Star Wars: Agent of the Empire #1

Writer: John Ostrander
Artist: Stephane Roux
Company: Dark Horse Comics

Lately, Star Wars has been on my brain. Not a huge surprise, really, as the world that George Lucas created is a playground for creators to come up with great ideas for different kinds of stories. One such creator, John Ostrander, is the man behind many of the more notable tales in the Expanded Universe of the Star Wars license. The work that he was able to do with characters like Quinlan Vos and Cade Skywalker, characters that could have easily felt like one dimensional stand-ins for the classic archetypes, is rather exceptional. He makes you care about his characters and the problems that they are up against are not usually meager or easily forgettable. With Agent of the Empire, Ostrander introduces a new character to the Star Wars mythos...James Bond.

Animal Man #4

Writer: Jeff Lemire
Artist: Travel Foreman
Company: DC Comics

Mainstream superhero comics hardly seem the right place for horror in most instances. It's a great genre, and has been used well at times, but it has a way of upsetting the balance and quickly slaps the cuffs on any of the spandex adventuring that typically takes center stage. With Animal Man however, Jeff Lemire has found an odd balance that drives an 18 wheeler packed with mutated nitroglycerin through said formula and never looks back. The subsequent explosion of genre bending material has an enjoyment factor that is set so high with every issue that a part of me thinks that there has to be an issue that takes a step back or pauses for a breather. The thing is, such an instance hasn't happened yet, and really, that is a great thing.

Holiday Buying Guide 2011

Sometimes, finding that perfect gift for that special someone or close relative that has a love for all things geek or comic related is a hard, nigh impossible job. There's too much out there to sift through and the question of whether or not a person already has something or not always enters into the equation. That part is still hard, but what this article will try to do is help those in need, or simply will become a list of goodies that I would ultimately be thrilled to find nestled gently beneath the tree on Christmas morning. So without further ado, "To the List!"

Villains for Hire #1

Writers: Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning
Artist: Renato Arlem
Company: Marvel Comics

While it was a little sad to see Heroes for Hire slip into the ether, it's nice that the core of the title and many of the main threads essentially get to live on in another incarnation in this four issue mini-series. The focus has shifted a bit, skewing to the villains this time, but not much has changed in the actual craft of the story. DnA still approach it the same way, putting forth a collection of off the wall characters and allowing them to be cool in ways and deeds that they normally don't get the chance to be. It's almost as if these writers sorted through a toy chest filled to the brim with D and Z list action figures and then, after careful consideration, went to war with them.