Snake-Eyes #8 – Review

By: Chuck Dixon (writer), Casey Maloney (pencils), Juan Castro & Chris Dreier (inks), Simon Gough & Romulo Fajardo, Jr. (colors), Neil Uyetake (letters) & Carlos Guzman & John Barber (editors)

The Story: Snake-Eyes and Duke try to find a cure for a Cobra engineered bioweapon.

Four Things:

1. Generally been enjoying GI Joe comics recently. – I don’t know how this happened.  I read some of the old Marvel GI Joe series when I was a kid and had enjoyed the GI Joe/Cobra series from IDW featuring Chuckles as a spy within Cobra.  But, something clicked in me that I needed to read this Cobra Civil War series a few weeks ago and via the beauty of digital comics I was able to mainline the whole story in a week or so.  And, it’s a really good and strong story.  There’s one big caveat with the books that I’ll get into below, but the storyline behind the GI Joe books is pretty hot.

2. Snake Eyes busting the place up. – This story is pretty basic: Cobra has released a bioweapon and Duke has also been infected.  So, Snake Eyes and Duke go charging into the Cobra lab facility to find the cure.  Duke has some kind of armored hazmat suit that’s kinda cool.  And they fight all kinds of Cobra troops with Snake Eyes being all bad ass, and that’ definitely cool.  There really isn’t a whole lot of subtlety to a comic like this and there are plot holes galore (what happens to the Vipers if they shoot Duke’s suit and the virus spills out?), but it is exciting to read.  Duke is in really bad shape and IDW has demonstrated that they’re not afraid of death.  A LOT of GI Joe’s have been killed recently and a few “named” Cobra guys too.  So, this issue isn’t something you can read thinking, “Oh sure…..Duke will be fine in the end because it can’t end any other way.”  That threat of DEATH adds some weight to these scenes of Snake Eyes fighting all these Hasbro-toy-line inspired Cobra bad guys.

The Sisterhood #1 – Review

By: Christopher Golden & Tom Sniegosky (writer), Wellington Alves (illustrator) & Andrew Dalhouse (colors)

I bought this comic hoping that I would get a decent rip-off of Top Cow’s Magdalena and I wasn’t disappointed with that in mind. The story is about a group of specially trained nuns from the Order of the Holy Sepulcher whom perform exorcisms. The twist to this is that these nuns don’t kill the demons they exorcise – but instead absorb the demons, thus becoming part of their souls, imprisoning them, if you will.

The kicker here is if one of the nuns is killed or die an unnatural death, the demons get released again to the world. If one dies a peaceful natural death, the demons die as well. These nuns have a limited amount of demons they can hold, and when they’re “filled to capacity” they’re forced to retire to a secret sanctuary to spend their last days in peace. Too bad some Snake Eyes type of commando kills them all at their Greek sanctuary, releasing all the demons back into the world! Enter Sister Eden Parish, a young nun who in charge of solving the who’s and why’s of these assassinations.

I enjoyed this book a good deal. It’s not bad at all. It was probably unfair of me to compare it to Magdalena, because it stands completely on its own. The only major drawbacks for me was design of the assassin and the main character. They look almost the same, and it confused me for a moment. Maybe they’re twin sisters and we’ll learn it in issue #2. Please check the 9 page preview. I think you’ll enjoy it. (Grade: B)

-Daniel Yanez

FEATURE: Interview with Robert Atkins (Forgotten Realms: Legacy) – Part 2

Part 2 of our interview with Forgotten Realms: Legacy penciler Robert Atkins is now online. Be sure to check out his experience at big conventions, dealing with fans, hitting those pesky deadlines, and what he’s got in store for comic fans in the future. Robert’s work on NBC’s “Heroes” comic book series, is now online! Check it out!

Read Part 2 of the interview here!

FEATURE: Interview with Robert Atkins (Forgotten Realms: Legacy) – Part 1

The first part of our interview with Forgotten Realms: Legacy penciler Robert Atkins is now online! In it, he talks about breaking into the industry, his work at Tsunami Studios, and life as a budding artist. Robert’s work on NBC’s “Heroes” comic book series, is also debuting online today! Be sure to check it out. Part 2 of our interview will be up tomorrow.

Read Part I of the interview here.