No Hero #5

No Hero #5
Josh is in a pretty bad way but at least he does now have superpowers; mindbending nightmares and deformity are small things in exchange for superpowers right? The art style is growing on me, it certainly shows horror quite well. The Front Line becomes more and more sinster, excellent stuff.

Walking Dead #60

Walking Dead #60
Walking dead is one of the best ongoing series ongoing these days, written by Robert Kirkman (of 'Invincible' fame); it is a zombie movie that doesn't end. I'm avoiding spoilers here, but the group is currently travelling across the country and have encountered huge herd of undead. Characters become more and more bitter but this is a comparable lull in the series of horrific things that happen to the survivors. Pick up the previous trades for this series, they are reasonably priced and well worth it (I'll be writing a special review for all the trades to date at the start of next month).

Battle for the Cowl - Arkham Asylum

Battle for the Cowl - Arkham Asylum
A surprisingly good one shot under the Battle for the Cowl crossover, but nothing to do with it. Some original non violent inmates of Arkham and the descendant of Amadeus Arkham reclaim the burnt out shell of the Asylum. Pity it's only a one shot, hopefully we will see some of these interesting characters again.

Incognito #3

Incognito #3
An ex-super villain is in a witness protection program; stifled and drugged (to suppress his powers) his normal life is smothering him. He turns to fighting crime, under the radar so to speak, to relieve the tension. The art is impressive, the writing is splendid; there is nothing not to like in this title. This kind of reminds me of Fight Club for some reason. This issue chugs along nicely as we see some other super villains to compare and contrast.

Green Lantern Corps #35

Green Lantern Corps #35
All hell breaks loose from the cells in Oa and Daxam's lost son returns to his shitty home planet. The art remains great, with the world sized snake Sinstro Lantern is my favourite image. This issue is less about the plot and more about the light based slugfests, which is no harm. If this is a taste of the war a light to come the Corps are not as prepared as they think.

Timestorm 2009-2099 #1

Timestorm 2009-2099 #1
A psycho from the future, Spider-Man thrust into a dark future with re-imagined heroes; it’s all a bit bland. It has a feel of the later episodes of the animated Spider-Man and of Batman Beyond; except all quite average. It’s all about spotting where Marvel superheroes made their mark on the future (cap selling addictive softdrinks). I wouldn’t suggest this unless you want something not too taxing on the brain.

House of Mystery #12

House of Mystery #12
Holy shit things are going well with House of Mystery, some great answers that just lead to more questions (defiantly pick up the first and second volumes, if you can). The book remains original, esoteric and dark; without becoming confusing. The little one off story is excellent and the main plot moves quite a bit.

Secret Six #8

Secret Six #8
This month a fun little departure from the usual with date night, where Deadshot and co attempt not to kill anyone for one night. Also in the issue, a look into ragdoll’s childlike brain. This book continues to be the amusing bad guys as anti-heroes DC title. Nothing to brain melting, just entertaining.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Season 8 - Volume 2

Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Season 8 - Volume 2

Well Buffy, before I start a word about the show. It had great dialogue and some really memorable characters; but until the later series’ I don’t think it got into its own. It was good but I preferred Josh Wheedon’s other work the darker Angel or the western in space fun of Firefly. But still Buffy was the breeding ground of good unexpected characters (Spike is a great example). The comic books by Dark Horse are pitched as the 8th season of the finished show, the first book penned by Josh Whedon. This second book of the “season” is written by Brian K. Vaughan, best known for Y the Last Man.

The story mostly concerns the other slayer Faith (a far more interesting character). Faith is the bad girl of the Buffyverse, originally a pawn of a major villain and then just off the rails. Faith is given a way out of the whole slayer thing by Giles, now pretty much in charge of the Watchers. She has to kill a slayer who’s made the same mistakes she’s made and is skating on the edge of pure evil. All the while there is recurrent and sinister group or individual manipulating events; represented by the symbol of a red setting sun and star in the sky.

Vaughan has got the tone of the show just right and kept intact the sense of humour and characters that had built up over the seasons. The plot is better than your usual Buffy season. The art is just slightly off, constrained by the fact that the artist has to base his models on actors. I did not read this in single issues but after reading this I’ll be picking up the rest and probably following Season 8.

The Destroyer #1

The Destroyer #1

Robert Kirkman writes a five issue mini series for Marvel MAX (the more adult stuff), where an old superhero decides to close up and clean up shop. The first thing you notice is the splashy use of gore and the second thing is Kirkman's dialogue (if you read Brit or Invincible you'll know what to expect). The mini series has a good premise to start with, but the only thing that bugged me while reading was the design of Destroyer’s costume (he kind of looks like a skrull).

The Flash: Rebirth #1

The Flash: Rebirth #1 (of 5)
So Barry Allen back after his death in 1985's Crisis on Infinite Earths and penned by Geoff Johns. First issue means an explanation of who the current Flash people are and where Barry has been. The art is attractive and a lot of information is imparted in this one issue. A good start, but remains to be seen if a good Flash plot can be carried through to completion.

Battle For The Cowl: Man-Bat

Battle For The Cowl: Man-Bat
Kirk Langstrom must control his Man-Bat / Jekyll and Hyde urges. Seems like an excuse to have two Batman villains face off, the plot is a bit poo. The dialogue is decidedly average; also there is an equally average preview of the new Powergirl run.

Commissioner Gordon: Battle for the Cowl

Commissioner Gordon: Battle for the Cowl
Gordon and some of the GCPD deal with riots because there’s no batman to sort things out. The art is quite nice and Gordon versus Mr Freeze has Freeze using his freeze ray solve all his problems (as usual). Bit on the average side here, Freeze is a bit too super for a good GCPD book.

New Avengers #51

New Avengers #51

Well Dr. Strange is having a bit of a magical mentor moment setting up supernatural things to come. Great dialogue as the issue of Spiderman’s identity and the new avengers is resolved and more than one plot is set up. I'm really quite enjoying this and becoming fond of Bendis's writing, I loved the Jessica Jones and Spiderman conversation.

RPG Review: All Flesh Must Be Eaten (Revised Edition)

All Flesh Must Be Eaten
The Zombie Suvival Roleplaying Game - Revised Edition

All Flesh Must Be Eaten (AFMBE) is a Zombie Survival Roleplaying Game. It has a great range of options for bother zombie creation and characters. The system is simple but can be made more complicated for those who want more combat related stuff.

Characters are built with points based on what they are; Norm, Survivor and Inspired. Norms are your bog standard person of the street, Survivor’s are tougher with more points and the inspired a like norms but have some points to spend on mystic stuff. I don’t think you really need the Inspired for your good old fashioned Dawn of the Dead style game, but they give you options for some supernatural stuff. Dice rolling is taken down to one mechanic roll a d10 add your skill to the roll if your get a 9 or above you succeed. Modifiers are added to show difficultly and penalties are added when taking more than one action. So if you’re dodging more than 4 zombies and fighting you're brainmeat.

Building your zombie is the most fun section for GMs. What does it eat, how fast and how does it move, where do little zombies come from and how smart are they. Most importantly you can choose your zombie’s weak spot (if it has one); I personally have to go with the classic headshot. At the end of the process it’s gauged how dangerous your zombie is to players.

Deadworlds are the sample campaign settings given to you in 4 or so pages. They give you what happened to cause the dead to rise and your sample zombie for that setting. Detailed is to what extent humans have dealt with things and a nice bit of fiction to give a flavour for that setting.

There is also at the back a conversion guide and rules for the game in D20 modern. Nice that it is added but unnecessary. The layout is clear and easy to read. The art translates well as black, white and shapes of gray. The book itself is a nice hard back slight smaller than most RPG books and a bit lighter (a big plus).

On the whole All Flesh Must Be Eaten is a solid survival zombie game. It could do with more ideas for defences and the like for players (but I hear the player’s handbook is more or less that). With just this and the suggested reading of the Zombie Survival Guide a good campaign of a Zombie Apocalypse could be run quite successfully.