Batman: Black Mirror [Hardcover]

This hardcover collects seven months of batman stories published in DC Comics. The collection is organized into sets of smaller stories, with an overarching plot from one story arc to the next. The artist change from one story arc to the next, but the art does not suffer with this. The more self-contained parts of the story are quite interesting and present newer additions to the Batman mythos. The overarching story is one of the best Batman yarns I have read in the last couple of years. An old enemy who was not an enemy returns and creates problems not only for Batman, but also for Oracle and for Commissioner Gordon. The ending is chilling. Overall, very enjoyable.
Story:4.5
Art:4
Overall:4.25

Al Nordeste de Arzew

This is a graphic that, as far as I know, is being published originally in Spain first. The art team is Spanish, while the writer is French. It is an interesting effort that tells the story of a group of families whose immediate ancestors immigrated to Argelie, which has now been their home for 1.5 generations. The time is the late fifties-early sixties, when Argelie became independent from France. The story focuses on a few kids and on how they live the transition from being in their home to being invaders and having to go back to France, where they are also looked at as invaders. It is an end-of-innocence tale that is beautifully told, without sentimentalism or easy tears. The story is well written and the drawings and colors are impressive and evocative. Read it if you can.
Story: 4.5
Art: 4.7
Overall: 4.6

Le Bel Age

This is the first of a series of french graphic novels about the (origin of) friendship between three girls that will come to share a life. It all starts when one of them gets into trouble because she decides to share her flatmate's boyfriend. Another of the three is a Ph. D. student who his fighting to complete her thesis and the third is a young women who decides to return to college. This first volumes ends when the later two come to visit the former's apartment in order to become her flatmate(s). It is difficult to tell whether this is worth it or not. I very much enjoyed Merwan's Pour l'empire. That is why I gave this book a try. The drawing is excellent. I will have to wait for the second volume before deciding whether to see this series to completion or not.
Story:2.5
Art: 4
Overall:3.25

Moriarty: The Dark Chamber

This is the story of what happens to Prof. Moriarty after surviving his final showdown with Sherlock Holmes. In a not so surprising turn of events he becomes much more like his opponent than he might have expected and starts to lead a (sort of) honorable life. Then, things change and while fighting for his life he learns that maybe, just maybe, his nemesis in this fight may not be who Moriarty thinks. It is a good Sherlock Holmes story, that reads quite well. However, the drawing are too crude for my tastes and even though they help the story flow, it took me more than 70% of the book to not notice them and just enjoy the story.
Story: 4
Art: 1
Overall: 2.5

A Red Mass For Mars [Paperback]

A Red Mass for Mars collects the comic book miniseries with the same name, from Image Comics. It is a story about how the world ended, then got better and is now about to end again. It ended as we might expect it to end tomorrow if we look at world politics today, although there is a twist to it. It got better thanks to "a few good and powerful men", some of which turned out either to be too powerful or not to be so good. These men split and went into different states of isolation. The second ending is now coming and those who are left need to band together again to avoid the end and/or rebuild. I liked the story quite a lot. Lots of shades of grey and preciously few black and whites. Johnathan Hickman does another superb job writing and Ryan Bodenheim drawing are perfect for the tale. Go read it.
Story: 4.5
Art: 4.5
Overall: 4.5

Sherlock Holmes: Year One TP

Sherlock Holmes Year One is the collected edition of the six first issues of the comic book series with the same name. It basically deals with the life and times of Sherlock Holmes right before and up to his first meeting with Dr. Watson. There are mysteries, crimes, smugness, bedrooms that look like pig-houses, and all we came to expect of Sherlock. It is an entertaining read, although I don't think it brings anything new to the myth. Sherlock solves a couple of crimes, and the series ends with the beginning of "A Study in Scarlet". You could do worst with your time than read this.
Story: 3
Art: 4
Overall: 3.5

Who is Jake Ellis?

Who is Jake Ellis is the collected paperback for a five issue miniseries from Image Comics. It is the story of a spy who becomes a criminal and is kept one step ahead of trouble by an imaginary friend that somehow always tells him what he should do to escape the situations he gets involved in. As the book progresses, they approach the crux of how they come to be and we get to find out whether the imaginary friends is real or not. It is a classical spy yarn why some brush strokes of sci-fi. It reads well and the drawing is quite good. If you like spy thrillers give it a shot.
Story: 4
Art: 4.5
Overall: 4.25

Everlast

This is a story about a group of "beings" with human aspect that go about saving the few elected human from the end of the world. They take the electeds to paradise, or a paradise. Once the final elected is in paradise (or maybe because the final elected is in paradise) the world will end. The collectors betray each other, fall in love, have doubts about themselves and their jobs, and every other cliche you can come up with. The writing is terrible. The story is as derivative as they get. The art is inhomogeneous in a bad way, although I like many of the artists contributing. Furthermore, it is often detrimental for the understanding of the story, as one page is followed by another without any relationship to it. Avoid.
Story:0.5
Art:1
Overall:0.75

X-Men: Prelude to Schism [Hardcover]

This is the compiled hardcover for the miniseries Prelude to Schism. This miniseries is about how and what the leader of the X-Men, a group of super-powered mutants, decides regarding how to deal with a looming menace that threatens to kill all members of the group. This is not a book where you see the whole process or what the menace is. You just know that it is coming, it is deadly, and a decision has to be made in a short time. Each part of the story focuses on how one of four members of the team lives that short time. As a TV show or as a serial of four comic books (which is the original format of the series) this plot device might have worked better than in a compiled edition, where a lot of it seem repetitious and been there done that. The story is competent and the art is very inhomogeneous, as artists change from one part to the next. Read it if you are a die hard fan of the X-Men.
Story:3
Art:3
Overall:3

Criminal, Vol. 6: Last of the Innocent

Criminal is an ongoing American comic book series by Ed Brubaker and Sean Philips. This is the sixth volume, which finishes off the story started in vol. 5. It reads pretty well as a stand alone book. This book is a crime story about an husband that marries into money and is widowed into even more money. As opposed to most crime stories, in this one crime does pay off and enables the criminal turning the clock back on a life and relive it again in a different way. It is a nice read with good, functional art.
Story: 4
Art: 4
Overall: 4

El abrazo de Neptuno

This Spanish comic book, by Calo is about nothing, really. A somewhat psychedelic story about a group of young people who decide to travel through southern Europe during summer and have their van stolen. Then, they have to continue travelling any way that they can. In the mean time one of them is lost and finds he is related to an old European deity. All in all the drawing and colours are nice but the story is quite bland.
Story:1.5
Art: 3.5
Overall: 2.5

Dentro de la noche

This is a Spanish black and white comic book by Eduardo Gonzalez. It is a collection of short horror stories that are nicely done, both story wise and drawing wise. The horror is, for the most part, psychological and you don't see a lot of blood and guts. The stories are very much in the vain of urban myths and the whole thing reads nicely, without being excessively original.
Story: 3.5
Art:3.5
Overall:3.5

Quai d'Orsay, tome 2 : Chroniques diplomatiques

This is the second volume of a graphic novel series about the foreign affairs minister (equivalent to the american secretary of state) of France and the comings and goings of his team, all of it seen from the eyes of one of his junior speech-writers. The minister is thinly disguised Dominique de Villepin and the president is thinly disguised Jacques Chirac. This volume follows the times immediately before the Iraq invasion by the USA, with all the maneuvering that went behind curtains to get the UN's approval for the invasion. It is highly entertaining and every single characters is extremely engaging. The writing is superb. The writer is an anonymous diplomat that writes this series under a pseudonym. He seems to have been right in the middle of it all, making for a very "true" book. The art is also perfect.In general I do not like Blain's art, although I like his books. However, in this case, his art serves the story so perfectly that any change would have made for a worst book. Go read it
Story: 5
Art: 4.8
Overall: 4.9

XIII Mystery, Tome 4 : Colonel Amos

This is the fourth volume in a series that explores and further defines some important characters in the first cycle of the french graphic novel series XIII. While the main series had a one writer/one artist team for the whole duration, this spin-off has a different writer/artist team for each volume. In this case the writer is Didier Alcante and the artist is François Boucq, a favorite of mine. In the story Alcante has us follow the Coronel has he attempts to find our who an important Israeli spy is, and as he is in turn investigated himself and protects a family he never suspected he had. It is quite run of the mill stuff in a spy thriller, but it reads OK. Boucq also deliver and the art is quite nice. It was a fun, if somewhat predictable, read.
Story:2
Art:4
Overall:3

Muraqqa', Tome 1 : Vêtue par le ciel

Muraqqa' is a French graphic novel about an Hindu woman in Africa that is a good artist and is recruited to draw the lives of women in the palace of the "Emperor of the World", in the middle ages. This first volume follows her as she moves from drawing animals in the wild to drawing the human beast in closed quarters. She follows the petty intrigues between the different women and faction in the palace. While drawing the different women she strives to keep herself distant from everyone. Story wise, I liked the book. Drawing wise, it is a different story. Ana Miralles draws very pretty pictures. However, all women of the approximate same age she draws are the same woman and almost all man are the same man. Anyway, I may pick up the following volumes as the story is fairly nice.
Story: 3
Art: 3
Overall: 3

FreakAngels

FreakAngels is one of the best sci-fi comics from the last decade. It is written by Warren Ellis and drawn by Paul Duffield. It is the story of 12 teenagers that are born with freakish powers, and how they literally change the world twice on their road to being grown-ups. First, they physically change the world that surrounds them and deal with growing in this changed reality and then they change it back to what it was, before vanishing and becoming adults, maybe. However, this second change is probably more impacting than the first. I won't say anything else, so that you may enjoy it without knowing any more about it. The story is now complete and you can read it in one go. To do that, either got to the webcomic or buy the six collected paperbacks.
Story: 5
Art: 4.8
Overall:4.9

Silver Surfer: Devolution

The Silver Surfer is a character created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in the sixties. In short, he is the herald of an almost all powerful entity that eats planets. A large part of the pathos for this character has to do with his internal fight between being caring and human and being aloft and distant. Silver Surfer: Devolution is the n^th turning of the wheel in this pathos, with a slight twist. In previous stories, The Surfer had been depowered, but had not stopped being The Surfer. In this story he goes back to being Norrin Radd and feels the consequences of being human in full blast mode. The idea is nice and Pak has a good history of written great super-heroes yarns. However, this time around, the writting does not quite live up to the idea. There are areas where the story feels rushed and there are other areas where you can actually "see the seams" of the whole thing. The final script needed a final polishing that it was not given. The art is not exactly my cup of tea, but those of you who enjoy Steve Segovia will enjoy it too.
Story: 2.5
Art: 2.5
Overall: 2.5

Superman: Return of Doomsday

No. Just no. This is a terrible book. If you have no idea of who doomsday is (he killed Superman long ago) and that the Superman you see today was killed and resurrected, you will read a book where a monster defeats and kidnaps super heroes almost haphazardly. If you know who doomsday is, you will read a book where a monster defeats and kidnaps the super heroes that carried the legacy while superman was dead. No idea why. Maybe I'll change my mind if I actually decide to pick up the follow up to this, which is not likely. DC should probably have held off from splitting this into two paperbacks and publish just the complete story. In the meantime don't waste your time. Go read something else. Even the art is uneven.
Story: 1
Art: 2.5
Overall: 1.75

XIII, Tome 20 : Le jour du Mayflower

XIII is a franco-belgian graphic novel series that was created and drawn by Van Hame and Vance. The first cycle of adventures follows a spy, XIII, who lost all memory of his identity and former life. In volume nineteen, after finding our who he might be, XIII defeats all his enemies and finally has the freedom of a regular life, still without his memory. In this volume a new cycle of adventures starts and it looks like this time around he will find out about his past. During the story that is told in this graphic novel XIII reconnects with older (possible) friends, and as it seems that he will finally figure out his memory, a new enemy emerges and by the end of the volume, his life is back to the status quo of most of the previous cycle. The book is competently written and the drawings are even better than Vance's. I look forward to reading the next volume.
Story: 3
Art: 4.8
Overall: 3.9

The Boys Volume 9: The Big Ride

This is volume 9 of the ongoing series The Boys. In this series we follow the adventures of a group of five individuals and a dog, The Boys, that have chemically enhanced abilities. They are a (rebel part of a) secret agency that follows the lives of super-heroes and do damage control of said heroes, mostly by destroying them when they misbehave. In a way it uses a plot device for story progression that is similar to that of The Nam, in the sense that the story unfolds around a new recruit to the organization, that slowly understands what he got himself into. It is a very refreshing look a super-heroes and how they could come about in real life. It is a very politically incorrect series, with sex, drugs, and violence jokes running rampant. I have thoroughly enjoyed all its previous paperbacks. However, for me, this is the paperback that brings the series to maturity. It is very well written, and drawn and we begin to see what lies underneath the leader of The Boys. We see how the (not so) new (anymore) team member comes to the realization of what he might have gotten himself into and how he tries to begin controlling the situation. This is the quietest of the paperbacks so far, and there are very nice scenes between the different characters. The ending is chilling and it is one of the best comics I have read this year. I was very sorry to see my favorite character die, but after reading the ending I understood that it was for a good cause... Recommended
Story: 5
Art: 4.5
Overall: 4.75