Kevin Lau

2/5 Not only does Justice League vs. Suicide Squad  use a cookie-cutter plot setup, but it also lacks character, depth, and (quite surprisingly) the Justice League fighting the Suicide Squad. The Suicide Squad is a team of super bad guys who are put under the control of the government to complete missions considered too dangerous to send out our own people to complete and completing these missions and living through them would give them time off of their prison sentences. However, Batman soon finds out that these criminals and brings the Justice League along with them to investigate the squad only to be caught in the midst of a revenge plan of a bigger baddy: Maxwell Lord and the original Suicide Squad. And there you have it: A team of superheroes sort of fights a team of supervillains and then stops to take care of a common enemy. It's a simple plot and, unfortunately, Joshua Williamson (an up-and-coming author who currently write The Flash and is quite good at it) fai...

3/5 Great first volume, remarkable second volume, and... Well, no one said writing comics was easy. So Scott Snyder, the writer of the Batman  for the whole New 52 era, wanted to write another huge Batman story that required tie-ins from other Batman-related series (after all, it mostly worked for City of Owls ). In this event, the Joker has returned to Gotham City after gone missing for five years, putting the Bat-Family on high alert. Dick Grayson is busy with assassin Lady Shiva coming into town on top of trying to restore Gotham's old theme park Amusement Mile, but that doesn't stop the Joker from getting his attention. Death of the Family  is a bit of a disappointment in my eyes, both in the Batman  and Nightwing series. However, Kyle Higgins does his best at making the story feel as natural as possible and this series seems to have a bigger seems to be impacted more than the Batman series where the core of the story takes place (weird). The story still ha...

3.5/5 Robbie Thompson continues his run on a younger version of our web-slinging hero, keeping the same set-up and momentum as the first volume. This set of issues has a bit more going on. On top of the usual villain-of-the-issue, Spidey teams up with the likes of Black Panther and Captain America, each taking an interest in Spider-Man after his team-up with Iron Man. Of course, Spider-Man still has to stay on top of his life as Peter Parker, which includes tutoring not only Gwen Stacy, but bully Flash Thompson as well! Much like the first volume, After-School Special  still delivers fun stories for younger audiences and never loses its stride. It's funny, bright, and easy to read through in a single sitting. Not only that, but the plot and characterizations are becoming more and more solid, making this a bit better than volume 1. Plus, Robbie Thompson crafts an interesting scene between Captain America and J. Jonah Jameson. Overall, I'm starting to war...

3/5 Finally, kids have a Marvel comic with good writing! Written by Robbie Thompson (former writer of CW's  Supernatural  and current author of  Silk ),  Spidey  is an ongoing comic going back to Peter Parker's high school days. There's not much of a plot, per se, but rather this series functions similar to the cartoon  The Spectacular Spider-Man . Each issue has Spider-Man facing off with a different villain with subtle hints at a bigger villain that will come in later, this volume containing Doctor Octopus, Doctor Doom, the Green Goblin, and more. On top these supervillain debacles, Peter has to balance his priorities with high school as well as finding a way to make money. It's a comic that's really easy to get into and the concise writing makes it a breeze to read. Nick Bradshaw does the art for the first 3 issues and does well with the character designs and setting the tone. Andre Lima Araujo illustrates for the other 3 issues of this volume...

5/5 Kyle Higgins and Eddy Barrows continue their run on Nightwing with this second volume, which I found to be even better than the first! This volume contains 3 story arcs: The first of which ties up the Court of Owls event (which actually still works in this series without crudely interrupting the main story), the second has Dick Grayson facing off the anti-Gotham group that framed him for murder, and the third is issue #0, which gives us Dick Grayson's origin story. All-in-all, I absolutely loved this volume. The Court of Owls tie-in is used masterfully to create a deeper lore of Nightwing's ancestry. The second solo story, much like the first volume, had twist and turns that kept me hooked from beginning to end. Then, with the origin story, we get a much deeper look into not only Dick Grayson's character, but Bruce Wayne's as well. The art still has some botchy moments here and there, but the writing heroically saves the whole ordeal in style. Highly re...

4/5 Dick Grayson (aka Nightwing/the first Robin) is trying to get back in the swing of things when Haley's Circus, the circus where his parents had died years ago, comes to Gotham. After paying his old friends a visit, the dying owner of the circus gives Dick ownership of the circus, hinting at a mysterious past in Dick's ancestry. As if Dick wasn't already confused, a highly-trained assassin is trying to punish him for crimes he didn't commit. A solid story with great writing, Kyle Higgins really brings this character to life. Right away from the first issue I knew this was a character I wanted to get behind. Nightwing is a bit like a Peter Parker character, making quips as he fights his foes, but he's also different enough to be his own character (one factor being that Dick is empathetic whereas Peter is sympathetic). The story had twists and turns and was well-paced. Eddy Barrows does the art for this volume and even though all the action sequences wer...

4/5 Revival  was certainly an unexpected treasure. One day in Wausau, Wisconsin, everyone who was dead were mysteriously revived.  With the world in shock, both on a secular and religious level, the people of Wausau are quarantined from the rest of the world until they figure out where the revivers came from and are made entirely sure they are safe. Dana Cypress, a local cop, becomes a part of the Revitalized Citizen Arbitration Team and soon finds out her sister, Em, is a reviver. Not only that, but she knows she's been murdered. When trying to find her sister's killer, Dana finds out there are more secrets the small town has been hiding. Tim Seeley writes like a beast in this series of 47 issues, keeping the quality pretty much on par throughout. Though the final arc of this story feels a bit rushed compared to the rest of the series' slow pace, the story still comes to a satisfying and heartbreaking conclusion. Everyone's character arcs are clear and defi...

5/5 Paper Girls  volume 2 picks up right where volume 1 leaves off. So, fair warning, there will be very slight spoilers here if you're wanting to go into this series blind. First, I want to point out that I might be hopelessly addicted to this series now. I've binge-read each of the volumes from cover-to-cover and they only end with me wanting so much more. Oh, the struggles of getting into a comic that isn't finished yet! That being said, I absolutely love this volume more than I thought I would. Brian K. Vaughn seemed to have gotten the memo from the first story arc and slowed things down a bit, given us readers time to focus more on the characters and all of the concepts that are being thrown at us (Including a very interesting take on time travel). The dialogue flows even better now and the twists still hit you harder than you really want it to. All of the character interactions made me laugh, kept me on edge, and made me empathetic. Part of this goes with t...

4/5 At this rate, we've seen all we could possibly see in a superhero origin flick: The world is in danger, one person must stop said danger and either fit in a newfound society or hide their newfound powers from society (or just be Iron Man and flaunt it everywhere). That being said, Wonder Woman  still manages to be a fresh take on the origin formula yet still remain true to the source material. Like most origin stories (and unlike Batman v Superman ), Wonder Woman  stays concise with its story and avoids overbearing itself with unnecessary subplots. Simply put, if you haven't liked any of DC's recent films, you should definitely give this one a shot. Gal Gadot and Chris Pine absolutely nail their roles of Diana/Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor respectively. With these two leads guiding the film, most of the script and cast surrounding them are pretty solid. Some distracting acting and the fact that the main side cast is almost two-dimensional can be overlooked si...