, and before you know what's happening it's chaos as his army goes on a rampage, with our heroes as always lucky to escape in one piece, only to plunge head-first into the next bizarre and dangerous situation. There aren't many sci-fi/fantasy stories better than this - my only complaint is that, comparing it to the large format Asterix and Tintin books I grew up with, I'm really starting to notice how Marvel's smaller page size makes the lavish art feel a bit cramped. Hardcovers of these imported Soleil titles are on the way, I'm hoping they'll be oversized to rectify that oversight.
Planet Skaar Prologue ~ It looks like Skaar is coming to Earth, or something - I haven't been keeping up on Skaar, Son of Hulk, since I had a glance at the first issue and saw they hadn't resurrected Caiera (the best thing in Planet Hulk, and sadly missed), so I can't really say why, nor do I much care. However She-Hulk's on the cover - in a minor capacity - so on a whim I put this issue onto my standing order at the comic shop when I saw it in Previews, and here we are. There's a big multi-perspective story here, but since I'm mainly interested in Jen I'll confine myself to her: the gamma in her genes is feeling the psychic presence of Skaar, so she's drawn to seek him out and of course winds up as part of the group of heroes that - also of course - wind up throwing down with him. Aside from getting to wear her old Fantastic Four uniform there's not much going on storywise - punches and thrown, everyone gets in each other's way, and the stage is set for the next comic to tell the story of Skaar on Earth, ho hum. I liked Planet Hulk - downer ending regardless - but I just don't feel it works quite the same way once it's been brought to Earth, it loses that feel of timeless fantasy-world magic, like Conan and so on, and this has kind of the same problem - Marvel Earth present-day is a comic book world, and it doesn't suit Skaar.
Hack/Slash #22 ~ This issue brings together a whole bunch of plot threads that've been running since early on, with Margaret and Six Sixx (the demonic metal rocker) and Vlad's isolation and the nasty critters from beyond and so on and so forth. It's a big ol' finale kind of issue - though thankfully just a storyline finale, not the end of Hack/Slash overall - so there's a lot of bloody monster-slaying action. Curiously, it's Sixx who gets much of the focus - he's used as a lens to look at Cassie in part, but he also kind of makes the issue his own in terms of ass-kicking, which is an odd choice, but it works well. The focus swings to Cassie in the end though, with a bitter closing scene - it's a sad choice she makes, but honestly it's difficult to see how it could've been any other way. Fun as she is, Cassie's a deeply hurt person, and there won't be any happy endings for her until she figures out how to heal herself. Luckily the Lovebunny & Mr. Hell backup comic is as always good for a gleeful chuckle.
Agents of Atlas #5 ~ The showdown between the Agents of Atlas and the New Avengers is rather clever in its concept - Atlas wants Norman Osborn to regard them as allies, but don't want to actually help him, so they've prepared an arms shipment for him that they want the New Avengers to take out, thus providing Normy with nothing but looking trustworthy at the same time. And how it plays out is rather clever too - without going into spoilers both sides come off credibly, there's the required big fight without the necessity to portray anyone as morons who'd rather throw punches than think, and a bit of history from the first issue comes back at a crucial moment in a very pleasing way. Oh, and Venus looks really sexy - given her figure and costume I suppose that goes without saying, but for some reason it was very noticeable this issue (she gets the recap page too, which continue to be cute and characterful, rather than just a dry summary of what's gone before).
Wolverine Saga ~ I've never been that much of a Wolverine fan - he has his moments in isolation, but the huge weight of convoluted storylines that've built up behind the poor guy basically means that it's impossible for him to be meaningful any more - so many writers have tried to give him big weighty dramatic stories that he's worn out. Still, he clearly has plenty of fans, and this issue - another of Marvel's promotional 'Saga' issues - is free, so it's difficult to complain about it. It's 32 pages of text recaps of Logan's history, with accompanying images drawn from the relevant comics, plus a reading guide - nothing that'll get me personally to buy anything, but Marvel's definitely on to a good strategy with these Saga thingies.
