Scott's Take: Kang the Conqueror: Only Myself Left to Conquer by Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing

Kang the Conqueror: Only Myself Left to Conquer by Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing is an interesting and good read. In this time travel story, Kang has traveled back into time to mentor his younger self and hopefully alter the path of his life. Kang is stuck in a cycle of failure and thinks he can break it.

I have never found Kang that interesting. A villain from the future that can time travel who faces people who can’t, always has seemed to me that you would have to be a pretty crappy villain to have so many advantages and still lose. He has so many things to his advantage. Kang has a giant battleship shaped like a sword, his own army of warriors, advanced tech as well as an arsenal of weapons from the future, the knowledge of the future, a genius IQ, is incredibly fit, a time travel machine, an arsenal of weapons, and still loses. It’s hard to understand why he loses imagine why he loses, except for the simple reason he is really bad at his job.

When he does lose, it is allegedly all part of his plan. For the first time, at least for me, Kang was actually interesting. The authors were able to strike a really good balance between the teenager he was before he became Kang and the man who he became who now calls himself Kang. Kang is not Kang’s birth name. He was at one point just a smart teenager called Nathaniel Richards who was just a kid that did not fit in a stagnated society.

The writing and the art is excellent and the various versions of Kang are present. This is a good story for people unfamiliar with Kang. Kang is complicated. It is also a good way to prepare for the new Avengers title by Jed MacKay since Kang and the Avengers are working together. Kang is trading information from the future that the Avengers could use to save lives in exchange for protection and the Avengers help.

 

 

My reading copy came by way of Hoopla and the Dallas Public Library System.

 

Scott A. Tipple ©2023

Scott's Take: Aquaman and The Flash: Voidsong by Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing

Aquaman and The Flash: Voidsong by Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing is a team up miniseries that has The Flash (Barry) team up with Aquaman to stop an alien invasion. Though they have been teammates for a long time, they have not fought together by themselves, without their fellow teammates very much. They are friends, but not very close. The whole world is counting on this duo to stop an alien invasion as the aliens have incapacitated everyone else on Earth.

The art is great, the characters are well written, and there is plenty of action and drama. The story is told from both character perspectives simultaneously for a good portion of the tale. This means the reader has two separate thought bubbles sets to follow for each character.

I very much enjoyed this team up. As a fan of both characters, I am happy to report that neither gets the short end of the stick in this tale.  If you like either character, you should enjoy Aquaman and The Flash: Voidsong by Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing.

 

 

My reading copy came from the Bachman Lake Branch of the Dallas Public Library System.

 

Scott A. Tipple ©2023 

Scott's Take: Batman Beyond: Neo-Year by Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing

Batman Beyond: Neo-Year by Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing is the latest miniseries and this most recent one features Terry McGinnis as Batman. This is another soft reboot with a new status quo and new supporting cast. It is a broad strokes sequel to all the previous series while ignoring the various parts that contradict. One example of that fact is that this read does not pick up where the previous series ended with Terry joining the Justice League to be the team’s Batman. The league is completely absent from this title.

Instead, the plot is that Bruce Wayne has been murdered by a self-aware AI that has manifested out of the infrastructure of Neo-Gotham. It wishes to take complete control over the city and kill the last piece of resistance, Terry. So, Terry is on his own and must take the fight to a technologically superior enemy. That means all his usual gadgets and tech are out the window. It is time to use what Bruce has trained him to be --a ninja in the night and to operate based on hit and run tactics.

The story acts like this is the first time that he has fought without Bruce for such a long period of time however in other series he also has done this same thing. It is hard to know if that is still canon since the character has been rebooted and retconned so much. It is harder to get invested in a character with so much rebooting.

Each new writer has their own new spin with a new villain and new love interest for Terry. One weird thing is that his new love interest looks a lot like his most commonly used love interest. The art depicts them very similarly. 

Despite these flaws and a lack of humor from Terry who is usually more prone to jokes, Batman Beyond: Neo-Year by Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing is a good read. It is a darker tale so working in his more jokey parts of his personality might have been too difficult. I enjoyed this action-packed thriller with featured a more guerrilla warfare version of Terry. The layouts on some of the pages are really different than what normally is done. The art is pretty good and the new characters introduced are interesting. I really liked Batman Beyond: Neo-Year by Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing.

On the last page, it is declared that Batman Beyond will continue in 2023 in some new form. So, one is hopeful that this means an actual follow up and not another soft reboot.

 

My reading copy was on Hoopla via the Dallas Public Library System.

 

Scott A. Tipple ©2023

Scott's Take: Gotham City Garage: Volume 1 by Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing

Gotham City Garage: Volume 1 by Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing is an “Elseworlds” DC Comics graphic novel. An Elseworlds is a comic book that takes place outside of the prime or main Earth storylines which means that things are very different from the usual various versions of characters found in the main universe. “Elseworlds” series there is the “Red Son” storyline that goes off the idea that Superman was raised in communist Russia. In that storyline, Lex Luther won and took over the world and subsequently turned the planet into a Mad max style wasteland. Humanity is mostly controlled by “ridealongs” that are sort of memory chip implanted in the brains of people to keep people happy and placated. This brutal new world order is enforced by an evil fascist version of Batman that works for Lex Luthor.

Gotham City Garage: Volume 1 depicts a different version of things where all the heroes and villains are bikers. This graphic novel is a tie in to a line of statutes put out by DC Collectibles. This book collects the first six issues by various artists depicting an America in a distant future where the entire country is a wasteland. That is for a special place, a utopia of sorts, named “The Garden.” An action there results in Kara Gordon being forced to flee to the “freescape” that is a desert area fought over by various motorcycle clubs including one known as the “Gotham City Garage.”

The heroes of this story are Big Barda, Zatanna, Harley Quinn, Wonder Woman, and our main protagonist, Kara Gordon aka Supergirl. This version of Supergirl has Kara raised by Jim Gordon who also had his own daughter, Barbara Gordon. While Jim Gordon knew she was an alien and sought to hide her from Lex Luthor, Kara and Barbara had no idea Kara was an alien. Kara begin to figure out something was up when her powers started to manifest during her teen years.

Her powers continue to build while she is on the run in the freescape where she joins the resistance led by various heroes working out of the Gotham City Garage. The heroes use motorcycles as their chief mode of transportation as they wage war against the forces of Lex Luthor who are firmly in control of the last city on the planet.

I enjoyed this Elseworlds tale despite the inconsistent art throughout. Gotham City Garage: Volume 1 is a great place for people to start reading comics or are already reading comics and looking for something different than the norm. Those interested in women as strong characters or heroes will find a lot to like in this book. The read features a solidly good story as well. Gotham City Garage: Volume 1 is a good book.

City Garage: Volume 1

Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing

DC Comics

June 2018

ISBN# 1401280196

Paperback (also available as an eBook)

144 Pages

$16.99

Material supplied by the staff of the Dallas Public Library System. The copy I received came from the Bachman Lake Branch.

Kevin R. Tipple ©2019