The Hunger and the Dusk #1 - Review

 

I’m all for a good fantasy epic. Can’t think of any recently in the Comic Book Universe that blew me away out of my La-Z-Boy. Saga doesn’t count. Saga is its own genre. It’s not even a comic book, Saga is a cultural tattoo that won’t ever be laser removed. All Hail Saga. If someone ever asks you if you’re MAGA don't get upset, just tell them that you’re Saga and then walk away, that’ll short their circuitry for a bit. There’s also the Monstress fantasy epic, which is also a whole maddening universe unto itself that I’m unable to peel my eyes away from despite it veering off into wackadoodleville the past year. The penultimate LOTR-esque fantasy epic (and by that I mean one that utilizes the basic DNA of the whole Elven, Dwarven, Wizard construct) has got to be Elf Quest from back in the 80s and 90s. That book ruled the fantasy epic roost for quite some time. It’s recent reboot offering? Not so much. But those Epic/Marvel comics from back in the day are pure gold.

 

When I saw this Hungry Elon Musk book on the solicits I thought, seems promising. Then all the review geeks seriously geeked the fuck out over this book, gushing and fawning over Willow and Co. Dude. I mean, I really don’t understand the oohing and ahhing that everyone has been doing over this series so far. I mean, it’s good, it’s not holy guacamole good. For IDW (I Don’t Want) it’s definitely a win. The art and colors are absolutely fantastic. The story? Mnyeh. That’s Jewish for: Mnyeh. Say it out loud and inflect up at the end. Now you feel what I feel about this book.

 

The first major gripe of this comic has to be the Orcs. So, the whole premise is that Humans and their mortal enemies ‘The Orcs’ have to join forces to fight against this new blur of an enemy. I’m already a little skittish about this premise after Kirkman’s ‘Void Rival’ Sci-Fi/Hasbro debacle that utilized a similar trope. Anyway, look, these Orcs don’t look like Orcs to me at all. These are Burly/Tribal Elves at best. It’s way easier to root for husky elves and humans teaming up than the uggams we’re used to seeing. This is an Orc okay:

 

 

 

This is an Orc:

 

 

I don’t know what the hell this is:

 

That’s Michael B Jordan painted green with a couple of Woolly Mammoth teeth in his mouth.

 

Okay, and this, is the female lead of this book. This is not an Orc:

 

 

 

Seriously? I’m pretty sure this chick just me asked if I wanted Oat or Almond Milk in my Latte last week when I was meeting someone over in Echo Park/Hipsterville. Cutie! Oh, it gets worse.

 

The lead Female Orc’s nickname is Tara. Tara. I think I just swiped right on Tara. She likes checking out new restaurants, is into Zero 7, is looking for a relationship and is down for a hike or a coffee to see if things click. Oh, and also, she’ll chop your stuff off is she feels threatened. Tara! I dated a Tara once many many moons ago. She was from Texas, cute Blonde. When we got into our first fight I’m pretty sure she was running around her apartment looking for her firearm so I bolted. Yeah, Tara’s are no joke – as Humans. Tara’s as Orcs are, umm, silly? Here’s what the Chief Orc Dude looks like:

 

 

Nice, handsome, Native American vibe, right? Look, you may think I’m blowing this out of proportion but if the entire premise is based off of two sworn mortal enemies who hate each other joining forces and one looks like they’ve just returned from Burning Man, then, yeah, not so good.

 

Next, don’t wanna spoil this too much, but let’s just say the enemy that is the reason the Humans and Orcs join forces to begin with is quite the formidable opponent in the beginning of the book. It easily obliterates everyone at the top of the issue by appearing as nothing but a blur. One moment a group of Orcs is riding on horses the next they’re dead and the horses heads are rolling down the hill. But then when it comes to our ‘heroes’ they appear and we see what they look like. Now they’re like “Look at us, we’re about to hurt you”. I was almost expecting a James Bond villain speech. Umm Willow, bubbele, either they’re blurs or they’re not, pick one. There’s even a moment where one is about to behead Tara and pauses long enough so that our Human hero can save her with his shield. Oy vey.

 

I skipped ahead and looked at the solicits for the next couple of issues and it looks like our Human falls for the Orc, saw that coming a mile away. We can love anyone, no matter their looks, no matter their background, no matter if they make shitty cappuccinos and have way too many cats. Next we’ll have to have Orcs fairly represented in all of our entertainment. I can’t wait to see Orcs complaining on ‘The View’ how they’re being discriminated against and have only been cast in one Marvel and Star Wars movie so far. Then you’re gonna see White Dude/Orc couples in every commercial on TV and BestBuy is going to update their hiring manual to say ‘Hire Orcs only’. Even as I type this someone is chomping at the bit to comment and call me Orcphobic. Fun times!

 

Recap, the comic is perfectly fine, a good but not great fantasy book. I was leaning towards pulling the next few issues but after coming back from my Little Princess walk around the neighborhood I’ve had a change of heart. I was going to pull the next issues based on looks alone but we all know what happens when all you focus on is looks, don’t we? No? Well, you end up swiping right on Tara the Orc who meets you for a hike and drags you off into the brush and chops your hands off after you tell her you think her 9 inch nose rings seem a little over the top. Wow, look at that, Target has already cast Orcs in their back to school fashion commercials. Wait, those aren’t Orcs, those are fucking Elves!

 

Rating: 7.3

Verdict: Drop

DARK SPACES: WILDFIRE #4 - Review

Do you get the whole crypto thing? I don’t, not really. I mean, I know it’s based on bullshit, an idea, a pie in the sky illusion of value. Look, our whole financial system is based on nothing so it’s not really much different. Money is created out of thin air. Value is based on belief. If you believe nothing is worth something than it makes it so. It’s kind of how variant covers work. It’s based on this illusion that if we make a few of them and say they’re hard to get than they’ll be worth more than a comic book made 50 years ago that was created by actual legends of the comic book medium.

 

Variant covers are like crypto currencies, everybody’s frothing at the mouth rushing to get them and inflate the value of their collection when in reality they’re holding bubkes in their hands. Eventually our financial system will switch back to a gold/precious metal based system where the currency is actually tied to something of value and the entire fiat currency that we’ve been wallowing in for the past 100 years or so goes bye bye.

 

Who’s setting these variant cover prices??? Has anybody ever asked that? I want a complete investigation! If you go down the rabbit hole of the variant world you’ll probably come upon an imaginary Japanese figure like Sakoshi Nakamoto the imaginary person/persons that created bitcoin. Maybe he won’t even be Japanese, maybe he’ll be a crusty pudgy geek sitting in the basement of an old warehouse in Queens where un-purchased retail comic books go to die. Maybe he’s not even alive anymore, maybe his head is suspended in a tube and hooked up to an AI super computer that calculates the nonsensical value of variants. I wouldn’t be surprised. Look, doesn’t the fact that it’s assumed that whomever created Bitcoin is not real but a pseudonym for a bunch of people that nobody knows the identity of make the whole crypto thing an enormous load of snake oil???

 

I bring all this crypto stuff up because ‘Dark Spaces’ is about a group of convicts who are tasked for clearing brush fires. During one of their outings a member recognizes an abandoned remote home in the middle of nowhere that belonged to a wealthy guy that has billions of crypto stored on a server in the house. So the women agree to bumrush the house, transfer the crypto onto a flash drive, and then bounce before anyone finds out. Of course it all goes wrong and mercenaries descend upon the house and fire upon the ladies hitting one of them. Thing is, by the time all of this goes down and assuming it’s present day, the value of that crypto on that server might be worth the price of a several thousand Marvel and DC comics from the 90s: squat. The price of crypto is falling faster than a hippo on a Slip-n-Slide.

 

Google FTX and all the shady practices it’s been involved in while it’s claimed bankruptcy; it’s a shit show. I’d like to see this happen to the Variant Cover market. I’d like all those 1:100’s fall faster than Wile E Coyote off a cliff with an anvil on each ankle. At any rate, this series has been solid but unspectacular. The characters are all still very underdeveloped and I feel like the art has gotten sloppier through each issue. Nevertheless, Snyder drops an intriguing twist at the end of this issue and with the conclusion only one more issue away I feel compelled to see how it all plays out. Of course by the time the final issue comes out it may seem silly to see comic book characters fighting to the death over something worth less than a pack of gum but hey, it’s never too late to turn a drama into a comedy.

 

Rating: 7.8

Verdict: Pull

 

TRVE KVLT #2 - Review

  

Execution. It’s all about execution. The ability to execute that which you seek to manifest in the world. You can have the best idea ever but if you’re unable to execute it then it doesn’t mean ske-wat. I’m knee deep in the MLB Playoffs. Die Hard Yankee Fan. All you hear every two minutes is a pitcher being able to execute his pitches. You know you have to throw it down and away but if you can’t execute your pitch and it catches a chunk of the plate; you’re toast.

 

A pitch in baseball is not unlike a pitch in Hollywood. You have the best idea for a show ever. You get a meeting. If you don’t know how to execute that pitch, manifest your idea in the real world to people who can make your idea a reality then you’re lucky if you’re getting your parking validated and trust me, the cute receptionist who smiled widely at you will never acknowledge you if you happen to bump into her at a café.

 

I can hear the pitch for this comic book series. I would probably green light it too. Fast Food Loser goes on a loser heist and accidentally steals a coveted item belonging to a Satanic Cult. They show up after the cops and kidnap both he and this somewhat cute chick who’s mentally geeked out on getting a job at the Burger Joint which is called, wait for it…Burger Lord. Get it? Holy Jesus Fries and Satan? So the first issue was all that, the pitch and the set-up. I bit the Devil Bait. Well, issue two is always the payoff in a way unless you delay it to kingdom come like they do in a TV series sometimes; I’m looking at you Boring AF LOTR Amazon show. My goodness, just give the Blonde Elf Babe a solo show and flush the rest of this mess down the toilet. I will pay an extra $4.99 a month on any Prime subby if you let me watch the show without any Harfoot Scottish garbage.

 

Trivve Kivvltie Fishy crapped the bed in issue 2. No two ways about it. They had a choice. They could either make the Devil people super corny and goofy with no stakes whatsoever or they could actually do some fucking research and make them rooted in some sort of convicted reality thereby making the series have actual stakes involved. Nope, they went goofy af. Epic fail. The idea, brilliant, the execution, right smack over the plate; a homerun off my pull list. You had it all there, Tarantula the great lead heavy metal Burger character, the Burger Joint boss, the Janeane Garafalafel type chick. All wonderfully fleshed out and ready to do comic book battle. But what do you do? You throw them in a van so they can end up In front of some non threatening wack job that I sometimes come across in my Raya Dating app. She’s not a low level Satanist Boss, she’s a Creative Director at some online marketing whatsit that has a studio apartment in Echo Park with three cats, lots of open cereal boxes and a plethora of worn out dildos.

 

Issue 3 comes out this week. I was already on the other side of the fence but I peeked at the solicits for the synopsis of the finale in issue 5 and, yup, more goofy nonsense with zero stakes. Maybe instead of the random V in the words of the title they shoulda gone with the tried and true Hip Hop Z in the title, like ‘Trizzue Cizzult Boyee’; maybe then it woulda hit the outside corner. Maybe then I woulda swung at the next issue. Nah. Strike 666 and yerrrr out!

 

Rating: 6.6

Verdict: Drop

TRVE KVLT #1 - Review

 

From the moment I opened this book and saw it was going to be a fast food caper I immediately flashed back to ‘Better off Dead’ starring John Cusack and his portrayal of the suicidal ‘friend-zoned’ Lane Meyers. Out of all the wacky, depressing and demeaning moments we’ve seen in pop culture when fast food is front and center none beats the big fatso guy who played Porky in the Porky’s movies ordering around a downtrodden John Cusack in a place called ‘Pig burgers’.

 

Then there was that iconic hallucination where a burger that Lane was forming turned into a Claymation Van Halen Burger replete with the Eddie Guitar and David Lee Roth howls.

 

 

Have the Pop People made their ‘Better off Dead’ line yet? Talk about selling like hotcakes. How many limited editions of the Van Halen Burger and the Paper Boy screaming for his Twooo Dollarrrrs would they sell out of?

 

So now here we have ‘Trve Kvlt’ described as a Horror-Comedy about a loser Metalhead/lifelong fast food worker named Marty ‘Tarantula’ who absolutely loves working at his job at Burger Lord. He decides to have a full life reset (not to be confused with the Klaus Schwab’s ‘Great Reset’ where you will own nothing, eat bugs and like it) which manifests into the brilliant idea to rip off all the stores in a strip mall during the most perfect time of the day. After his successful heist he comes upon a delivery van and snatches an item from the driver which turns out be a coveted item from a local Satanic Cult.

 

First of all, I’m trying to figure out why a V was substituted where the U would go in the title of the book. Is this a new pronoun? Time Magazine just acknowledged and addressed someone in a recent article as ‘Eir’ ‘Ey’ so I really can’t be sure these days. If Trve is a new pronoun well I love you and accept you and you deserve to have sex with whomever and whatever you want as long as ey are okay with it. The ‘Kvlt’ trips me up because it sounds a bit too much like Gefilte Fish so right off the bat I’ve got that taste in my mouth, which depending on whether it’s baked or from a jar could be a good thing or a bad thing. I’m down with the Gefilte if it’s baked but that jelly stuff brings back bad Hebrew School memories. Maybe they’re aiming for Gevalt like ‘Oy Gevalt’ which is a Yiddish euphemism for Oh Crap. Maybe I’m reading a True Krap comic?

 

Well, it’s not crap, it’s a decent read; nothing too earth shattering. Marty is out of touch and dumbed down enough to keep him likable. I would say his boss Bernice is a bit too attractive to be a long term Fast Food Burger Joint Boss. I mean look at her. She’s more ‘Agent of Wakanda’ than she is Burger Lord Babe. Have you ever seen anyone as good looking as Bernice work for 15 years at a chintzy burger joint before? Then there’s Alison a new burger recruit who’s infatuated with working for The Lord. She shows up for her interview and ends up covering for Marty when the cops show up. She too, a bit too attractive. She’s got that nerdy glasses Janeane Garafalo vibe going. I’ve only  once ever had my jaw drop at an employee when I walked into a burger joint. That was at a Burger Lounge here in LA; still one of the best grass fed burgers in town for the price. This Latina worked at the Burger Lounge on the Sunset Strip and my goodness she was eye popping beautiful. 

 

How do you even ask out a girl like that? The only thing I could think of as to why she was even working there is that her loser unemployed boyfriend was amazing in bed and and during a four hour bang session while on top he got her to wail 'Yes Daddy! I'll work that Burger Joint Daddy'. Well, that location has since closed and has been replaced by a Starbucks and to this day I wonder if I hallucinated her like a Claymation burger.

 

Anyway, the Satanists show up at the very end. Now, are they like, low level wack job reading it from a book Satanists? Or are they bonafide Lady Gaga half of the people in Hollywood occultists who actually know what they’re doing. No clue. But I’m down to find out, at least for now. Trve Kvlt is a satanic burger story that’s not necessarily horrifying and not necessarily a gut busting funny tale. Yet it’s executed in a way that gets their hooks in you enough that you’ll be back for the fries in issue 2. If Van Burgerlen makes an appearance, even better.

 

Rating: 8.0

Verdict: Pull

DARK SPACES: WILDFIRE #1 - Review

 

I’m not really into a ‘Girl in a Uniform’ and that includes the whole ‘Corporate Pencil Skirt and Heels’; not really a huge turn on. I think uniforms work much better for fantasies of the fairer sex. The whole fireman, policeman thing works well for the ‘ooh save me’ girl and the whole construction worker, lumberjack, mechanic works for the ‘ooh work harder you manly man’ type of girl.

 

Guys usually gravitate towards three fantasies

 

1.     French Maid – Ooh yeah you’re sexy when you clean

2.     Nurse – Ooh yeah make me feel better

3.   Naughty – As in put 'Naughty' in front of anything. Naughty Flight Attendant, Naughty Batgirl, Naughty Barista, Naughty Secretary, Naughty Stimulus Check Writer?

 

I’m all for a sexy Batgirl but the other stuff I can take it or leave it. I did once have my ex-fiance dress up in a revealing New York Knicks top and bottom and that did wonders. I told her to say ‘We just won the championship’ over and over, I think I lasted 2 minutes.

 

Well here we have a comic about Firewomen. Not naughty Firewomen but women who are firefighters. Actually turns out there's 5 of them and 4 of them are convicts. So it’s ‘Orange is the new Fire Woman’ or maybe ‘Orange Woman Bad’.

 

It’s written by Scott Snyder who has a lot of Comic Capital when it comes to me even though his ‘Court of Owls’ (best Batman story in modern history) story line was about ten years ago. He muddied through a bunch of DC Metal books and other stories where the entire DC Universe had to be included. You know it’s going to be a rough comic when the Martian character is in the book. There’s probably a plump editor who’s pushing 70 who sits in editorial meetings and gets his Martian in the comic at the last minute, "You know who would be great in this story? Marty the Martian!' I can see writers leaving those meetings thinking ‘Fuck, where the hell am I going to write in that damn Martian’. And when you read the books the Martian is somewhere stuck in the back of the crowd like a bad undersized right fielder in little league.

 

Snyder did have a major win with the ‘Wytches’ series, highly recommended if you haven’t picked it up, but his other offerings have been mnyeh. His latest ‘We have Demons’ with Capullo was a major mish mosh of demon guts and daddy I love you tropes. Looks like IDW is launching a new line of original stories with his book at the top. While imprints like AWA or Scout are the minor leagues of comic books the IDWs and Booms are the small market teams like the Royals, Rays or A’s. I can see Snyder pitching his ‘Orange is the new Firefighter’ story to a bunch of the majors and getting a no but when he showed up at IDW he said:

 

‘Well, I have this story about female fire –‘

 

‘Sold! When can you start? How many variants do you want?’

 

After establishing all the characters and not telling us what they were incarcerated for we get to the whole premise: While putting out a forest fire that was probably started by a DEW/Directed Energy Weapon (my hunch), one of the firegirls (do you say that’s fire? I don’t. I think it sounds silly. Unless you say that’s ice you can’t say that’s fire) mentions that there’s a mansion nearby that has a server with a fortune of crypto on it. After hemming and hawing with whether or not the C.O. who has cancer will allow them to fetch it, it obviously becomes a yes.

 

So Orange Fire is off to get the crypto. I hope they do it quickly. I mean, bitcoin is going to crash soon. I wonder if this story takes place a year ago when it was triple the price it is now. Where do you even put stolen crypto? Are flash drives the new cash bag?

 

Well, I’m in for now. The characters aren't necessarily strong, perhaps their backstory will flesh out better as the series progresses. I looked this up and apparently a book was released in 2021 called 'Breathing Fire' which was about Californian Female Inmates fighting wild fires.  That actually looks like an exciting read. Perhaps Snyder was inspired by this and the drama will ratchet up several notches. 

 

Who knows maybe as the mansion is burning down and they’re trying to squeeze their way out they’ll have to take off their cumbersome fire coats and one of them will be wearing a Sexy Knicks Girl Outfit. One can only dream.

 

Rating: 8.4

Verdict: Pull