The Tomb of Dracula #65 Review

Today marks the beginning of my Halloween specials. For the next couple weeks I'm going to review a Horror or Monster Movie comic. So since I don't have to explain who Dracula is to anyone let's get started. The comic opens with Rachel van Helsing shocked to discover that Dracula has lost his vampire powers. She goes to see Quincey Harker and the group to discuss if they should still hunt him if he is no longer a vampire.

Meanwhile "Cowboy" Brown tortures a vampire in order to figure out who killed his employers daughter. The vampire tells him it was Dracula. So Brown kills the vampire, and leaves to find Dracula. Dracula walks around a alley when he runs into a woman named Harriet doing drugs. She calls him John, and asks him if if wants to go to her place. When they get there it's revealed that Dracula still has some of his old habits like needing permission to enter a house and being repelled by crosses. Dracula asks her why she takes drugs but is interrupted by Drug dealers who are after Harriet because she stole drugs from them.

One of the Drug Dealers punches Harriet and Dracula pushes him in to a table. Another one of the Drug Dealers shoots Dracula which injures him since he is now human. In retaliation he pushes the Drug Dealer out a window. The police arrive, and arrest Dracula. At the police station Harriet tells the police the truth and Dracula is free to go. But when a photographer tries to take his picture for the newspaper he attacks him and escapes the police station. The police try to chase after him but he is still fast even without his vampire powers.

Dracula comes up with a plan to find his daughter Lilith in order to regain his powers. But this is difficult due to the fact he`s not use to the sun. He wanders into the street where he is almost hit by a car. He gets into an argument with the driver, and a bunch of people chase after him because he attacked the driver.

Dracula goes to an airbase in order to steal a plane, and the comic ends with "Cowboy" Brown getting ready to kill Dracula. I really like this comic. The art and the writing is great for the 70's and I really like the characters. I think I'm going to read more of this, and I recommend it.

Rating: 4.5/5

But the Halloween specials will continue next week when we take a look at some thing really horrifying. Another Flashpoint tie-in!!!!

The Lost Post: "Frankenstein 1970" First Thoughts

 

This was originally posted on July 6, 2011. Since it was an old movie I took it down but since Halloween is coming up I thought I would re-upload it: 

 Instead of going to Transformers 3 this week and wasting my money, I thought I would stay home and watch an old monster movie. Luckily "Frankenstein 1970" was on TV. Frankenstein 1970 takes place in the futuristic year of 1970. The film itself came out in 1958, so the film takes place 12 year into the future(or 41 years in the past depending on the way you look at it) even though everything is the same as it was in 1958. So the date really doesn't matter.

The movie stars Boris Karloff who is most well known for playing Frankenstein's monster in the most popular adaptation of Mary Shelly's novel. In this movie Karloff plays Baron Victor Von Frankenstein the grandson to the original Frankenstein who was tortured at the hands of the Nazis for not creating a monster for them during World War II.

















A film crew wishes to make a movie about his grandfathers monster and shoot it in the Baron's house. The Baron uses the money from the crew's rent to buy an atomic reactor and uses it to create a his own monster, transplanting his butler's brain into the thing and using it to kill off the crew for more spare parts.

















The movie isn't that bad for it's time, the lighting is great and the set itself is good. Karloff does a great job, evil but sympathetic. He wishes for the Frankenstein legacy to live on, but doesn't have children. So he creates a monster in his image so that the name Frankenstein will live on forever. The monster itself looks more like the Mummy then Frankenstein's monster but at the end of the day it's still pretty cool.

 Rating: 3.5/5

Comic Panel of the Week: Groovy

Darkwing Duck #1 Review

Today where going to look at something good. Darkwing Duck was a TV show in the 90's about a  anthropomorphic duck superhero whose alter ego is mild-mannered single parent Drake Mallard. I use to watch it when I was younger but I can't really remember much about it. So let's get started with Darkwing Duck #1. The cover is great, it seems to be a parody of Batman the Animated Series something that happens quite a bit in this new series. The comic opens with a flashback of Drake remembering the days when he was Darkwing Duck, and stopping criminals.

We cut to present day where Quackwerks Corporation has stopped control of crime, and Drake works there. At a meeting Drake questions the city's dependence on the Quackwerks' crimebots but the manager assures him that everything is great now.

The meeting is interrupted by Drake's daughter, who thinks her teachers are working for a supervillian. He tells her that there aren't anymore supervillians. When he goes back to work a surprising person is working there. It turns out Megavolt has retired as well, and works with Drake. Megavolt is suspicious about Drake since he reminds him of someone.

 Drake keeps being reminded of the Good Old Days. Meanwhile Megavolt is kidnapped on his way home. When Drake get's home the calls Lanchpad but doesn't respond when he answers. He is interrupted by a loud crash, and Drake runs downstairs to find the Crimebots who are there to arrest Honker for illegally downloading music off the internet. Drake tries to stop them but gets shocked. His daughter comes with his costume and tells him the only way to stop them is by being Darkwing Duck.

The comic ends with Megavollts kidnappers revealed to be the other Supervillians who are trying to put the group back together. This comic was pretty good. The art is great, and the jokes are clever with the exception of some duck related puns. I recommend this.

Rating: 3.5/5

Next week will be October and I've planned to do Halloween theme reviews all October. So see you there!

Comic Panel of the Week: Joker's Standards

Even the Joker has some standards.

Red Hood and the Outlaws #1 Review

SPOILER WARNING

Today we are going to look at something that I've been looking forward to for a while now, and how disappointing it was when I got it. This is the first "Batman" comic I've read in the reboot. The last two weeks I got Action Comics #1 where Superman acted much more like Batman then Superman, and Superboy #1 where they give him a origin in which he kills a bunch of people and hangs out in virtual reality with Deathstroke's daughter. Anyway  let take a look at Red Hood and the Outlaws #1.

The cover isn't that bad, however there is one problem. In a interview Scott Loboell states he's trying to have the Red Hood move on from Batman even though there's a bat in the logo and the Red Hood himself has a bat symbol on his chest. It's not like it was always there they added that to his costume. Anyway the comic opens with Red Hood revealing Roy Harper tried to help the people of Qurac overthrow a brutal dictator, afterwards the people hired assassins to put Roy in jail.

Sorry to go off on a tangent but Roy's character is a bit messed up. In the miniseries Cry for Justice Roy lost his arm and his daughter. This caused him to start using drugs again, and he turned evil. But in this reboot he has his arm back, and apparently he's" too young" to have a daughter so why is he evil. Why isn't he Red Arrow. Anyway Jason breaks Roy out by pretending to be a priest reading Roy his last rites. Batman did something similar in the Batman The Brave and the Bold episode Chill of the Night.

They get away but are surrounded by tanks, and they are saved by Starfire. After a hard day of work they go rest on a beach, which is only here for fanservice since Starfire is in a bikini swimming. She also narrates how she can't tell human boys apart. While this is happening Jason talks to Roy about how her species has short attentions spans, and that she won't remember being part of the Titian's. First, why? Secondly, how does the Flash stopping himself from saving his mother change a race of aliens genetic makeup? Also what happened to Jason's white strand of hair? It was an effect of using Ra's Al Ghul's Lazarus Pit to bring him back to life. So what happened to it, and for that matter what happened to Scarlett you know Jason's sidekick? The girl who he risked his life, Dick Grayson's life, and  Damian Wayne's life in order to save her.

Anyway Jason goes to talk to his imaginary friend named Essence. They talk about a mysterious new group called Untitled that Jason apparently fought before but since we've never heard about it before it's just confusing especially since they talk about it in the past tense like it all ready happened. While that is happening this happens:

This is unbelievably out of character for Starfire. Why? Why does no one act like themselves? Why did Scott Loboell feel it completely necessary to make Starfire such a slut? And don't give me any of that empowered crap, there's a difference between a empowered woman and one that has meaningless sex just because she can. This is all the Flash's fault for making this universe where sex and violence thrives and where Character's just act completely different for no f#cking reason.

They go have sex. Meanwhile in Chicago a man finds a picture of Starfire a kid took while she was sunbathing. The man recognizes her as a Tamaranean. Jason leaves by himself to find information about Untitled, and the comic ends with Jason being surrounded by a bunch of evil people on the Himalayas.

This comic isn't good, most of the characters act completely out of characters, and the fact they completely ruined Starfire. Plus it raises a lot of questions, I mean the ending says To Be Explained instead of being To Be Continued. The art is pretty good but it's not enough. I'm not getting the second issue, and I'm done with this crappy reboot.

Rating: 1/5

Comic Panel of the Week: Medieval Spawn