Take It Or Leave It – December 4, 2013

Welcome to Take It Or Leave It, where each week we pick out some of that week’s newest comics and give you our opinion on whether it was worth the price and you should take it, or if it was better left sitting on the shelf.

This was a really good week for comics, well aside from a hiccup or two. That doesn’t matter though, Take It Or Leave It is here to help you pick from all those books on the comic shop shelves so lets get to it.

Alphabetical by Publisher

DC Comics | Image Comics | Marvel Comics | Zenescope Entertainment

Batman/Superman #6 Batman/Superman continues it’s second arc much the way the previous issues ended with Batman apparently dead, and Superman not to happy. Because of the previous story I’m still not quite sure if this is our normal New 52 world or another alternate universe. Regardless though, it’s a bit of a boring story where a bunch of kids think they’re playing the newest video game. It sheds a bad light on gamer too, making them sound like all they care about are scores and killing things. That’s just how the media perceives them, and I would think with the huge crossover of gamers and comic fans this wouldn’t be a medium I’d see it in. Even with that personal issue aside, it just isn’t a very interesting story. And frankly I don’t like the widescreen perspective they’re doing, with the whole thing being double page splashes. It’s plan to see that in the end things will get worked out, and you never want to know that going into a book. Too many things are being done in this issue that can’t possibly continue. This issue also continues the awkward friendship woes between Bruce and Clark, they just don’t have that close dynamic that you expect out of Batman and Superman. Sure it makes sense they would have problems, all friends do, but they act like they don’t even like each other half the time. Verdict: Leave It Score: 4/10 Reviewed By: Chris

Green Arrow #26 Green Arrow has been a great read, even last months issue was a good time and it was a Zero Year tie in. Now though Ollie is finally back on track looking for the Arrow artifact while all the other clans want his head. I don’t know if The book is trying to be a slight reflecting of the Arrow tv series, but it definitely has a lot of the feel of that show now. It’s less about super heroing and more about adventuring and doing right. Sure Ollie is still a hero, he’s hung out with the Justice League and such, but he’s also go this own real problems. I didn’t really know much about Green Arrow before the show started, and the show convinced me to give the book a shot and so far I’m glad it did. This issue does a lot of back story and setup as Ollie and Shado return to the dreaded island, but it’s well needed set up as the issues to come look like they’re going to be action packed! Verdict: Take It Score: 9/10 Reviewed By: Chris

Burn The Orphanage Born To Lose #2 This book is just a lot of fun, it’s a shame it doesn’t release more often honestly. While the first issue had a very Streets of Rage or other side scrolling beat ’em up feel, issue 2 is quite obviously a nod to the classic Mortal Kombat. With our hero being forced into an otherworldly fighting tournament with the fate of worlds on the line. The book is just choked full of humor and action in a perfect mixture. I really can’t express enough how worth while this comic is to read, now we just have to wait a few more months for the third issue of this three part mini-series to come out. Verdict: Take It Score: 9/10 Reviewed By: Chris

Amazing X-Men #2 I’ve always liked Nightcrawler, unfortunately by the time I decided to really get into reading X-Men books he was already dead. So obviously when it was announced he’d be returning I was excited, and after his awesome opening battle in the first issue of Amazing X-Men I couldn’t wait for more. Oh but wait I must as our favorite fuzzy blue elf got nothing more than a single page and some narrative captions in this book. Don’t get me wrong it was still good, Jason Aaron really knows how to write a good X-Men book and Ed McGuinness is at the top of his game with this book. The multiple battles and character cameo’s in this book are more than worth the read. As an Iceman fan as well I particularly enjoyed when he literally froze hell over, come on how badass is that? Verdict: Take It Score: 8/10 Reviewed By: Chris

Inhumanity #1 I didn’t really know what I was going to be getting when I started reading Inumanity, honestly I don’t know a lot about the Inhumans. When I heard Fraction and Madureira would be working on a book though I knew I’d be buying it, so I figured I should at least get up to speed. After all the stuff that went down in Infinity I wasn’t sure if this was going to be about known Inhuman’s like Crystal and Medusa or about all these new ones that are popping up after what Black Bolt did. I’m still not entirely sure, but at least for the moment it looks like it’s going to deal more with establish characters which I’m alright with. Overall it was a pretty interesting issue and I’m looking forward to seeing where the Inhuman’s are going now. My biggest question though, other than the fact they’re Kree science projects what is the actual difference between an Inhuman and a Mutant? They were all once just human with some special genes. I hope this is something Fraction can flesh out in the books, or maybe they’re all going to team up and we’ll have a giant X-Men/Inhuman team running around. Verdict: Take It Score: 7/10 Reviewed By: Chris

Grimm Fairy Tales Presents 2013 Holiday Special Zenescope’s holiday books are almost always a good time, you don’t need to be completely familiar with the current story, just familiar with the character. As usual the story is set around the holidays with several stories being told all involving an evil spirit taking out the naughty ones. Of course several Grimm heroines are linked to this acts as the main setting of the book is a holiday party with Sela, Red, Robyn, and Leslie Van Helsing. I particuarly enjoyed how even though they’ve all caused plenty of destruction and violence over the years Robyn is still the naughty one. You’d think by now she’d get a break. If you’re looking for a fun book with a holiday twist on it this is definitely the book you want to be checking out. Verdict: Take It Score: 7/10 Reviewed By: Chris

Chris talks a bunch on PodQuest each week. He's also been known to write about stuff from time to time. You can Email Chris or follow Chris on Twitter @Just_Cobb or Facebook

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