LNH/REVIEW: Kid Review's Roundup - March 2014

Andrew Perron pwerdna at gmail.com
Sun Apr 27 12:39:02 PDT 2014


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PREHISTORIC PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS

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  ><><><> | <><><><  || K I D     R E V I E W ' S ||  ><><><> | <><><><
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  ><><><> | <><><><  || R * O * U * N * D * U * P ||  ><><><> | <><><><
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  ><><><> | <><><><  ||      March     2014       ||  ><><><> | <><><><
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  ><><><> | <><><><  || By:     Andrew     Perron ||  ><><><> | <><><><
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In This Issue:
    Chevalier: The Queen's Mouseketeer (March)
    Coherent Super Stories #34
    Jolt City #21
    Mighty Medley #3
    Weird Romance #3

Also Posted:
    The Continentals (March)
    Cover Gallery #16i-17i
    Godling #38
    Just Another Multi-Writer Cascade That Will Probably Never Have an 
Ending #8
    Powernaut 1912 #2-3
    Ripping Off King Arthur #169-177

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Chevalier: The Queen's Mouseketeer
"The Tides of War"
A webcomic [WWW] series
by Darryl Hughes and Monique MacNaughton

"Events proceed. Chevalier and Tom-Tom are hot on the Princess's track, 
following the clues to stop her kidnapping before she's shipped off to 
sea."

Jolt City #21
"Promise and Terror!"
An Eighfold [8FOLD] series
by Tom Russell

"What the Heck Is This: The adventures of Martin Rock, ex-antihero, and 
Derek Mason, ex-drug dealer, dealing with their personal lives as they 
try to be the heroes of the titular city."

"In this issue: Actionwise, Martin follows leads on escaped miniature 
gangster Pocket Vito, and Derek seeks the secrets of mysterious 
terrorist organization FEVER. Personallifewise, Derek tries to keep 
economically afloat while in a maybe/maybe not thing with Bethany 
Clayton (AKA Chicago-based hero Knockout Mouse), and Martin... actually 
mostly focuses on the action part. Interesting. (Though he got his big 
personal-life upsets last issue, so.)"

"I really like Derek stepping up at the end of this issue. It feels 
like something that's been building for a while now, ready to pop."

"And I hope it helps with another problem I've been feeling for the 
last couple issues. Specifically... Derek's been plagued by anxiety 
ever since the fiasco of Blue Boxer's first public appearance, 
occasionally dropping into a mode where he doubts himself, his friends, 
everything around him. And in and of itself, that's been an interesting 
character direction."

"The problem is... Knockout Mouse's inner thoughts have had a lot of 
the same quality. As have Martin Rock's, actually. And Lacey Trimmer 
often gives off a similar defensive, something-to-prove vibe. If it 
wasn't for Roy Riddle and Dr. Fay breaking things up every once in a 
while, the cast would pretty much be insecure, kinda bitchy people 
bouncing off insecure, kinda bitchy people. It needs, I think, a bit 
more variety in the interpersonal interactions, and I'm hoping that 
Derek uses this impetus to move forward and become more confident, 
inside and out."

"In other news, these people are *really bad* at keeping their 
identities secret. It's cute!"

"And one other thing. Looking through the copious footnotes, I find 
this comment in the entry explaining Anders Cradle: 'But this must be 
one of those cases where I severely dropped the ball, because I've yet 
to hear of anyone who feels even a lick of anything for Anders besides 
hatred and disgust.'

"Huh. I totally got what was going on there - someone who broke through 
their emotional barriers just soon enough to get a moment's 
understanding of what they had before it was gone, and tried to make up 
for it too late. Honestly, I kinda expected to see more of him than we 
eventually did."

Coherent Super Stories #34
"Mappa Mundi"
An Academy of Super-Heroes [ASH] story {HCC43}
by Dave Van Domelen

"What the Heck Is This: CSS is an ongoing anthology in the ASH world. 
It publishes stories under the conceit of the 'real-world' publishing 
history of Coherent Comics Unincorporated."

"In this case, though, that doesn't matter very much. Instead, we check 
in on an interesting aspect of ASH's cosmology - the Godmarket."

"Essentially, in the ASH universe, the gods of myth fought/will fight/
are fighting a great battle across time, known as the Causality Wars. 
And one front of the Causality Wars was the Godmarket, a time in the 
late '90s where the gods offered favors in exchange for worship. In the 
original universe, it ended with the disappearance of two-thirds of the 
world's population, including all the superhumans."

"But what about a world where things went differently? We've already 
seen one of these, with the Alliance of Super-Heroes universe, but that 
world did an end-run around the apocalypse. In the world that 'Mappa 
Mundi' portrays, though, the rules of reality are slightly different, 
preventing the gods from interfering directly. This, in turn, ties in 
with the theme of High Concept Challenge #43, 'the eruption of the 
fantastic into the mundane'. Eric Harris, normal and reasonably sane 
equivalent of mainline ASH's genocidal maniac Devastator, is suddenly 
confronted by the existence of other worlds - in a very literal manner!"

"The pacing of this one's a little weird - we get the setup and the 
climax in quick succession, and then a denouement that takes up the 
entire back half of the story. But the important part is really the 
worldbuilding. The way the Barrier and the Causality Wars happened 
across different universes is a hole that's been a long time filling, 
especially with the liberal way ASH and Dave's other work use dimension-
hopping."

Mighty Medley #3
"Grudge Match", "Seven 'Gainst Thebes" Part 2, "Beyond the Fields" Part 
3, and "Strange Profit"
An Eightfold [8FOLD] anthology
by Andrew Perron, Tom Russell, and Saxon Brenton

"Tom's superpowered homage to The Magnificent Seven proceeds, as does 
Saxon's cafe conversation with an angel and a human, and of course I'm 
awesome. But the one I really want to highlight here is 'Grudge Match', 
which takes an interview quote by Sir Terry Pratchett and literalizes 
it to great effect."

"Specifically, the anthromoporphic personification of Early Onset 
Alzeheimer's manifests in the mortal world, and Sir Terry GOES TO TOWN 
ON IT. It's a piece of straightforward wish fulfillment and catharsis, 
unapologetic about screaming in the face of cold fate."

"If I had any quibbles, it's that the one-page format might not be 
quite enough for this idea. The setup of the idea occupies significantly 
more space than the resolution."

Weird Romance #3
"The Ache"
An Eightfold [8FOLD] series {HCC43}
by Tom Russell

"What the Heck Is This: One of Eightfold's irregular romance series, 
this one about humans and nonhumans."

"Weird Romance is a series that was an oddball when it first premiered, 
but seems almost normal in the midst of today's paranormal romance 
trends. Well... that 'almost' is important, as the weirdness of Weird 
Romance isn't just in the nonhuman subjects, but in the relationships 
portrayed."

"In this case, it's a twist on the idea that the vampire's bite turns 
one into a vampire. Here, the pleasure of the bite is, apparently, so 
all-encompassing that it gives one a need that can never be fulfilled, 
resulting in our protagonist, years later, feeling like a being that 
never gives, only takes."

"It's an interesting idea, but I don't think it quite works for me. I 
guess it's just the way the metaphor's supposed to work - the idea of a 
self-destructive but passionate love that ruins you for other people 
never made sense to me except as an expression of deeper problems. Or 
maybe we should look at it more like a drug addiction? Except that that 
doesn't work either-- ah, there we go. My main problem is that a 
yearning for *sensation* is equated to a yearning for *love*."

"Also, there's the obvious problem of 'so why doesn't he get a regular 
partner'. I mean, would it be worse than screwing up a significant 
number of people's lives? But perhaps it would - perhaps someone really 
would turn, given time, or something far darker would happen to them."

"Wow, I'm being kinda harsh on Tom this time 'round. Um... he's very 
good at, you know, the actual business of writing and style and... 
eheheh. But seriously, I respect him a lot! He is an excellent writer 
and also good at taking criticism, so I don't hold back. <3" 

Andrew "NO .SIG MAN" "Juan" Perron, getting back into the groove


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