REQUIEM VAMPIRE KNIGHT Book 1 review

REQUIEM: VAMPIRE KNIGHT graphic novel (Collects RESURECTION and DANSE MACABRE stories)

Writer: Pat Mills

Art: Olivier Ledroit

Published by Panini Books

Review by Stewart Loud

From the godfather of British comics Pat Mills, comes this frighteningly original and deliriously dark story about German officer Heinrich's horrific journey into a demonic afterlife filled with vampires, zombies, dark gods and mutants. Like something out of the sort of nightmares I get when I forget to take my medication, this comic blew my fucking mind with just how messed up it is!

UNTOLD TALES OF THE PUNISHER MAX #1 Review

Writer: Jason Starr

Art: Roland Boschi

Colour: Dan Brown

Review by Stewart Loud

With the death of Frank in the MAX ongoing series, Marvel have launched a 5 part mini series telling standalone short stories set before his recent death after his battle against the Kingpin. #1 isn't brilliant to be honest. It's a nice enough story about criminal shenanigans but since the Punisher only appears briefly at the very beginning and end of the comic, and all of the other characters featured are new to the MAX universe, there's not much to connect you to what's going on.

PROMETHEUS Review

Director: Ridley Scott

Writers: Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof

Starring: Michael Fassbender, Idris Elba, Sean Harris, Noomi Rapace, Charlize Theron, Logan Marshal-Green and Guy Pearce

Review by Stewart Loud

Ridley Scott's long awaited sci-fi spectacular is here at last. So, does it live up to the hype? I think it does.....well.....apart from the utterly senseless ending but I'll get to that later.

THE BOYS: BUTCHER, BAKER, CANDLE STICK MAKER review

Writer: Garth Ennis

Art: Darick Robertson

Published by Dynamite Entertainment

Review by Stewart Loud

War, brutality, Infant murder, a messed up childhood and more than a couple of supes getting horribly killed. The mysteries of Billy Butcher's past are finally revealed in the last of the Boys origin stories and as you'd probably expect, it's not for the faint hearted.

AVENGERS ASSEMBLE review

Director: Joss Whedon

Starring: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlet Johanson, Mark Ruffalo and and Chris Hemsworth
Review by Stewart Loud

Did you ever have that conversation with your mates when you were a kid at school, about how great it would be if they made one massive comic book movie that had loads of characters in it like some sort of special event cross over? I did. We'd talk about who'd be in it, what stories they could use, possible set pieces and ideas for the action scenes. Even play with the idea of writing to film companies with our ideas. but deep down we were always sure it would never actually happen and even if it did it'd likely just turn out to be a load of shit that bore little resemblance to the comics it was based on. Comic book movies when I was a nipper were few and far between and what was around very rarely came close to doing the source material justice.

GHOST RIDER 2: SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE review

Directors: Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor

Writers: Scott M. Gimple, Seth Hoffman and David S. Goyer

Starring: Nicholas Cage, Ciaran Hinds, Idris Elba and Christopher Lambert

Review by Stewart Loud

Cinema 3D might be a load of crap but this film definitely isn't. Directed by the guys responsible for the Crank films, this high octane fire fest is everything you could possibly expect from a film about a flaming skeleton who rides a motorbike. Nicholas Cage's hair is looking a lot better than it did in the first one too.

MAZEWORLD graphic novel review

Collects THE HANGED MAN, THE DARK MAN and THE HELL MAZE originally published in 2000ad progs 1014-1023, 1101-1110 and 1151-1160

Writer: Alan Grant

Art: Arthur Ranson

Published by Rebellion

Review and pictures (most of them) by Stewart Loud

Described on the cover as “a nightmarish fantasy” that's exactly what this epic tale is. Read this and you'll lose yourself in one of the most original story lines ever to be published in the pages of long running British comic 2000ad. Mazeworld is the kind of setting I imagine you'd end up with if Studio Gibli made a movie that was a cross between Lord Of The Rings and the old Another World computer game on the PC. Dark, frightening, violent and relentlessly inventive from start to finish, Mazeworld is second only to Pat Mills', Requiem: Vampire Knight in terms of how unique it is.