SONIC BOOM!! Seriously, one day I will catch up on everything
Welcome back to another installment of Sonic Boom, our kind of fortnightly review of some of the comics being put out by Boom Studios. This week has been an awkward one as Boom have neglected to include a number of previews of upcoming issues in their press release, so have had to find other means to read some of the books.
First up from about two weeks ago now we have Hypernaturals, the new ongoing written by Abnett & Lanning, with art provided by Brad Walker and Andres Guinaldo. So the first issue of this was a free comic book day edition in which the earths premier superhero team (or the latest incarnation of them) mysteriously vanishes on a distant planet. The first issue then picks up the story right after the teams disappearance, but not before shoe-horning in the older team facing a villain named Sublime (don’t worry I’m sure Marvel wont sue). we then discover this is the nightmare of former team member Hatch. The story moves along to a point where current team liaison Creena is giving a press conference regarding the teams disappearance.
Following this Creena and former team member Poul Inderson recruit some newbies to the team, who i’m sure wont get killed at all. Creena and Poul reveal themselves to the newbies to be former Hypernatural team members (dumb kids didn’t even recognise them). The Quartet travel to the planet the other team vanished from, and discover that Sublime has literally burnt his fingerprint into the side of the planet, his name is a key, which releases a load of aliens…..to be continued.
Not really impressed with this to be honest, Abnett and Lanning have done much better cosmic stories than this during their tenure at Marvel, and indeed even working at BOOM. Despite saying that, I’m sure I will probably end up reading all the issues when they come out.
Also, I dropped the ball and missed Higher Earth by Sam Humphries (Fanboys vs Zombies), so basically here is a quick catch up. There is a man who looks a lot like Cable (one eye dodgy, grey hair, tough nasty exterior) who rescues a young girl with red hair called Heidi (or Hope, we can call her hope if you want). Rex and Heidi are on the run from the authorities, and the great thing is they are running away across alternate earths. When they are discovered on an alternate earth they are informed “You are illegal on this earth”. There are pretty dire consequences for being illegal, and I suspect that is why Rex is on the run. This issue ends with Cable and Hope….sorry Rex and Heidi, escaping one world, only to end up in a dinosaur inhabited world, and face to face with a T-Rex.
Boom drew everyone in with the very low price first issue of this, and I think this issue was clever as whilst it didn’t move the plot along too much, it showed how bad some of the earths out there are. Sam Humphries appears to be everywhere at the moment, and with story telling like this, he deserves to be.
Finally this week, we have another Sam Humphries book (told you he was everywhere), Fanboys vs Zombies issue four hit the shelves this week, and it was brilliant. Last issue ended with new addition to the group J-Mac committing the ultimate newb error of separating from the group during a Zombie attack, and was subsequently bitten, bringing the infected count up to two, with no drink left to neutralise the virus. This issue rocks, the team discover that actually J-mac is immune to the virus and there is a weird moment where they all kiss in order to pass around his immunity. But my favorite part of this issue is that Hollywood heart-throb/coward Drake Masterson finally kicks some zombie arse, using a giant sword, in a scene very reminiscent of one of the issue one variants.
Anyway the team get to Missy’s helicopter in time to have it explode, and that where they see this months cliffhanger reveal which is pant wettingly good. I was discussing this book with Rob Fish of Fish4comics and Mathew Grant today, and we al agreed that everything about this book is perfect, the art is crisp and clean, and heavily Ramos influenced. The colours are really well done, and make the artwork that much better, and the writing is just brilliant. The best thing about the covers is the variation in them with ramos providing a cover each issue, as well as Legendary Zombie atist Arthur Soydam producing great homage work, this weeks being Superman lifting a car in a group of Zombies. Once again Fanboys vs Zombies is my Boom Studios 619 of the week.
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