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

[Andrew Perron]

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PREHISTORIC PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS

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   ><><><> | <><><><  || R * O * U * N * D * U * P ||  ><><><> | <><><><
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   ><><><> | <><><><  ||      August    2014       ||  ><><><> | <><><><
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   ><><><> | <><><><  || By:     Andrew     Perron ||  ><><><> | <><><><
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In This Issue:
     Coherent Super Stories #35
     Cover Gallery #24i
     Octo-Boy #1
     Powernaut 1969 #11-14
     Red Hart #1-3
     Ripping Off King Arthur #200-204
     The Super Wizard From Space #49

Also Posted:
     Another LNH Title? Really? #2
     Chevalier: The Queen's Mouseketeer (August)
     The Continentals (August)
     Godling's World #11
     Mighty Medley #8
     Orphans of Mars: To Bell the Cat #5

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Coherent Super Stories #35
"SPIRIT of the Lake"
An Academy of Super-Heroes [ASH] story {HCC47}

"This issue's a followup to issue #29, a tale of the Collapse in which
an alien combat unit-turned-hero calling himself Iguana Jack used Omega
Mode, a last-ditch self-destructive final form. In this tale, reports
are coming in of a monster which may or may not be Jack. His former
partner has an entirely understandable reaction, but someone else is
assigned to find out the truth..."

"My main complaint about this one is how abruptly Jack shows up,
de-Omegafied. It feels like a bit of an anticlimax, especially after the
worry about whether he'd be able to both in this story and the original.
That said, the emotional resolution that follows from it is strong, and
feels like a natural outgrowth of said original."

Cover Gallery #24i
A Legion of Net.Heroes-20 [LNH20] series
by Andrew Perron

"I just wanted to point out that this was posted as #23i. I totally saw
Saxon's last one when it was posted, I swear. @.@"

Octo-Boy #1
"Octo-Boy's First Day"
A Miscellaneous [MISC] series
by Jochem Vandersteen

"Jochem starts a third series in his Godlingverse. We've seen Octo-Boy a
couple times before in Godling's World, but here, we see his origin.
It's a pretty standard 'intense need to help = sudden power activation'
story; competently executed, but basically exactly what I would have
expected. Still, I like the characters, and there's a lot of space open
for Jochem to explore."

Powernaut 1969 #11-14
"This Kid's Like a Powernaut!", "I've Got This One!", "Da-Da!", and "Let
Me Tell You About Power!"
A Superhuman World [SW10/WWW] webcomic
by Scott Eiler

"The Powernaut is the kind of hero that gets in some really meaningful
stuff under the guise of being a goofy character. And Powernaut 1969
doubles that, getting in both artistic points and good old continuity."

"Ellipsis is one of the central characters of the Superhuman World.
Despite being created in the early '90s, Ellipsis feels more like a
post-9/11 character, all about geopolitics and superpowers as
instruments of systemic change. In mainstream comics, such a character
tends to pull others into his wake, retcons and revelations making them
more a part of his world. But Scott pulls a fascinating trick here, by
rooting him suddenly and deeply in Silver Age-y Kirby-inspired
psychedelia - and that's not even the most important or interesting
thing about this story!"

"One thing that's easy to forget in the Powernaut's sheer glorious sense
of fun is that the character is truly a metaphor for power and its uses.
The Powernaut of the '60s makes a strong thematic statement here. In one
sense, it's just a restatement of 'with great power comes great
responsibility', but it goes further - power itself is, well,
*powerful*, and therefore dangerous in many ways. But it doesn't seem
cynical, as many similar messages do."

"Also, I love these tiny-huge artistic details, like the multicolored
definitely-not-Infinity gems revolving around the Pentahedron along with
masked metaphors of characters' power. Scott is just a plain good
cartoonist, artwise and writingwise."

Red Hart #1-3
Untitled, "The Beasts Set Loose", "The Forest Prince Returns"
An Eightfold [8FOLD] miniseries (I think?)
by Tom Russell

"RACC's most fascinatingly experimental title of the month, and that's a
significant accomplishment when put next to Powernaut, ROKA, and Super
Wizard. Tom swings for the fences with a classical form and a cosmic
plotline."

"So, it turns out the invasion of the Dyzen'thari in Jolt City and the
invasion of the Pulse Collective in All The Books That Don't Take Place
In 2009 are not unrelated. The wall between worlds is broken, and the
Godsea threatens to drown the universe. The Pulse Collective plans to
empty the Godsea into a neighboring universe, and the gods of eight-
and sixteen-dimensional mathematics have separate plans to release
forces that may save the universe-- or destroy it!"

"Not just a poetic meter, but an entire narrative form, broken artfully
in the correct places. The contrast between gods and mortals is well-
done. The characterization is *extremely* well-done, with each character
(or group thereof) getting a very distinct voice whether or not they
count their iambs."

"The plot is... amazing and abstract. It really does feel like a
psychedlic '70s cosmic comic was adapted sometime in the early 1600s.
Even the flirting feels lyrical. This is awesome."

Ripping Off King Arthur #200-204
A webcomic [WWW] series
by Arthur Spitzer

"Every single plan goes into effect! Things change like a heck of a lot!
Expectations get upended! It's all rather fascinating, to be honest."

"Seriously, Dr. Deadbeat's story continues to go interesting places
*even as* it becomes ever more silly and ridiculous. Arthur continues to
impress."

The Super Wizard From Space #49
"The Red Hand of General Dragutin" Part 6
A Marlo Vivo [MV] series
by Wil Alambre

"'But you *always* review Super Wizard!' you say. 'I don't care!' I
respond as I quaff your foolish human tears."

"Ahem."

"The most amazing thing about Super Wizard is how incredibly *willing*
it is to leave behind the obvious, worn-out, cliche conflicts, and go
for something new - something that, often, *should* be just as obvious,
but that nobody *does*, you know? How willing it is, in this issue, to
have the big army buildup be a feint, and to have everyone just be
willing to leave that behind in favor of the actual emotional conflict
that's been building up ever since this arc began."

"And, like. There are a lot of stories that say they create ambiguity
between the good guys and the bad guys. But how many do it by making
people do incredibly right things but you have no idea if they're for
the right reasons or the wrong reasons and you have no idea if the
consequences are going to be good or bad? That is Super Wizard's bread
and butter, and SERIOUSLY WIL YOU ARE SUCH A FUCKING GOOD WRITER
ERJ;LJ:GDRJMGHLKDSJFHBm.,vncbl.,m vcb,."

Andrew "NO .SIG MAN" "Juan" Perron, got to... catch up...