2018.008 Vigilante: Southland

Can you like and hate a book at the same time?  Because I liked this and I hated this.  I think it was a solid story, but it was poorly told.  I don't know who Gary Phillips is, whether he's a comics writer or if this is his first experience in the medium, but his storytelling was very clumsy and in places, very cliched.  I think in someone else's hands, this story may have been executed better.  It reads kind of choppy the way he jumps from scene to scene.  It's unsettling sometimes.  But the story itself, like I said, is solid.  It's a fresh take on a classic DC anti-hero and I could definitely read more, but the stories would need a lot of work first.

Vigilante: Southland

Written by: Gary Phillips

Illustrated by:Elena Casagrande, Moritat

DC Comics

136 Doctor Who - Tenth Doctor Vol. 5: Arena Of Fear

I didn't care for the 4th volume in this series, but volume 5 was significantly better. 

Two tales in this book.  The first picks up where the last volume ends.  There's a group of travelers consisting of Captain Jack and Cindy (among others) who are wandering the earth.  They really have no idea of who they really are or what they're doing.  They eventually cross paths with the Doctor, who is in the same situation.  And that's when memories begin to return.  A fun adventure to kind of undo the boringness of volume 4.

But the better story is the second one in this book.  The Doctor, Gabby and Cindy try to take a vacation but end up in the middle of an adventure featuring a witch.  Sounds boring, but it was actually quite good.  And this being Doctor Who, you know there wasn't really a witch.  But what was it?  Hmmmmmmm.....

Doctor Who - Tenth Doctor Vol. 5: Arena Of Fear

Writer: Nick Abadzis

Artist: Eleonora Carlini, Elena Casagrande, Iolanda Zanfardino, Simone De Meo, Luca Maresca

Titan Comics

134 Doctor Who - Tenth Doctor Vol. 4: The Endless Song

For the most part, I really like the Doctor Who comics.  Especially because there are so many more things they can do here than they can do on tv.  But just because it's something you can't pull off on tv doesn't mean you should attempt it in the comics.

This starts with an awful story about living music creatures or some such bullshit.  Honestly, I hated it and didn't finish it all the way through.

Thankfully it's followed up with an earth based story involving cavemen.  And a side story about Cindy, friend of the Doctor's current companion, which expands into the next volume

But all in all, this book felt like a waste of my time.

Doctor Who - Tenth Doctor Vol. 4: The Endless Song

Writer: Nick Abadzis

Artist: Eleonora Carlini, Elena Casagrande, Leonardo Romero

Titan Comics

099 Doctor Who - Tenth Doctor Vol. 3: The Fountains Of Forever

I'm still trying to play catch up with posting my finished books here.  I'm down to about a dozen, plus whatever I'm finishing while I still have this queue.  Anyway....

I mentioned in my last Doctor Who post that I've fallen behind on the Tenth Doctor's adventures because my comic supplier never got the second volume.  Now that I've finally finished it, I felt free to start reading the small backlog I have of this book.  

What I like about this volume is that it could very easily have been an actual television story.  The amount of special effects it would require doesn't seem like it would be enough to break the tv show's budget.  The cool thing about the modern revival of Doctor Who on tv is that moreso than in the classic version, it works at building up the backstory of the companions.  This is no different.  A new companion was created for this series, Gabby Gonzalez.  This story we spend a lot of time with her best friend, something you'd never see in the classic series.  We get to see this story through a fresh set of eyes.  Gabby's friend Cindy realizes that Gabby isn't making up crap about what's been going on with her as she witnesses it first hand.

This is a fun story involving an aging Hollywood actress and an ancient extraterrestrial artefact.  This series makes me realize exactly how much I miss David Tennant's Doctor.  At least we still have new stories, albeit in comic format.

Doctor Who - Tenth Doctor Vol. 3: The Fountains Of Forever

Writer: Nick Abadzis

Artist: Elena Casagrande, Eleonora Carlini, Rachel Stott, Leonardo Romero

Titan Comics