Comic Chunks: Of beginnings and an end

In this week’s comic chunks, we have Lady Mechanika #0, Dethklok #1, Valkyrie #1 and Buffy the Vampire Slayer #37.

Lady Mechanika from Aspen just debuted this October and at the rate of how fast it sold out in a few comic stores here, you can tell that it’s been anticipated by quite a lot of readers.

For one thing, the genre of the story is steampunk! Hurray for clockwork gadgetry and whatnot.

As I begin page one, I can’t help but read everything in a British accent and we’re treated to a long shot view of Lady Mechanika, also focusing on her creepy red/black glowy eyes. Ooh-er.

Issue #0 is a very good intro book as it summarizes that she’s kick-ass, fighting demons and yet has some sort of amnesia to not know what she exactly is? There are parts of her that have been fixed up with mechanical bits and thus, this is probably why she is called Lady Mechanika. Besides her, we get to know the opposition!

What excites me is that this is really like a book out of the steampunk genre! Sure, the whole “amnesia” thing has been played over and over again in other stories but this is turning into a promising set up. We’ll see when issue #1 gets printed. It does remind me of Hellboy slightly. A sexier, more female and mechanical version of Hellboy?

Meanwhile, Dethklok is a fictional band from a cartoon series on Adult Swim called Metalocalypse. Dark Horse came out with Dethklok #1 and it seems to be an ongoing comic series about the band.

Of course, for those who have watched the cartoons or if you don’t get cable and watched it via Youtube or other sources, you’d know this is more of a comedic story.

In their premiere issue, they’re talking about frozen foods.

Yes.

Frozen foods that are the latest merchandise by the band. You can tell things are getting ridiculous including what their fans do. However, if you know the series, it’s nothing too surprising, heh. Next issue comes out on 17 November. Still, this is a series that’s probably going to be enjoyable more to the fans of the show than those who’d randomly pick it up just to see it. An issue or two is ok but a whole series? Hmmm.

Valkyrie #1 in the meantime is just a one-shot to explain the re-emergence of Valkyrie… Or Brunhilde whichever name you’re prefer to read her as. And it started with her falling off a roof being attacked by some guy when she was still “human”.

So, she gets dead, gets tended to by the ambulance people before she remembers herself and busts out of the ambulance with a sword out of nowhere. I’m sure that freaked out the medics who had been trying to help her.

Brunhilde goes on to get revenge on the guy who killed her and is gets pretty scary waving her sword about even to the cops since she’s still confused.

Anyway, she finds the Wasp aka Janet van Dyne and remembers more about herself. As we go on to know more about her, we find out who was the one who killed her. Lots of RAR-RAR-I-don’t-hate-men-I-just-hate-those-that-are-jerks clarification because a lot of people think she’s anti-man like Wonder Woman from DC. Nonetheless, it tells me more about her instead of just being a blonde Red Sonja from Marvel.

Pretty neat since I don’t think anyone else dies as much as her? As in not Dark Phoenix kind of dead but more of she gets reborn multiple times to be Valkyrie. I’m not putting DC’s characters into that account since there’s Spectre etc there.

Finally, in Buffy the Vampire Slayer #37, the issue is co-written by Joss Whedon and it seems that the last few issues for this arc will be written by him. What’s interesting is that when he wrote #37, the ridiculous insane plots just got just a tad insane.

Even he can’t write away the weirdness of the past few issues but he certainly brought forth the other characters into play more.

You get to see more of what the others are doing or holding up and while Buffy and Angel are still a bit out of character, Spike (even with his motley crew of bug aliens) is the one who’s being sensible about everything.

Tons of tentacle monsters are appearing and destroying the world, lots of slayers trying to kill them and oh hey, the “new universe” comes to Angel in the form of a griffin. Le sigh. Looks like my prediction from the last comic chunk in one of the issues was right. Since Joss Whedon is finishing it up though, it will be much more enjoyable and less rubbishy than what we had in the previous few issues.

That’s it for this week boys and girls. Also a note, remember to reserve a comic of whatever upcoming issues that will appear in the future that you’re interested in. Sometimes, going to a comic store early doesn’t help especially when the guy next to you manages to get the last copy before you. Aaaaagh.