All New Venom | The Clue Identity

Venom is a popular character, and over the years, he has become this edgy anti-hero with the likes of Deadpool, looking more than just a guy in a red suit. But in the current “All-New” Venom, Marvel is trying to reinvigorate the character after so many years of being a host to other characters. But now, Eddie Brock has become the ‘New’ Carnage after the Venom War, which leaves the Venom symbiote to look for a suitable host. The first issue doesn’t reveal who the new host was, but the readers were given four characters to guess who it was, and that’s where the first issue begins with a twist that fans might leave guessing.

Bagong Buwan | Stories from the New Moon

11.15.2019 – “Bagong Buwan” (New Moon) is a collection of three stories compiled into a single graphic novel anthology featuring Hulyen (Creator of UGH.), Julius Villanueva (Ella Arcanghel), and Mervin Malonzo (Tabi Po). It was considered an experimental project for all three authors of the book as stated by Mervin. It would be considered a ‘sleeper’ graphic novel that basically flew under the radar for majority of local readers that followed indie komiks in Manila. Bagong Buwan was released in Summer Komikon 2019 and it is quite an interesting title. Entirely all three stories are in Filipino (Tagalog) language and it actually works in this dialect due to how deep the stories are connected to Philippine culture. The cover is a simple image of a moon with two ‘Xs’ making them a pair of eyes for the lunar planet that’s crying as the second ‘X’ is dripping with paint. But then when you flip through the very page that moon was actually smiling back. The moons is actually sort of symbol for the Haliya Publishing that Hulyen, Julius, and Mervin has formed to further cement their collaboration under this banner.

Ghost Rider #1 | All Hells Break Loose

10.31.2019 – Ghost Rider has been one of Marvel’s underrated titles, but in the 1990s it had a revival with Danny Ketch as its main star and Johnny Blaze in a supporting role that launched the franchise expanding to other titles with a special event and those where the glory days of the supernatural series that was challenging to emulate in this era where the Avengers and X-Men are the major favorites due to the live-action cinematic treatments. Ghost Rider had two movies with Nick Cage in the lead roles, and the character was retold in some shape or form in the comicbooks that casual fans were having difficulties to grasp on the who is this walking flaming skull on a bike or even a car. For the longtime fans, this new series could be the breath of fresh hellfire as well as new to the Ghost Rider mythos now that Marvel is reigniting the Spirits of Vengeance with a brand new series featuring not one but two Ghost Riders. Johnny Blaze was the star for every succeeding series for Ghost Rider, but this time around a 1990s revival that will also include Danny Ketch in the lead along with his brother’s new status quo after becoming ‘the King of Hell’, which also introduce a new creative team in Ed Brisson and Arron Kuder!

Robotech Remix #1 | Dana in the Mix

10.24.2019 – Robotech Remix is a brand new jumping point alternative to follow the adventures of Dana Sterling. For those who never knew who this character was, she is actually the daughter of Max Sterling (Maximilian Jenius in the original Japanese series) and Miriya Parina (Milia Fallyna Jenius) from the original Robotech series, a Western adaptation of three Japanese anime series produced by Harmony Gold beginning with Super Dimension Fortress Macross. Dana Sterling originally appeared in Robotech: Masters Saga (Southern Cross), But with Titan Comics acquiring the rights to produce brand new retelling of the Robotech Series from Harmony Gold they change some of the narratives of the series that represents the American adaptation in a refreshing perspective for writers to expand these stories in these graphic novels. Outside North America, Robotech was only aired in some parts of Asia particularly in the Philippines in the late 1980s on the GMA Network on Sunday afternoon as the original Macross dubbed in English that was shown on local television was aired on RPN9 in 1983 predating the US adaptation that was for a western audience.

X-Men #1 | Summers Family Values

10.17.2019 – The “Dawn of X” is finally arrived in X-Men #1 with Jonathan Hickman, Leinil Francis Yu, Gerry Alanguilan, and Sunny Gho. If you’ve followed Jonathan Hickman’s well-detailed and reviving prominence of the X-Men brand through the “House of X” and “Powers of X” (pronounced as Powers of Ten) in the past months run surely you’ll be anticipating this issue too. There’s so much to take in if it hasn’t sunk in what has been re-established that Krakoa is now an island nation and things are going bananas on this first issue as there will be more revelation for the next series coming out in the next few weeks. But with X-Men #1 this is surely more focused on the characters than just a big event. It gives you the perspective of one Scot Summers and how he lives his life with his family and friends. If you missed out on all things X in the two six-issue miniseries expect a compiled graphic novel to catch up. For now, you got to pick-up X-Men #1 to give you a closer look and spotlight Scott Summer and his complicated that has been having too much drama in the last fifty years as we say “clean house.”

Batman & The Outsiders | Lesser Gods Part 3

07.11.2019 – The third issue of Batman and the Outsiders brings you to the team in pieces after Ishmael has taken away and presented Sofia to Ra’s al Ghul. The battle of the minds with The Chief Demon was trial by fire for Sofia. Like any super villain, The Demon is playing the long game. “Lesser Gods” deals with a lot of moving parts after the events from the previous issue. Batman’s roles in this latest iteration of this series are more ‘hands-off’ giving Black Lighting and Katana to get more spotlight as how they put the team back after Ishmael has beaten them to save Sofia. Bryan Hill certainly crafts a slow build-up narrative in getting to know more about the core characters that feature Orphan and Signal to make the roster accompanied them by Kaliber. Dexter Soy’s art style has evolved over the years has improved from the Japanese Manga style to his own. Of course, the creative team won’t be without Veronica Gandini’s colors that pop out that stands out. This series dynamic with Batman only giving pieces of advice behind the scenes makes it all the more interesting to read…

Spider-Man #4 | Ganke & Goldballs

06.25.2016 – Miles Morales can’t get enough breaks from his reality and superhero life. You’ve got the coolest abilities and a little bit better than the original Spider-Man, but what makes it even more challenging is having a friend named Ganke. Ganke and Morales’ father are the only two people who know his secret identity; because you need people that you can trust when the going gets tough. But what‘s makes even more difficult is you have a friend who tries to be more than just a friend who teaches you about life and becoming Spider-Man. Of course add pressure when a new student an ex-X-Man named Goldballs is added to the school, and makes Ganke make things harder for Miles to keep the secret. The stress must be far worse what Peter Parker was getting back in the day. But at those school years where Parker kept the identity all to himself. This is a contrast to Miles Morales who just wants to have a decent life and one of the two people who you trust starting to act like he wants to be ‘cool’ too by letting Goldballs know what Miles is going through with the ‘superhero thing,’ was definitely uncool.

Uncanny Avengers #14: The Day Nor The Hour.

11.30.2013 – Whenever there’s a comic book that has major impact in the story it becomes significant. No matter how good or bad its represented it becomes part of history which is something rare nowadays. The Uncanny Avengers #14 put some serious history that definitely unexpected. It might have shaken a lot of regular readers to the core on what went down. Rick Remember the chief architect who wrote this book gave this a major turning point…