Just the Ticket

Article by Sean Wilkinson, a.k.a. The Eternal Omnibuster. Maybe not quite eternal, because I'm just some aging mortal publishing my thoughts into the æther while computers occupy our physical, mental, and emotional lives, everything is an overpriced service you can't own because disposable income doesn't exist anymore, and Japanese robots get the opportunity to win an American reality competition for humans judged by a Canadian , a Scott , a Colombian , a German , and a Brit. Psycho TV , indeed. My point isn't about the "non-American" opinions influencing the results of a particular genre of television (diverse opinions are among the most American ideals possible, and the influence is more in the hands of the roomful of screaming idiots behind them and the inconsistent act-to-act production value that gets hashed out backstage because bias is everywhere) because I'm not a hateful, racist asshole like those "fascism is misunderstood, ackshully" ...

Article by Sean Wilkinson, a.k.a. The Retrospectre. So...third time's the charm, because I've spent the past week false-starting on the Werewolves , Vampires , Zombies , and Demons miniseries, trying to figure out the actual reading order of Unleashed because the Zenescope wiki's chronological reading order is wrong again. They listed Werewolves: The Hunger as being set before the issue I'm actually going to review today, despite it being set after the four other Hunters had been freed from the Shadowlands. So...damn. I already wrote intros and harvested assets for two other reviews before this and read each of the four series far enough to realize things don't make sense without tackling this issue first. The next four weeks will cover Vampires , Zombies , Demons , and Werewolves , in that order (until I find another complication). Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed the little flashback to my youth that I shared on Monday . For some experimentation, I wrote some...

Article by Sean Wilkinson, a.k.a. The Retrospectre. There's some sort of appropriate timing here, what with Doomsday coming out soon and the first Avengers having premiered to franchise-defining success a year before the comic I'm reviewing today hit shelves. It's not so perfectly "coincidental" as Supernatural 's suspected influence on the Unleashed event , but the pieces are there to speculate that someone at Zenescope said, "this is a big pop culture thing right now; we should make our own team!" And it's not like it's an abrupt thing, either. Before Marvel 's The Avengers was even a thought, Zenescope were dabbling with shared continuity when they shipped Belinda and Charles Dodgson . And had Belinda ruin Sinbad's life repeatedly . And dismantled the Council Of the Realms . And had the Dream Eater thin out their library (not that one ). Robyn vs. Britney was one of the best things they ever put out. So was Quest . But the...

Article by Sean Wilkinson, a.k.a. The Omnibuster. This is just a fleeting memory and a supposition on my part, but I think the creative team behind the Unleashed event were Supernatural fans because it (and this Hunters Tie-In miniseries in particular) were released in 2013, the same year Season Eight (which dealt with the ancient monster realm of Purgatory) finished airing. Unleashed Tie-In Hunters: The Shadowlands The awesome Volume cover you see here is also the B Cover for Part One, by Paolo Siquiera and Sean Ellery . Interestingly enough (for the purposes of incentivizing people to buy and read every series so they give Zenescope their money and don't miss any of the story), the A Cover of Part One connects with the Part One A Covers for Vampires , Zombies , Werewolves , and Demons to make a massive banner poster (that I couldn't find online or figure out how to make with the digital versions I have access to) by  Anthony Spay  and  Ivan Nunes , and was used a...

Article by Sean Wilkinson, a.k.a. The Retrospectre. I suppose that when you're playing a Game of any kind, turnabout is fair play. So because last week, I reviewed (as much as I could, given its length) the A Shadow Falls prelude to Unleashed (which was first included with four seemingly random reprints as part of the Best Of Zenescope Special Edition ) as an Omnibusted post, I'm reprinting that review, along with my thoughts on Unleashed #0: The Game , as a Retrospective post today. Unleashed Volume One Unleashed is the second largest of the three Zenescope events I have read before ( The Dream Eater Saga was a straightforward enough twelve-issue series with a few One-Shots, and that was it, while the Age Of Darkness will have more content to it than the Being has torso muscles), with several short stories and crossover issues, and five Tie-In comic series, as well as an intervening One-Shot that I'll probably get to next month, and a huge batch of character bios...

Article by Sean Wilkinson, a.k.a. The Omnibuster. I'm taking some liberties here by calling this an Omnibusted review because, while Best Of Zenescope : Special Edition  is a Trade Paperback collection celebrating eight years of the company's existence, I'll only be talking at length about one of the stories in this seemingly completely random assortment of issues. The rest, you can follow the links I'll provide later to see my thoughts on them. Best Of Zenescope Special Edition The cover (which I also used for my banner) is by  Alfredo Reyes  with colors by Ylenia DiNapoli . There's a rare exclusive cover by  Anthony Spay and  Ula Moś  that you'll see when I get to talking about the Unleashed prelude later, but first, those other four issues bear some discussion. Some. Like I said, they have no connection to one another or Unleashed , so I'm not going to bother reprinting my reviews of them here. Grimm Fairy Tales #8: Jack and the Beanstalk  - I k...

Article by Sean Wilkinson, a.k.a. The Omnibuster. Normally, when I'd review a miniseries like this that has lore behind it, the post would include reprints of my old reviews as well (particularly with things like Myths & Legends ). But in cases like my Dream Eater Saga reviews, some characters and IPs had so much lore behind them that I merely linked to my relevant reviews instead. Godstorm is one of these latter cases. So, here we go! Grimm Fairy Tales #54: The Grateful Beasts (first appearance of Ares, and Greco-Roman deities, in general, in the Grimm Universe) Goddess  (first appearance of Venus, and the final Short Story) Grimm Fairy Tales #58-62: Mother Nature (Druanna, a.k.a. the Titan Gaia, is introduced for the first time) Grimm Fairy Tales #68: The Immortals  (first bit of lore on the Greco-Roman pantheon in the Grimm Universe) Myths & Legends: The Gathering  (origin story of the sun Titan Helios in the Grimm Universe, Venus claims the Beast ) Grimm F...