![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroGhostbusters (volumes 1-4) – The classic characters, another few years down the line from the second movie, and periodically referencing the events of the video game. Interestingly, the art style is neither based on the cartoon series (which doesn’t seem to be in continuity) nor on any kind of realism. They introduce a love interest for Janine who, amusingly, is drawn like the cartoon version of Egon. The first volume revolves around a third servant of Gozer who is intent on making Ray choose a new form (instead of the Marshmallow Man) so that Gozer can properly return. The second volume features a buildup of Walter Peck as an antagonist again, which doesn’t really pan out. The third volume features a road trip across America with stops at various haunted locations. The fourth introduces the “Ghost Smashers” as antagonists, clearly loosely based on the female Ghostbusters team from the reboot movie, but with a new character as their driving force and no real personality behind them. It’s cute and the dialogue is snappy, but there isn’t actually much new or special about it and the actual stories are pretty forgettable.
Jem and the Holograms (volume 1) – A reboot of the original 80s material with the usual Netflix-style modern twists. I have to imagine it would be better as a cartoon, given that a massive splash-page spread each issue is dedicated to a musical number. I remember always being vaguely disappointed (though I didn’t watch very much of the original cartoon) that Jem wasn’t doing anything superhero-ish, given she had a superhero power set and a secret identity. This is similar; it’s all about the rival band drama and teen romance plotlines with minor sci-fi hologram stuff. It does, however, have explicitly queer characters, as opposed to the original which was just heavily gay-coded.
Back to the Future (volumes 1-3) – The first volume is a grand collection of short stories showing snippets of things that weren’t in the movies but could have been squeezed in here or there. The second volume is a single story, with a series of adventures featuring Doc (between Marty leaving the old west and him arriving with the flying steam train) and Marty (from 1986, six months after the third movie) bouncing around 1986 and ridiculous sci-fi 2035 and revisiting old tropes while they try not to create a paradox. In the third volume, Marty finally addresses the fact that his memories don’t actually match up to the world that he lives in, and that the Marty of that world disappeared into 1955 and never returned. Fortunately for lazy writers who don’t actually like making definitive statements, a rival mad scientist comes along and steals the Flux Capacitor and starts causing changes to history, so Marty can fight some robot duplicates of himself and come to grips with his situation without actually getting any real explanations of it.
Back to the Future: Citizen Brown - Based on the Telltale game and in an alternate history from the other comics. This stands alone and also honestly holds together as a single narrative much better than the other comics, wrapping up everything it starts in a nice big timey-whimey package. (It’s a goddamn time-travel mess with characters constantly messing up history and going back to try to fix their mistakes, and that fits the tone of BttF really well!) I hadn’t realized, but Bob Gale, one of the original writers from the movie, was the writer on all of these BttF comics and the game this was based on. (And has a bunch of other Marvel credits to his name, as well.) Nice that he’s still getting work!
My Little Pony Friendship is Magic (volumes 1-2) – Everypony is being replaced by pod ponies! Queen Chrysalis and her shapeshifting shadowy minions have returned and have kidnapped the three little sister ponies, so the Mane Six must go on an adventure to defeat her and rescue them. The climax kinda falls flat, as it’s overwrought and overdone power-of-friendship that I suspect they do a lot; but the adventure getting there is cute. (The second volume then features the return of Nightmare Moon and a journey to the moon to deal with it.) I maintain my stance that this series was clever and fun but not worth the massive reaction it garnered.
Star Trek Classics (volume 5) – The “Who Killed Captain Kirk?” arc from the DC-published comics. Very Peter David, full of puns and references that would fly over your head if you didn't get them. (Including a veritable storm of puns when Spock encounters a group of philosophers in a hallucination of Dante’s Inferno.) There’s a weird formatting issue with the name “Captain Zair” in word balloons, and I’m wondering if it changed from the original printing, but I can’t find anything about it online. I was pretty certain I had read this before, and sure enough, I have the 1993 trade paperback, which has the same weird formatting. I don’t have the original 1988 pamphlets, so I’ll still have to wonder what was up.
Clue: The Graphic Novel - Clearly doing its best to be a modern take and not the slightest bit related to the movie; this manages to make Mr. Green (an i-banker and pharma bro) the most odious of the bunch. The fourth wall is a gentle suggestion at best to Upton, the butler who narrates throughout, and the twists of the mystery actually do manage to come together. A fun standalone story.
This bundle also had a Highlander book I didn’t really care about, and some Transformers Classics that I might eventually check out when I’m next in a Transformers mood.
Overall: There’s some fun stuff here, a mix of new material and reprints; and a mix of new and old authors. If you’re already a fan of one of these properties, you might enjoy the new material.
Jem and the Holograms (volume 1) – A reboot of the original 80s material with the usual Netflix-style modern twists. I have to imagine it would be better as a cartoon, given that a massive splash-page spread each issue is dedicated to a musical number. I remember always being vaguely disappointed (though I didn’t watch very much of the original cartoon) that Jem wasn’t doing anything superhero-ish, given she had a superhero power set and a secret identity. This is similar; it’s all about the rival band drama and teen romance plotlines with minor sci-fi hologram stuff. It does, however, have explicitly queer characters, as opposed to the original which was just heavily gay-coded.
Back to the Future (volumes 1-3) – The first volume is a grand collection of short stories showing snippets of things that weren’t in the movies but could have been squeezed in here or there. The second volume is a single story, with a series of adventures featuring Doc (between Marty leaving the old west and him arriving with the flying steam train) and Marty (from 1986, six months after the third movie) bouncing around 1986 and ridiculous sci-fi 2035 and revisiting old tropes while they try not to create a paradox. In the third volume, Marty finally addresses the fact that his memories don’t actually match up to the world that he lives in, and that the Marty of that world disappeared into 1955 and never returned. Fortunately for lazy writers who don’t actually like making definitive statements, a rival mad scientist comes along and steals the Flux Capacitor and starts causing changes to history, so Marty can fight some robot duplicates of himself and come to grips with his situation without actually getting any real explanations of it.
Back to the Future: Citizen Brown - Based on the Telltale game and in an alternate history from the other comics. This stands alone and also honestly holds together as a single narrative much better than the other comics, wrapping up everything it starts in a nice big timey-whimey package. (It’s a goddamn time-travel mess with characters constantly messing up history and going back to try to fix their mistakes, and that fits the tone of BttF really well!) I hadn’t realized, but Bob Gale, one of the original writers from the movie, was the writer on all of these BttF comics and the game this was based on. (And has a bunch of other Marvel credits to his name, as well.) Nice that he’s still getting work!
My Little Pony Friendship is Magic (volumes 1-2) – Everypony is being replaced by pod ponies! Queen Chrysalis and her shapeshifting shadowy minions have returned and have kidnapped the three little sister ponies, so the Mane Six must go on an adventure to defeat her and rescue them. The climax kinda falls flat, as it’s overwrought and overdone power-of-friendship that I suspect they do a lot; but the adventure getting there is cute. (The second volume then features the return of Nightmare Moon and a journey to the moon to deal with it.) I maintain my stance that this series was clever and fun but not worth the massive reaction it garnered.
Star Trek Classics (volume 5) – The “Who Killed Captain Kirk?” arc from the DC-published comics. Very Peter David, full of puns and references that would fly over your head if you didn't get them. (Including a veritable storm of puns when Spock encounters a group of philosophers in a hallucination of Dante’s Inferno.) There’s a weird formatting issue with the name “Captain Zair” in word balloons, and I’m wondering if it changed from the original printing, but I can’t find anything about it online. I was pretty certain I had read this before, and sure enough, I have the 1993 trade paperback, which has the same weird formatting. I don’t have the original 1988 pamphlets, so I’ll still have to wonder what was up.
Clue: The Graphic Novel - Clearly doing its best to be a modern take and not the slightest bit related to the movie; this manages to make Mr. Green (an i-banker and pharma bro) the most odious of the bunch. The fourth wall is a gentle suggestion at best to Upton, the butler who narrates throughout, and the twists of the mystery actually do manage to come together. A fun standalone story.
This bundle also had a Highlander book I didn’t really care about, and some Transformers Classics that I might eventually check out when I’m next in a Transformers mood.
Overall: There’s some fun stuff here, a mix of new material and reprints; and a mix of new and old authors. If you’re already a fan of one of these properties, you might enjoy the new material.
