What I Bought 4/25/07

I've got the Hong-Kong Phooey theme song stuck in my head the last few hours. Weird, but not as annoying as a few years back, when there was two week span I kept catching myself singing the Smurfs song. You know, "fa la, la la la la, lah la lah lah lah" and all that? It was one of those rare occasions where smashing my head against a wall might have been a viable option. And now that I've severely creeped you out, let's take a look at the books! You should know, there may be spoilers lurking within any song lyrics spit out in this review.

Bloodrayne: Tibetan Heights #1 - For some reason, Rayne's ear on this cover really caught my attention. For a second I thought it was a wailing face. I think my brain is dying rapidly. This is a little story about Rayne and her teacher during her early years with the Brimstone Society. There's a few continuity issues I would quibble with, regarding the comic's timeline versus the games, but screw it, I like Mynce, so whatever.

Rayne's been brought along to help Mynce prevent the ascension of a vampire Dalai Lama, which Mynce feels would speel the destruction of her people and religion. Hee, vampire Dalai Lama, I really find that amusing. Rayne gets to play the rookie here, as someone who clearly hasn't been on enough missions to know that keeping quiet is very useful when trying to silently infiltrate someplace. In between considerable stints of vampire killing, there's quite a bit of talk about rebirth, the purpose of a person's existence, the balance between good and evil, and so forth. It was interesting reading, and it worked nicely with the end of the comic, which was kind of sweet. So yeah, I'm happy with it, though I can't figure why the art changed so much part way through. I think it was having two inkers working on the book, but I'm not certain. 4.0 out of 5.

Exiles #93 - Wait, Psylocke can use telekinesis to make herself invisible? Since when? And why doesn't she use it for something important, like opening my jar of apple butter so she can make Hawkman a sandwich? And I've veered off-topic two sentences into the review.

So, rather than kill Reed Richards like she was supposed to, Psylocke chooses to look at a video screen... and faint. Yowzer. Meanwhile Sabretooth's getting his ass handed to him by Slaymaster. Fortunately, Morph and Longshot (yeah, he was brainwashed into working for the Hand last issue - he got better. Why? Luck power, of course.) are there to help. Hey, you want to know the wildest thing about this issue? Elektra killed Iron Man. Yes, he was wearing the armor, and she still stabbed him to death. Crazy, I know. She's trying to save Reed's daughter, who he put in cryogenic suspension, but Sue had her, but never bothered to thaw her out, even though it didn't look very difficult to do. There a few too many things not adding up in this issue for me to give it a good grade, but I do still like the team, and I want to see how this turns out, so I'll be back next month. 2.0 out of 5.

New Excalibur #19 - Things are moving on a couple different fronts in this issue. Cain used some old criminal contacts (though I have no clue who the guy was), to set up a way for a member of the team to infiltrate Albion's plans, since he's apparently recruiting people, especially depowered mutants(?!)

Meanwhile the Evil X-Men (I will not call them Shadow-X, no way, no how) have gotten together with Albion to help free their mentor, Shadow King In Xavier Body. Fortunately, Albion and Lionheart aren't the trusting sort, though Lionheart had to handle this solo. And Evil Jean Grey apparently had unsavory plans for her too. Yikes. Should be big three-way fight scene next issue. Woo-hah, that's something to look forward to.

It was, on the whole a good issue, but I enjoy watching Lionheart kick ass, so I'm biased. Given Claremont's love of astral combat, I'm surprised he went the route he did with the story. Which is good, me being surprised. Of course, there were some things here that didn't seem to connect. How had Albion heard of the Shadow King? Maybe he has a bigger reputation throughout the Multiverse than I thought. 3.7 out of 5.

That's all for today. Auf wiedersehn.