Steve Rogers: Super Soldier #1

Steve Rogers is back from the dead, but not as Captain America.  He gave up being Captain America to his longtime WWII companion, the resurrected Bucky Barnes.  Instead Steve is the head of the newly reformed S.H.I.E.L.D security taskforce with the help of several super hero groups and individuals.

While meeting with a covert operative Steve discovers that the grandson of the professor that created the Super Soldier serum that was responsible for Steve becoming Captain America has broken the formula of the super serum. 

His contact informs him that the grandson will be putting the serum up for sale to the highest bidders.  Shocked at the prospect, Steve infiltrates the complex where the grandson and the formula are located.  What he finds is not at all what he expects. 

He is confronted by three super soldiers-all of which die when the strain of battle gets too intense.  The wife of the grandson looks identical to a woman Steve loved during WWII and before any questions can be answered someone shoots the grandson to keep him silent.  The mystery deepens.  Included with the Brubaker/Eaglesham Super Soldier story is a reprint of the original Golden Age Captain America origin story.

The main story has me hooked as to who is behind the new Super Soldier serum and what they plan to do with it.  There's a lot of unanswered questions and I plan on being around for the entire run of the Marvel Comics title to find out the answers.

Doctor Solar #1

During the Silver Age one of my favorite comic book titles was Doctor Solar.  When Jim Shooter resurrected the Doctor as a Valiant Comics title it soon became a favorite early 1990s title in my collection.  I even liked it during its brief return in the newly resurrected Valiant line.  Sadly the Doctor has not been seen in nearly a decade.  But, when I heard that Jim Shooter would be bringing him back as a Dark Horse title I got all excited.  I could hardly wait.

The wait is over and once again the doctor is on my must-read comic book list, and for good reason.  Jim Shooter has lost none of his story-telling ability. If anything, he's better than ever.  He's brought the Doctor back with some similarities to his earlier incantations along with some new, and surprising, twists included.

When strange events begin happening-most notably the appearance of several super beings, Doctor Solar investigates.  What he discovers is that somehow reality has been shifted-due in part to his own creation.  And, his creation, although unexpected, was caused not by an accident but by someone.  Dennis Calero provides the art to the main story and included with the 48 page first issue is a reprint of the very first Silver Age Doctor Solar: Man Of The Atom issue. 

The Cages

Batter up!  Konami brings the sweat, strain and muscle of a real batting cage to video games with its The Cages for Wii.  Get ready to take on 19 different practice pitches ranging from fast balls to curves in the ultimate pitching and batting game ever created for the baseball lover.  Test you batting skills in mini-games either alone or against fellow gamers.

Wii's Motion Plus makes The Cages: Pro-Style Batting Practice seems as real as the real thing.  Various challenges such as home run, distance and most points test your control of the bat as you swing and hit balls to all areas of the field.  You can even track your cardio and calorie burning!

So step up, suit up, pick up and shut up as you pit your batting skill against The Cages: Pro Style Batting Practice.  The look, the feel and the excitement of a real turn at bat will keep you swinging and going for the run.  Hey, batter, batter!

Batman: Under The Red Hood

There's a new threat to Gotham City.  The mysterious Red Hood has muscled in on the Black Hood's criminal activities.  Ruthless and a brilliant tactician, the Red Hood quickly assembles a crime cartel as powerful as the Black Hood's.

Batman, with some assist from Nightwing, takes on the Red Hood and is surprised at how brilliant he is.  He plays the Batman and manipulates him to do what he wants and be where ever he chooses.  Batman is not pleased and after some investigation comes to the conclusion that the Red Hood's fighting tactics mirror his own.  Just who is the Red Hood and what does he want from Batman? 

The Warner Bros. animation team has really outdone themselves with Under The Red Hood.  The action is breath-taking, especially the fight scenes, the direction top-notch, the special effects extremely well done, the script brilliant and the voice actors are perfect-especially the Joker.  This is Batman at his best.  I believe this is the best interpretation of Batman in animated form ever done.

Besides the movie viewers can watch several clips from other Warner Bros. DC animated films and a short preview of the next feature in line: Superman/Batman: Apocalypse.  Don't miss this DVD!

Singularity

What if you had the ability to manipulate time? What would you do with it? Would you use it for good or for bad? That's the premise behind Activison's new first-person action game Singularity. When a Russian Cod War experiment in time, element 99, goes terribly wrong you must use the Time Manipulation Device to unravel and repair the time line as you travel from 1955 to 2010.

Through your journey you must fight threats from the past, present and beyond as you scramble to save time before it is too late.

Singularity combines science fiction and horror as you bounce from alternate histories and parallel realities. Explore the secret Russian Base Katorga-12 and uncover long hidden secrets in documents, audio and video files and more.

Witness the shifting of history as you manipulate Echo Events, Time Shifts and Time Rifts. With Time Manipulation Device you can age or renew objects and people, stop time and control gravity. By using the Chrono Plug and Chrono Pull you can find your way through time and pull objects from the past or future.

An arsenal of weapons is at your disposal when using the Time Manipulation Device such as the E99 Seeker, Auto Cannon and the Dethex Rolling Grenade Launcher. You can even upgrade your weapons.

Play in Extermination or Creature Vs. Soldier modes with six-versus-six team based gameplay online.

Singularity is a bold new experiment in gameplay. The special effects, character designs, environments and storyline all combine to make a totally unique game that I predict will become a huge success with gamers. I was amazed at the time sequence effects-especially the reassembly of long dead objects and people and the rapid aging effects used against enemies.

This is no game for sissies as the action is intense, the adversaries ruthless and the gameplay fast and furious. Isn't it time you played Singularity?

Cul de Sac

Cartoonist Richard Thompson has unique way of looking at childhood and people and life in general.  Just one look at his Cul de Sac comic strip will confirm that conclusion.  Cul de Sac stars preschooler Alice Otterloop and her misadventures in her neighborhood and at school.

Each and every day brings strange new people and adventures Alice's way-or so she believes.  After reading Cul de Sac Golden Treasury: A Keepsake Garland Of Classics published by Andrew McMeel Publishing you're sure to come away with a off-kilter view of life and living of your own.

Follow Alice as she copes with preschool, the beach, growing up, her neighbors, holidays and the many unexpected twists and turns of life seen through the eyes of a child enriched by her imagination. 

Civil War And Hot Wheels

Of all the wars the United States has taken part in the Civil War is the most popular when it comes to collectibles.  Perhaps Civil War collecting is so popular because of the nature of the war.  This was no war where we sent troops overseas, this was a war where brother fought against brother, family against family and state against state.

Here in the South the Civil War is still very much alive, at least in spirit.  Many great battles were fought in the South and Rebel pride flourishes.  No one condones the South's use of slaves.  Rebel pride goes far deeper than that.  Southerners are proud of their heritage just as much as, if not more so, than Northerners.

The popularity of the Civil War is evident by the many reenactments taking place across the country and the plethora of Civil War artifact recreations.

In Warman's Civil War Collectibles by Russell E. Lewis and published by Krause Publications, Civil War buffs have a complete Identification And Price Guide at their disposal.

Inside everything from documents to uniforms to weapons, flags, surgical kits, personal items and more fill each page with full color photos accompanied by informative historical text and price ranges.  This book is far more than a book about Civil War collectibles, it's a great reference book about the war that nearly tore the United States apart.

Warman's Hot Wheels Field Guide 3rd Edition by Michael Zarnock is a great pocket size carry-along guide for the novice and veteran Hot Wheels collector.  Speaking as a novice, it's especially helpful to me.  Just a few years a go I wouldn't have known what a Redline or variation were, let alone what to look for.  Warman's has been a great help.  Inside this small Values And Identification Field Guide, Hot Wheels fans are presented with over 800 color photos, listings of Redlines, pricing and lots of other invaluable information.

Dreamscapes Myth & Magic: Creating Legendary Creatures And Characters In Watercolor

One of my favorite mediums to work in is watercolor.  The fluidity of line, the soft, subtle shades of color that can be achieved and ability to blend colors so smoothly together make it a wonderful way to paint.  However, it is one of the most difficult painting mediums to master and takes a good deal of skill. Unlike oil paints that you blend colors and make corrections over an extended time or acrylics that dry quickly and can be easily corrected by painting over mistakes, watercolors are far less forgiving.

A great deal of pre-planning must be made in order to assure a viable final watercolor painting.  There's only so many corrections that can be made despite the quality of the paper painted on or the pigments used.  Overworking of watercolor muddies an entire painting.  Only by carefully applying pigment in planned layers can a final product be successfully created.

Dreamscapes Myth & Magic: Creating Legendary Creatures And Characters in Watercolor by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law and published by Impact Books!, provides step-by-step instructions on how to create a successful fantasy watercolor painting beginning with pencils, the proper way to lay down colors and in what order and the final 'tweaks' that make a genre painting a success. 

The author provides lessons on illustrating and painting a myriad of fantasy settings, creatures and characters accompanied by precise informative text and tips.  It's a great instructional book on how to create beautiful and lush fantasy watercolors.

July, Previews

Things really heat up in the July issue of Diamond Previews.  Lots of hot merchandise is headed your way so get ready to dole out some cool cash.  Here's just a few of the new items you'll want to purchase in September.

There's nothing like some four color magic and comic books serve it up in heaps.  Marvels serves up Wolverine #1, Valkyrie #1, X-23 #1, Deadpool: Pulp #1, I Am An Avenger #1, Spider-Man: Back In Quack #1, Captain America: Patriot #1, Shadowland: Elektra #1 and Invaders #1.  Dark Horse doles out the Terminator: 1984 #1, The Wednesday Conspiracy and Serenity: The Shepherd's Tale.  DC dishes up G.I. Combat #1, Our Army At War #1, Weird War Tales #1, Our Fighting Forces #1, Star-Spangled Stories #1, New Teen Titans: Games, Freedom Fighters #1 and Justice Society Of America Special #1.

IDW gives readers Machete #0, Transformers: Drift #1, Kodiak One-Shot, Star Trek: Captain's Log: Pike #1. Image presents Skullkickers #1, Next Gen Warz #1, Science Dog Special #1 and some new Halo figures.

Magazines and books that look to be a good read include Brush With Passion: The Art & Life Of Dave Stevens, Shazam! the Golden Age of The World's Mightiest Mortal, DC Comics Year by Year, Bryan Hitch's Ultimate Comics Studio, Sorayama Masterworks, Back Issue, Comic Shop News, Marvels' Avengers; Ultimate Character Guide, DC Heroes; The Ultimate Pop-Up Book, Obsessed With Marvel, Disneystrology, The Pixar Treasures, Stan Lee's How To Draw Comics Limited Edition, Werewolves, Zombies, The Living Dead, SFX, The Avengers: A Celebration: 50 Years Of A Television Classic, Star Wars Art Visions and Pulp History.

Trade Enterplay's Super Mario Bros. trading cards along with Legend Of Zelda and Rittenhouse's Marvel Heroes & Villains.

Play with some new toys with DC Heroes Wave 15, Ultimate Deadpool, Alice, Halo, Twilight, Iron Man, Fathom, Rocky, Star Wars, Star Trek, BSG, Disney, Final Fantasy and lots more.

Game on with Back To The Future, D&D, Heroscape and DC HeroClix.

Magazine DrawerBoxes

Recently I acquired several of DrawerBoxes Storage System's new Magazine DrawerBoxes.  If you're a serious comic book collector such as myself you also collect magazines not only about comic books but magazines about other popular culture items as well.

I've never really been satisfied with the standard magazine storage boxes purchased at local comic book/book/collectibles stores.  They tend to be too flimsy and easily damaged.  Plus, often I like to categorize more than one run of magazines in a box or break the magazines up into years.  When all of them are packed into one box it makes it difficult to locate a particular issue.

DrawerBoxes Storage System has solved those problems in a unique way.  Their Magazine StorageBox consists of an outer shell, reinforced by a slip in heavy duty sleeve, that fits over the sliding drawer of the box.  By designing the Magazine DrawerBox in such a manner it gives the box incredible strength, especially when it comes to stacking.

Cleverly designed Rails fit snuggly into each long side of the box held in place by the fold-over front and rear handle flaps.  Upright Dividers slip into the various slots in the Rails thus creating separate chambers in the box for various magazine titles or however you want to organize your publications.

As you can see be the accompanying illustrations and photos the entire assemblage makes for a neat, tidy and attractive storage container that will keep your magazines out of direct light, free from dirt and dust and safe from damage.  Rails and Upright Dividers are also available for Comic Book DrawerBoxes.

With the high cost of comic books and magazines today there's no better protection than DrawerBoxes.

Transformers: War For Cybertron

Experience first-hand the final battle for Cybertron as either an Autobot or a Decepticon.  The slightly redesigned Transformers (with the blessing from Hasbro Toys) battle it out in 3rd person action including several multiplayer modes from four character classes and choice of abilities and weaponry.

With the push of a button covert from robot to vehicles in a variety of environments.  Players can compete with each other via console or online using their own unique characters through the most important moments in the final war for Cybertron.

Activision has pulled out all the stops in its latest Transformers video game with more action, smoother transformations, lightning fast battle, more weapons, more levels, more detail, more color and special effects, more Transformers and more fun.

Look for Transformers: War For Cybertron in all games formats, rated T for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC, T for Teen Fantasy Violence for Wii and E10+ Fantasy Violence for DS.

War For Cybertron makes for some awesome game play with plenty of surprises, stunning visual and sound effects, breakneck game play and so much game play variation courtesy of multiple environments and Transformers that are sure to please any serious video gamer.

Legends Of The Guard #1

When David Petersen's Mouse Guard became a runaway hit everyone was surprised, especially David.  More than just a story about cute mice, Mouse Guard contains all the elements of a grand fantasy adventure including monsters, magic, warriors and more.

Archaia presents three new tales of the Mouse Guard in its Legends Of The Guard #1.  In this issue a local tavern owner challenges three patrons to a contest.  Should one of them come up with the best story containing one truth, one lie and never told in the tavern before their bar tab will be wiped clean.  If not, they must pay their full tab in one week.

The three tales include a showdown between the Hawk's mouse and the Fox's mouse, by Jerry Bastain, an encounter between a lovelorn mouse and an injured bat by Ted Naifeh and the untimely death of a rider caused by his steed from Alex Sheiman.

Each tale is beautifully illustrated and colored and is a worthy companion to David Petersen's own stellar work on the series.

Betty And Veronica Double Digest #s 180 & 181

Before I get to my review I'd like to say a few things about Archie Comics.  While it's true that the "Big 2" comic book publishers get most of the press Archie Comics has  slowly and methodically introduced new changes and innovative new publishing variations on a regular basis.

For example: Archie Comics publishes its digest size comics containing both new and reprint stories and it reprints in trade paper back some its most recent story arches and classic strips from decades gone by.  In addition, a new slicker paper stock has been introduced on some titles, a brand new look or more realistic art style has been tested on a number of stories, daring new storylines have been tried and tested such as Archie's imaginary marriages to Veronica and then Betty, the soon to be introduction of a gay character, an expansion of its titles and a commitment to continue publishing its current titles.  And that's just a few of the exciting and innovative publishing concepts introduced.

I admire Archie Comics because unlike many of the more high profile publishers Archie Comics keeps its stories clean, fun and untainted by such things as the "Dark" period seen in so many other publishers books.  Archie Comics books read today could have just as been easily published twenty years ago.  Is it any wonder the company is still around?

Anyway, on to the review.  In issues #180 and #181 of Betty And Veronica Double Digest the main story focuses on Betty's decision to tryout and eventually join the Riverdale Baseball Team.  To the surprise of everyone, including herself, she becomes a team member.  Her new status causes quite a stir among both the male baseball players and many of her female friends.

This story showcases how barriers are made to be broken when it comes to sports, business or any other career pursuit.  Women should have the right to choose their profession or sport and Archie Comics handles the conflict perfectly in a clever story arch set in a realistic setting and populated by realistic teenagers.  I applaud Archie Comics for taking on such a story without resorting to a cliché confrontational showdown.

Besides the main story both Digests contain some hilarious Archie hi-jinx along with some fashion sense Katy Keene stories.  Pick up both books today.

Ferrari, Cobra, Buckley, Foxbat And Heinkel

Two red hot muscle cars rated a 2 Skill Level are the 1:25 Scale Revell Ferrari California and '69 Ford Mustang Mach I Cora Jet.

The Ferrari is a two-seat convertible with chrome star shaped wheels.  This aerodynamic speed demon on four wheels is low to ground, all curved surfaces with strategically placed air vents and scoops that keep the car perfectly stable as is it practically flies along the speedway.  Check out the minimal grill, triangular shaped headlight covers and lush light brown leather interior.  To display the engine use the cutaway hood.

Motor-City Muscle describes the Mustang Mach I Cobra Jet perfectly. Painted red with black accents and featuring lots of chrome this beauty is all business with its 428 cubic-inch V-8 engine that cranks out 400 horsepower.  With rear and front stabilizing spoilers and opening front hood revealing the almost solid black engine the car also comes with custom rear signals and decals.  Zoom!

My favorite models to assemble when I was young were ships-specifically WWII  warships.  Is it any wonder that Revell's USS Buckley Destroyer escort is my favorite model in this review?  This no-nonsense ship bristles with weapons including deck guns, torpedoes and depth charges.  I love the little details like a full bridge, multiple upper decks, lifeboats, railing, twin propellers and so many other details I can't possibly list them all.  Look for decals with authentic markings, a customized display stand and full instructions on how to paint the model with its proper color scheme.

Another WWII ship of a different type is the Heinkel He 111H-22 Nazi bomber with V-1 Buzz Bomb.  Modeled by Monogram, the bomber takes the most skill to assemble.  Look for full interior and exterior details including a cockpit that opens revealing the flight crew, full landing gear, a detachable V-1 Buzz Bomb, instructions for duplicating its unique camouflage paint scheme, decals and fully adjustable wing flaps, upper gunner rotating cockpit and much more.

The Mig 25 Foxbat is a Level 2 fighter with four  mounted missiles, heavy armor, twin rear jets, oversize stabilizing fins, a cockpit that opens, adjustable landing gear and decals for customizing markings.    

Fangoria #295, July

Are you ready for Slaughterhouse?  Get ready to serve up some choice cuts of meat.  Fangoria previews some new blood and guts movies such as The Dead Matter, Chain Letter, The Outback, Road Kill and other horrific goodies both on the screen and on DVD.

Take one crazy road trip with 2001 Maniacs, Spanish filmmaker Jaume Balaguero serves up a double dose of terror, Predators hunt again-this time on their own planet, take part in a Deadly Salvage Operation and True Blood bites deeper.

Parasomnia lets you sleep on it, Sushi Typhoon is a perfect storm of gore, Death Kappa has plenty of Alpha Monsters, explore The Depths Of The American Grindhouse and Crazies is still crazy after all these years.