Category: Written Reviews

COMIC REVIEW – Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #2 (Marvel)

Our second Marvel issue of Mighty Morphin contains another two stories of the mighty Marvel fare.

The first story, Playing Dirty, has the Ranger teens helping out at a car wash before Zedd decides to turn a car (occupied by Bulk & Skull… naturally) into a monster. This story reads more like an abridged episode than anything; set up the plot of the day, follow up with the pre-requisite Tenga battle (which feature the Rangers morphing to their usual fare instead of the Ninja suits… I guess we can’t mix and match suits in these two comics), introduce the monster for the Rangers to fight and introduce the Zord battle, which is actually quite unique in the way it disposes of the car monster.

The second story, notable for being illustrated by the legendary Steve Dikto, has Aisha and Kimberly looking after kids while Bulk & Skull attempt to be upstanding citizens or something… aren’t they supposed to be cops at this point? Anyway, Rito Revolto shows up and threatens the kids, but our two teens can’t morph in front of kids. It’s a fairly basic story with some surprisingly mediocre artwork. The humans look bad and the monsters are drawn in a somewhat cartoonish fashion. Not one of Dikto’s better works, but the story itself isn’t too bad, as it’s more of a Bulk & Skull sidestory than anything involving the Rangers.

COMIC REVIEW – Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #1 (Marvel)

Marvel Comics took over the license of producing MMPR comics, beginning with an adaptation of the first MMPR motion picture and following up with not one, but two short-lived comic series. For this run, we’ll be focusing on the main MMPR comic and get to the Ninja Ranger stuff later down the line.

Each issue has two stories and unlike the Hamilton comics which tried to keep the formula of the show intact, the Marvel kinda sorta does its own thing. The first story has the Rangers at a computer club where they marvel over the Internet, inspiring Zedd to create a virus-based monster, while the second story has the Rangers dealing with a copycat monster of sorts. For what they are, they’re perfectly adequate and quick little reads; something that would work as part of a digest edition or something like that. The characterization could use a little work; other than little sparks from Billy spewing technobabble, all these Rangers could be interchangeable.

The low point of these comics was the art, which is basically that rough-looking style with square faces and thin eyes that was the style in the mid-90s. The first story isn’t all too bad and is the typical Marvel 90s style that dominates most of the stories in this run, but the second story is where the art takes a nosedive, with characters not resembling who they’re supposed to be (Rocky is blonde here, whereas on the show, he wasn’t) or the action bits just being a confounding mess of visuals. Never been a huge fan of the art for this Marvel run and it doesn’t get any better from here.

COMIC REVIEW – The Malibu Street Fighter Comics

Nowaways, Street Fighter is one of Capcom’s prized franchises and it’s nice to see it get a nice revival (along with the 2D fighting game in general) in recent days. With a whole bunch of games and tons of material, it’s perhaps fitting that the series got a nice little mythology and continuity behind it… something for people to get behind whenever they want to make supplemental material.

Which is a good thing… because tripe like today’s subject matter should never be conceived ever again. And no, I’m not referring to whatever Spider-turd Joe Quesada has tossed out recently…

Continue reading “COMIC REVIEW – The Malibu Street Fighter Comics”

COMIC REVIEW – Animal Man: Flesh And Blood (1992)

My brother dug through some old comics and came across several issues of the old Animal Man series. For those unfamiliar, I’ll use a passage from some guy’s review of an Animal Man TPB:

Buddy Baker is a man who can absorb powers from nearby animals temporarily – for example, in rescuing a cat from a tree at the start of the first chapter, he falls off a branch, absorbs the cat’s agility, and twists like a feline to land on his feet. Living with his wife (Ellen) and kids (Cliff and Maxine), Buddy feels that something is missing from his life – he needs to become…Animal Man once again.

Sounds like intriguing stuff, right? Well, back to my story, my brother pulls out a bunch of Animal Man issues (#51-56 I believe) that collectively form a story-arc called Flesh and Blood. Without spoiling much, the story depicts Buddy Baker/Animal Man attempting to come back to life after basically being run over by a truck.

At first, I thought the death itself was okay, but looking back on it, it seems rather unremarkable. Perhaps that’s the intent of it all; that this superhero that isn’t widely known gets offed by being run over by roadkill. But while the death scene seems more like an afterthought, it’s the resurrection process that is the main focus of the latter chapters, as Buddy takes on the life essences of various animals from a bat to lice until eventually retaining human form. This is one of those few comic book stories that actually got me hooked until the end.

If you’re into this kind of stuff, fetch this set of Animal Man issues. I’m not sure if there’s a collected edition of this story, but there should be. It’s good stuff.

COMIC REVIEW – Spider-Man: Grim Hunt (Marvel)

So the four-part Amazing Spider-Man event story, Grim Hunt (issues 634-637), has recently come to a close and the only way I can sum up this whole saga is… Meh. It has its moments, but ultimately Grim Hunt isn’t a satisfying story nor is it a depressing story. It’s just there, adding to a status quo that keeps changing every couple months.

Want more? Read on, but there be spoilers here.

Continue reading “COMIC REVIEW – Spider-Man: Grim Hunt (Marvel)”

GameFAQs Review – Legend Of Kunoichi (PSP)

I’ll be honest here; I had no preconceptions or expectations going into Legend of Kunoichi when I had downloaded it. It’s a fairly inexpensive piece of software – being that it’s part of the PSP Mini line of cheap downloadable titles – and I figured, “Hey, cheap software that I can afford. This can’t be all that bad, can it?”

And for what it is, it’s not all that bad. It’s just not enough.

Legend of Kunoichi is essentially Whack-A-Mole with ninjas. The main goal is to toss hammers at ninjas while allowing your Shogun leader to escape their menacing wrath, which apparently involves popping out of the floor. You do this by pressing the button that corresponds with the hole that the ninja is popping out of and must do this until ninjas catch up with your Shogun or until your Shogun escapes. You’ll have to be quick to whack those moles… er, I mean ninjas before they escape and you have to be cautious as to not whack the pink ninjas wearing wooden helmets, as they’ll deflect the hammers back at you and stun you momentarily. You have two difficulty settings (NORMAL and HARD) and your score appears on a Rankings chart (nothing that goes online, I’m afraid).

And that’s all there is to it. Really, that’s the whole game. No extra modes, no real substance of any kind to be found anywhere in the game, and while there is a difficulty setting per se, Legend of Kunoichi is not all that difficult once you get the hang of it. It’s just Whack-A-Mole… except with Ninjas and not much else. Just goes to show that ninjas can’t make everything awesome… and that is shameful.

The overall presentation is not even worth mentioning; the graphics are somewhat of a step-up from what you find on a Playstation-One, but still look pretty weak and generic. You have an optional retro-screen which adds scanlines, but that doesn’t make the game any more retro; it just looks slightly darker and if I wanted darker, I use the backlight function on the PSP to lower the lighting. The sound is also pretty generic and repetitive. Nothing special.

For $2.99 plus tax, you’re certainly getting a quick game in Legend of Kunoichi. Unfortunately, that’s about all you’re getting in Legend of Kunoichi. This is a purchase that should only be made if you have some spare change laying around and don’t mind blowing it on a quick time-waster. Don’t get me wrong; Legend of Kunoichi does the job well and it’s certainly good for a quick game or two. But given that there are many other viable options for the PSP out there even in the Mini line, this game won’t see much play all that often. Unless you can spare the change, don’t bother with this one.

BREAKDOWN
Graphics: 4/10 (barely above PS1 levels, rather bland looking)
Sound: 4/10 (overall generic and repetitive, nothing special)
Gameplay: 4/10 (controls work fine, but gameplay is slow and chunky)
Challenge: 3/10 (offers two levels of difficulty, but it’s honestly not all that difficult)
Replay Value: 2/10 (extremely barebones even for a PSP Mini Release)

OVERALL: 4/10

COMIC REVIEW – Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Saga (Hamilton Comics 3-issue miniseries)

Hamilton Comics’ final Power Rangers foray before losing the license to Marvel Comics was a three-issue retelling of the Power Rangers story in a somewhat abridged format. And in a pleasant change of direction, this is the only series in the Hamilton Comics period that sticks with the same art team. And it’s probably the best artwork that this run has seen; managing some approximations of the main characters while also re-interpreting the classic monsters to stuff that… don’t anything like the source material. Hell, Rita is still in purple rather than her usual brown rags, but whatever. They saved their best artists for this final hurrah and I couldn’t be happier… even if it meant the other book had to suffer as a result.

It’s funny that out of all the Hamilton stuff that I’ve read thus far, their best story is an abridged retelling of what happened on the TV show, right up to the White Ranger being introduced. While it’s not a point-for-point adaptation – the story as well as the artists take liberties with the material – it does boil down the major plot threads; the forming of the team, the introduction of Green, the introduction of Zedd, Green’s final battle and transition to White. This is basically an elongated version of the two-page quickie origin story that they’d use to have back in the old days where they just show the major points and move on. That’s what this was and it works for the time allotted.

Saga ended after three issues, but was intended to be a full six-issue miniseries. According to Don Markstein, the idea was to introduce his own plot to the framing story involving Jim, the business owner whose warehouse is constantly under attack. This would lead to him starting a campaign to defame the Rangers;  a campaign that would’ve gained traction as time went on. It’s actually a very intriguing plot point for a story. It’s too bad it never got that far.

Who knows how the story would’ve played out if the series had been allowed to continue its run unabated? Regardless, what you have here in Saga is a solid abridged recapping of the first two and a half seasons of MMPR that’s pretty accurate to the source.

A fine note to end the Hamilton era on.

COMIC REVIEW – Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #4 (Hamilton Comics – Vol. 2)

The final issue of Hamilton Comics’ second miniseries ends on a bit of a whimper, with two underwhelming stories.

The first, “The Lost Ranger”, features Rocky getting amnesia and forgetting that he’s a Ranger… it’s the classic trope of someone forgetting who they are and relearning it before story’s end… but because the story is short, the way Rocky gets back his memory is underwhelmingly goofy; he trips. Oops. Lame.

The final story, “Footloose”, has the Rangers fighting off a bunch of sentient Putty boots… it is perhaps the single most stupidest thing I’ve read in this Hamilton run and it’s probably very fitting that they saved the dumbest idea for last. Not exactly an inspired end to this run.

Both stories are drawn by Gray Morrow, yet both have drastically different styles. The first being a more traditional comic book style that looks pretty good and the second boasts the semi-realistic, detailed look that feels off. Also of note, the Rangers lack the chest logos here, which is more in-line with the actual show, but that sort of design choice has been a thing for most of the stock illustrations.

And so ends Hamilton Comics’ contribution to Power Rangers… well, there’s still the MMPR Saga miniseries, but since that’s mostly a recap of the show, we won’t count that. For now, Hamilton was done concocting new adventures and that honor would go to Marvel.

COMIC REVIEW – Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #3 (Hamilton Comics – Vol. 2)

And we’re back to the two story format for the last couple issues… oh well, it was fun while it lasted, I suppose. On the bright side, however, both stories are illustrated by Sparky Moore and it’s probably his best work in these books if I’ve been completely honest. If only he had been available for the final issue, but that’s another story.

Anyway, the first story is called “Bad Attitudes”, where Baboo concocts a ‘tude tick that bites all the teens and gives them bad attitudes, causing them to bully people, kick stuff, and not care about monster attacks… all while in their suits. We learn a few things in this story; apparently, the suits are machine washable and the citizens of Angel Grove apparently have really short-term memories to forget something as vital as the Rangers roaming around without their helmets and stuff, acting like total fucking delinquents. When you can set aside the glaring questions that this thing raises, it’s a silly little story that has a bit fun for a bit. I didn’t mind this one. This was fine.

The other end of this book gives us “Gray Skies.” An interesting concept that sees Lord Zedd unleashing a swarm of mini flying elephants to terrorize the city… and the Rangers counter by sending bats from a cave after them. I like this story because it’s thinking outside the box. Rather than fisticuffs leading to the eventual Zord fight, there’s an inventive and believable solution to this whole ordeal. Most of all, it’s something that probably wouldn’t have been possibly on TV without making it look really cheap, so kudos on producing a comic story that works best as a comic story.

Hey, if the run ended here, it’d be a hell of a way to end it on… alas, there is only one more issue left.