The Behind Pile 11/20 Edition

I know its occurrence that’s not limited to me, but thereare times when I buy comics and I don’t read them. I think it’s the collector mentalityor something; hell I’m not going to explain it. What I will say is that I’mbehind on reading and after getting moved, married and settled I’ve finally satdown read books that I bought years ago and never read. Here’s the first batchdone in much the same way as The New 52 reviews. Mostly because I enjoy thatformat for reviews so shut up and read it already.

Locke & Key: HeadGames #2

Fuck I wish I had bought the rest of this series! SeriouslyI love this book and this series and I’m way behind which sucks since I wasreading about it before it blew up. I remember picking up the first issue to “Welcometo Lovecraft” and my comic shop guy was like, “I don’t think that book is goingto be very good.” At that point I knew his opinion could not be trustedespecially when he doubled his order size for the second issue and raved aboutit. At any rate the second issue is better that the first which I re-read inorder to read this issue. If you haven’t read this series then buy the tradesor pick it up digitally, which is likely what I’ll do while I track down thesingle issues.

Crawl To Me #1

Wow! I was really impressed by this issue. It wasinteresting and captivated me instantly. Also Alan Robert is very talented! Hisart style reminds me of Ben Templesmith’s, but his storytelling is verydifferent. I really like this book and thankfully just got a review copy of theentire series (before the fourth issue mind you) so you’ll definitely see awrite up for the trade. If you can find the back issues though you should pickit up.

G.I. Joe #1

By now you should have a good idea of how long my pile hasbeen sitting around since this series is in the thirties already. This book waspretty good, the art was decent and I liked the way they eased you into theworld. I didn’t care for all of the movies influence into the series, but heywhat can you do. Also, it’s Chuck Dixon. I could take beef with him but thereare worse formula writers out there. If you like the Joe’s and can tolerateDixon then this book is worth reading but not struggling to track down. If Ididn’t own it already I wouldn’t go out of my way to get a copy.

Green Hornet # 16

Is this book still going on? I hope so since it’s the bestthing that Dynamite is putting out. Hester has great ideas for this series andI really enjoy the deep character moments that he adds to the book. I fear thatif the book is still an ongoing that the art has taken a dip in favor of Bionic Man, but I will be tracking downthe next issues to get caught up on the book. Green Hornet is one of my favorite pulp heroes and it’s strangethat Dynamite would excel with this title. Of course pulp enthusiast wouldprobably disagree, but I dig this book.

Green Hornet Strikes#8

As much as I like the regular Green Hornet, Strikes is so much better! It reminds me of Phantom 2099, in that the legacy of thecharacter is still there, but it’s in the future and this new Hornet must findhis own way with the old ways. Unfortunately it’s been heavily delayed and Ihonestly don’t know if it’s an ongoing or a mini, but again another one I’mgoing to track down. This issue saw the end of the first story arc which wrapsup the events started in the first issue.

Last Phantom #7

Speaking of the Phantom,this book was full of potential… wasted potential. The best part of this bookis the flashback to a pulpy comic look. It was the only part of the story thatdidn’t suck and frankly I think I already read ahead in this book. I’mpersonally done with this series and can’t wait until Dynamite gives up on thetitle so some else can take a chance on it and do it right. Such wastedpotential that it’s just sad to see. Also the art was pretty meh with theexception of the flashback.

The Boys # 41

I’m just going to say, there is no possible way for The Boys to end that is going to be gratifyingto long time readers. Everyone seems to think that Butcher has some hugeendgame planned, but he doesn’t. Nor does Garth Ennis. I enjoyed this issue andI really need to get caught up on the series, but I could tell that 41 issuesin that this book is going to end one day and not how anyone hopes. It’s a shockbook that I’m sure Ennis thought would get cancelled and he’d be done with, butit turned out to be so much more than that. That’s it.

Golly #3

One of Phil Hester’s more underappreciated books, Golly is the story of a Carnie that mustcarry out Gods work. I’m paraphrasing a lot there. This issue has Golly and theother Carnies trying to spray Brother Dare with holy water while in hiswere-hog form, which ends with Golly pissing on him. I can only guess why thisbook wasn’t well received, but I think it was just ahead of its time. If thisbook came out today I wonder how well it would do. I know that the hardcovercame out not too long ago and if you’re in the mood for something differentthen pick it up.

This was Top Cow's booth at Comikaze, $1 back issues and old trades... sad really

Impaler Vol 2. #1

I couldn’t finish reading this book. It was terrible. I knowit was a finalist in some horror awards (says so on the cover), but it musthave been a slow year or something for horror. The writing and storytelling wasso bad and so uninteresting that I started to pay more attention to Whitney which was playing in thebackground. I don’t know why this book got so much press, but it was all hype.Terrible book and I’m sorry that I bought it and sat on it for so long. Atleast I didn’t buy the second issue. Also this book is another example why Top Cowis shutting its doors (not confirmed, but it has to be coming).

Savage #1

I really liked this book! I think a lot of people wrote itoff when it came out, but this book was good. The first issue was veryintriguing and really left me with a lot of questions, but in a good way. Itexplained just enough so that I wasn’t confused and wanted to read more.Thankfully I bought all but the last issue, so I’ll be track that down in orderto finish reading the series. What I’m really excited about is that this is abook from Niles in his prime so it should hopefully get really good!

Well there you have it, my first “Behind Pile” batch ofreviews. I’m looking at about four or five piles of books to read still so don’tfret they’ll be more… as soon as I have the time to read them.