I ordered the fancy cover from the webshop and got the other one, which was disappointing but not enough to do more than make a passive-aggressive comment here about it.
Same here. A little disappointing so I fired of an e-mail from my order receipt which of course bounced back a couple of days later (???) as its a 'No reply' e-mail. By which time I'd realised it was worth the fuss and didn''t feel fair to demand a replacement and so moved quickly on.
ANYWAY to the comic itself. I've heard some complaining about the price but JEZ at £7.99 this is a beast. It just keeps coming and coming and coming. With all the little text feature, many very good, it really did feel like an annual of old. At least in content. And while the anything with this much content is going to be a bit variable overall its a blast.
Lets get the bad out the way. Wasn't a big fan of the 'funny' strips. Feel out of context. Mind I'll come back to that. Also thought '
Lofty' was pretty weak. It lurched rather than rattled along.
The middle ground was owned by an okay resurrection of
El Mestizo and a
Snipper Elite story that looked great but really didn't do that much.
Before we get to the really good there's a great reprint in
Vultures which was superb old school stuff. Doiuble Hero with lovely Ian Kennedy art and a good true yarn and Scourge of the Skies a similar short history piece with lush Patrick Goddard art.
The rest is pretty damned good.
Bravo, Black Lion is solid and hard hitting.
Rat Pack is cheekly fun as is
Gustav of the Bearmacht , these two making nice thematic book ends.
The abolute highlights for me
Face of the Enemy a great little reflection on story and children's enduring engagement with lovely art by someone I'm not familar with Davide Fabbri.
War Child which made a good point well with lush atmospheric art to make it swell in dramatic intent. Finally
Destroyer which even putting aside PJ Holden's great art it manages in just a few pages to catch much of the power and impact of his glorious GN (with Garth Ennis) Stringbags. Its superb.
The thing that really strikes me is the tone of this really swings around. From the obviously comic. To the old school action yarns. To the more modern, apparently 'woke', I'd go thoughtful insightful pieces. Yet even for that it holds together and feels cohesive. Great stuff overall.
