Simon Spurrier

Access a version of the below that includes illustrations on my blog.

I normally would be doubly skeptical of a story tying into both Secret Wars (ugh) and Marvel Zombies (double ugh), but then I saw it was by Simon Spurrier, who was one of the contributors to Titan's excellent The Eleventh Doctor: Year Two series, so I decided to give it a chance. I read the Ms. Marvel Secret Wars tie-ins back in the day; I only have the foggiest notion what it was about. I think a bunch of timelines got smushed together into the same planet? You don't really even need to know that to understand this, as long as you're willing to accept 1) Elsa Bloodstone is commanding an army against a horde of zombies, and 2) it's possible to run into multiple versions of the same character.

This isn't high art, but it is surprisingly enjoyable and well done for what it is. Spurrier and artist Kev Walker take the post-Nextwave version of Elsa Bloodstone, but treat the character more seriously than Ellis and Immonen did. What would it be like to grow up with all this trauma? How would it affect you as an adult, and how could you relate to others after it happened? Spurrier explores this with a mix of horror and humor, and I wouldn't say I loved it, but it's much better than it needed to be. Walker impressed me as an artist, too; good with both character and action. At one point, I thought, "wow this guy should draw Star Wars"... later I realized he was the artist for Marvel's Doctor Aphra series, and I was probably subconsciously remembering some of the art I'd seen for that.

The collection also contains one issue of the original Marvel Zombies series as a bonus, but no one's tricking me into reading that shit.

Elsa Bloodstone: « Previous in sequence | Next in sequence »… (mehr)

Chaos Marines are rather disturbing folks and the most disturbing Chaos Marines Legion is of course the Night Lords Legion. I wonder who ever,I mean ever(!!) thought up this guys to be good-guys (a any point in W40K time-line ) is beyond me.

Using techniques and methods that are horrendous this Legion is the only Traitor Legion that lives with Chaos in some weird sort of symbiosis (never truly succumbing to it) and has extremely low opinion of and holds some very very very bad feelings towards the Emperor.

Throughout this rather bloody and grim SF horror tale we get the glimpse of Night Lords' heritage, main characters doubts and fears and end up (at least I do for quite some time after reading W40K novels) with questions - what truly is the goal of the Emperor, is it possible that he-who-knows-oh-so-much just wasn't able to predict how his sons (Primarchs) will behave? Also are all the Traitor Primarchs truly traitors or...?

Very interesting book (if you like SF horror stories you'll like this one even if you are not into W40K lore).

Recommended.… (mehr)

Aphra escapes the clutches of Vader once again while her former lover and her father join the rebellion at Hoth. Aphra destroys important intel for the Empire, giving the Rebels time to prepare on Hoth for battle/escape (too bad they don't use this time wisely based on events in TESB) and goes on the run.

This sets up a great place for a movie or TV show to pick up...with Aphra on the run, being hunted by Vader, perhaps she goes for one last score and her former lover and dad come to try to save her but it's too late. C'mon Disney, give me a Doctor Aphra movie or TV show set during the OT, please!… (mehr)