Free Comic Book Day Reviews

Our man Kyle sent in his reviews of some of the freebies available on Free Comic Book Day, and with his permission I'll share his comments with you.

He writes:

Here's my attempt at some brief spoiler-free comments on what I picked up for FCBD...

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Dark Horse) - I liked the Clone Wars story, probably not enough to pick up the comics but enough to make me want to rent the movie.

Usagi Yojimbo was excellent as usual.

Emily the Strange was totally not my thing, I didn't like the artwork at all, and after getting through half of the second page I realized I liked the story even less and didn't even bother to finish, BLEH...

I thought Beanworld was okay, back in the Eclipse days, I was was a huge Airboy and Scout fan but never got into Beanworld.

Indiana Jones was nothing special, maybe I was expecting more when I saw Mark Evanier's name as the writer...

Wolverine (Marvel): I enjoyed this more than I thought I would... I must not have been paying attention at the beginning because the last two pages totally surprised me! I had to go back and, re-read the first two pages and yup, totally should have seen that coming. It was a good all ages Marvel Adventures-style story.

DC Kids Mega Sampler (DC): The Billy Batson and Magic of Shazam was a reprint of first issue, so nothing new there. The Batman Brave and Bold was good, I really enjoy the cartoon, it was nice to see it translate pretty well to print. Tiny Titans was as good as ever, although a couple of the strips I had seen before. Were they in last year's FCBD issue? Maybe I read a preview on-line... I just can't seem to fork out $2.50 an issue for this series, even though it is always a good (if brief) read.

Nancy/Melvin (Drawn & Quarterly): Didn't care for the Melvin Monster half and thought the Nancy half was just okay. Nancy seems to be pretty popular (popular enough to warrant some collected editions, I guess), but just doesn't seem to do anything for me. I really liked the faded yellow newsprint though, I thought that was a great touch.

Blackest Night (DC): I liked this a lot, I haven't read any Green Lantern or Green Lantern Corps since long before the relaunch, but had no trouble following along. It really sucked me into wanting to buy the series, then I saw the last page... 24 issue checklist?!?! At least $2.99+tax each minimum probably, so no thanks... I wonder how many are really essential to the story? If anything I'll just wait for the trade of the "main series". I did get Sinestro Corps War Vol. 1 in the mail today (as well as the Diana Prince: Wonder Woman TPB... thanks for the recommendation Chuck!), so that will definitely influence whether I end up checking this out or not.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Mirage): Wow! 25 years! This really brought me back, I loved this when it first came out... I think I started with issue 7 off the rack and quickly got the back issues... or at least whatever xth printing I could find! Man those first prints were expensive and rare... even back then! I really loved this series, at least the first dozen issues and one-shots or so... I sold all my Turtle issues a long while back so was nice to get this.

Great job - thanks, Kyle!