Yearly Archives: 2012

Martian Manhunter vs Stormwatch

Martian Manhunter vs Stormwatch

By: Andrew Hines

In the year since Stormwatch became a part of the DCnU, We've been waiting to see just how much J'onn J'onnz has changed. It looks like we get our answer in this issue. Now throwing the often underrated Martian Manhunter into Stormwatch, he may have a better home than he ever did in the Justice League. We probably won't get too into the other characters since this one pretty much focuses on the green guy with a fear of flames. As comic characters go, Martian Manhunter was always underutilized. For a guy with all of the powers of superman and a much more commonplace weakness, writers could have done a lot more with him. A good and moral character with more powers than Superman in the 70s and he's essentially sidelined most of his career. That changes in issue 12.

Peter Milligan is a writer I don't know too well, which is why this title is all the more impressive. He's been writing it since issue 9, the third writer to take the reigns of this book. I like the dialogue and pacing, which is hard to do on a team book. He could have gone many different ways with this type of arc, but this feels like it's the only way it really could have worked. J'onn seems more aggressive here than he ever has before, which is a nice change. He was always known as the soul of the Justice League, though now he seems to be the embodiment of the group's last vestige of hope in humanity's potential. This was a well-written issue and I wish Milligan luck on the next few.

Will Conrad and Julio Ferreira split artistic duties on this issue, which seems to work out well. I actually preferred the first artist, Miguel Sepulveda, who illustrated the first six issues, but Conrad and Ferreira are pretty good in their own right. Guy Major does a great job as the colorist in this issue, giving us some awesome effects on  the printed page.

I give this an A-, due partly to the excessive inks on this page and partly because it just feels too much like a filler issue. We also get some great action scenes and a flashback of Midnighter's chin spike coming in handy. (You'll se what I did there after you read the issue.) I still recommend this to anyone who ever liked Martian Manhunter or was a fan of Stormwatch before the fall of WildStorm.

I don't FEEL like a Mongol …

(From "Prize Comics" number 1, 1942.)

Open Critique Day #44

My full-time (non-HeroMachine) job might keep me from actually getting to these before this evening, but it's time for another Open Critique Day!

If you have a HeroMachine illustration or another piece of artwork you've done that you'd like some help with, post a link to it in comments along with your thoughts on it -- what you think is working, what you're struggling with, etc. I will post my critique of the piece, hopefully giving some tips on how to improve it.

Of course everyone is welcome to post their critiques as well, keeping in mind the following guidelines:

  • Make sure your criticism is constructive. Just saying "This sucks" is both rude and unhelpful without giving specific reasons why you think it sucks and, ideally, some advice on how to make it better.
  • Each person should only post one illustration for critique to make sure everyone who wants feedback has a chance.
  • I will not critique characters entered in any currently running contest, as that doesn't seem fair to the other entrants. You can still post it if you like for the other visitors to critique, but I will not do so.

That's it! Hopefully we can get some good interaction going here and help everyone (me included!) learn a little bit today.

Grundy Cometh….

Grundy Cometh...

By: Andrew Hines

Many people of this generation are unaware of the Justice Society or JSA. This title has been  a good way of bringing their legacy back to life. The fourth installment of Earth 2 introduces a fourth member of the future Justice Society. We see new faces and get a bit of tease on possible backstory for several of the characters. The character intros have been pretty good up to this point and issue four is no exception. There are bumps in the road with every story and several issues of discontinuity between characters from the old DCU and the new, they do make for interesting character development. This series (and really, the DCnU in general,) shows that superhero costumes can be both stylish and functional. The last real tick in the "W" column is that Rob Liefeld hasn't gotten his meat skinners onto the Earth 2 characters just yet.

James Robinson has done a good job so far with Earth 2. He has given new depth and realism to characters who haven't had a whole lot of that in recent years. Basically starting from scratch, since several of the Justice Society are now in the main DCnU, such as Powergirl and Mister Terrific, he's been making it his own. There's not much you can ask a writer to do beyond that. This is essentially a hard reboot of the entirety of Earth 2 mythology in the DCU, but with bits that link it to the current Animal Man and Swamp Thing story lines. He has left the past behind and created something new and intriguing, which I find to be better than something old being resurrected. I mean, look how Jason Todd turned out when he came back. ....Exactly! 

The art by Nicola Scott and Eduardo Pansica is pretty good. Even the look They've given to Jay's suit and Kendra's new Hawkgirl uniform. This version of Grundy works pretty well and provides a sort of visual reference to the Blackest Night event. Again, there is a full team to back them up. The inking team consists of Trevor Scott and Sean Parsons, who've done a great job on this issue. The colorists are Alex Sinclair and Tony Avina who have done a good job on this one as well. The first page and last are the best examples of how good this artistic team really is.

This one deserves an A- based on the few bits where dialogue is slightly lacking or pacing is a little off. Good job overall. I highly recommend it.

 

Wherein we all die, every week


I'm not feeling our last Choose Your Own Adventure outing, I don't know why. Maybe after the glory of a stuffed bunny zombie apocalypse and a cool super-hero outing, I just need a break. So that's what we're going to do!

I've long wanted to do something writing-related here, and now we will. I'll write up the start of an adventure. You write what happens next. I'll pick the one I like best, and next week we'll repeat -- I'll post my beginning, the next installment, and we'll go again.

We've done something sort of similar before, but it petered out. My theory is that it was partly because of a voting component, so now I'm going all Kim Jong-il and just running the show. Ha!

So here goes (taken from College Humor, but we'll end up in a place totally different, I'm sure):

It’s another boring day at your stupid office. You spent most of the morning catching up on all the Internet you missed while sleeping and now you’re behind. Your stomach is growling because the banana you bought had a weird brown lump on it. You know you should get back to work, but you also know that you’re hungry and don’t care about your job at all.
What do you do?

  • SEARCH FOR FOOD in the drawer that you haven’t used since you started here 2 years ago.
  • CHECK EMAIL to see if your boss sent any super-long emails you can read to pass the time.

Your job now is to write up the results of both of those actions in the comments below, one of which results in our death and the other which continues the adventure and presents us with two choices for going on. For instance, the College Humor folks have this as the result of "Search for food", which would be the "continue" installment:

You open the mysterious drawer and are greeted with a cornucopia of disappointment!
What do you eat?

  • A BUNCH OF THUMBTACKS that definitely aren’t food and shouldn’t be treated as such.
  • ADDERALL PILLS that you bought off a high school kid who said his name was “Wolfgod.”

And this might be the deadly result of the other choice:

You pop open Outlook and sure enough, Dear Leader has sent out a company-wide message. "FORWARD THIS OR RISK DEATH!" it's headlined, and recounts a storied history of people who sent it along to their friends and families to find prosperity, and those who didn't who are now dead. Hogwash! Wasting time is great, but chain letters are a tool of Satan. You sneeringly hit "Delete", upon which a short circuit in the keyboard fries your white-collared head to a cinder. Your office adventure is over."

Next week I'll go through all the comments and pick two -- one I like best that continues the adventure and one that results in our untimely death. You can go for humorous, serious, or nonsensical. You can introduce vampires or super heroes or aliens or your mom. Knock yourself out, but keep them clean (PG-13 at most).

To recap, your job now is to write up the results of both choices in the opening paragraph above, one of which ends in death and the other of which continues the adventure by offering up two more choices.

Have fun!

Mickey, the college years

The Drawing Contest For People Who Can't Draw


Hi everyone. My name is Ian Thomas Healy and I drop in here from time to time to enter contests. I'm a writer of superhero fiction, and I have a new novel coming out on September 1 of this year, called THE ARCHMAGE. It's a sequel to my novel JUST CAUSE, which you may have heard of or possibly even read. Anyway, to celebrate the upcoming release, I'm hosting a character contest here on HeroMachine.

What I want is for you to make me a character from any of the Just Cause Universe stories or the novel JUST CAUSE itself. Right now, there are three ebook short stories online, and two of them (GRACEFUL BLUR and THE SCENT OF ROSE PETALS) are free, so you don't even have to spend any of your hard-earned money to enter. The third short story (THE STEEL SOLDIER'S GAMBIT) is only 0.99 USD, and the ebook version of JUST CAUSE is $2.99, so if you decide to pick characters from either of those tales, you aren't risking much money, and I promise you're getting a lot of bang for your buck. The normal HeroMachine character contest rules apply:

Continue reading

Oh, my …

(From "4 Most" number 1, 1942.)

Worf vs. Chewbacca

Our Versus this week features two prominent back-up characters from two of the starriest of science fiction franchises:

On one hand, this is about the race of Klingons vs. the race of Wookies. Both cultures revere strong warriors, but Klingons have (I think) been more overtly warlike. Wookies are stronger and bigger, but Klingons aren't exactly slouches.

On the other hand, this is about this specific Klingon and this specific Wookie. And let's be honest, Worf hasn't exactly covered himself in glory when push comes to shove. We haven't seen Chewbacca do much in combat (at least in the movies) besides fire his crossbow and yell a lot, so it's hard to say what his real track record is. Still, I tend to side with whoever is fighting Worf, since his main role appears to be "He Who Gets Crushed By The Villain Du Jour". At least Chewie's resume is relatively clear of getting his hat handed to him.

You also have to factor in the relative tech levels of their universes. I'd say on the level of the individual, the two seem roughly equivalent. So that's sort of a wash.

I'm going to go with Chewie on this one, but I'm curious as to who you'd pick and why. Sound off in the comments!

[polldaddy poll="6429804"]

Worst. Plan. Ever.