Red Sonja #3 by Gail Simone (Comics Review)

My love for everything that Gail writes is no longer a surprise. Or it shouldn’t be at any rate. She is one of the best writers working in the industry right now and a good part of it is because she is able to portray her characters so well. And her scripts are always exciting, no matter what. I’ve been following her from series to series, whether that be her original run on Birds of Prey, or the second, or Batgirl, or The Movemehernt, or even Red Sonja. And I can’t wait to read her Tomb Raider comic when it comes out.

With Red Sonja, for two issues now, Gail has presented a very nuanced and personal take on the titular character and this is something that she continues in the new issue. But this time, she takes things a step further and presents a much more modern and ass-kicking back-story for the character, something that has been in Sonja’s lore since her very inception. And it rocks.

Justice League #23.1 by Greg Pak (Comics Review)

Darkseid is one my all-time favourite supervillains in the DC Universe. My love for the character, or rather I should say my hate-love for the character began from the days of Superman: The Animated Series and continued through to the Justice League animated series. He’s just such a great villain. Which is why I didn’t really care much for how he was portrayed in Season 10 of Smallville, which I think, was a really bad portrayal. He is such an iconic villain and he got a… less-than-cameo.

And then came the first arc of the relaunched Justice League for the New 52 and we got to see some great action with the big bad himself. It was less than what I wanted, mainly because Geoff Johns told a very condensed story, but I was still delighted to see Darkseid in comics again. So when DC announced a Darkseid one-shot for Villain’s Month, I got all kinds of excited, until I saw that it was being written by Greg Pak, a writer I’ve barely been impressed by. His Silver Surfer: Devolution was so-so, but his first three issues of Batman/Superman have been rather boring.

I was really anxious going in, and it seems that Greg Pak justified all my fears with this origin story.