Review: Zatanna

 Zatana was billed as being written by Paul Dini, and she was one of the surviving members of DC universe's magic community after Alan Moore did in her father in Swamp Thing. Paul Dini had a good reputation and more importantly, the book was free on Amazon Prime reads, so I checked it out and read it.

Unfortunately, Zatana's magic lets her get out of many sticky situations without much effort. There's one scene where she gets injured in such a way where she can't speak, and that's about it. I was disappointing that there's really nothing very insightful about any of the stories. They're all light and easy reading, but you never get a deep insight into Zatanna, or even if there are any limits to her magic.

Review: Magicians - New Class

The Magicians: New Class is a comic book series set after the events of the novels. Despite Lev Grossman's name on the Amazon information page, the comic book series was written by Lilah Sturges, with excellent artist Plus Bak. The plot revolves around Brakebills College admitting 3 hedge magicians as 3rd years for the very first time in the college's history, and those 3 magicians are pulled into a private seminar course with 3 Brakebills college students.

There's a certain conceit about how college works which doesn't work for me --- the rivalry between the hedge magicians and the Brakebills regular doesn't ring true to me, but regardless, the writing is clearly targeted towards a monthly issue magazine --- each issue ends with a cliff-hanger, and we get plot twist after plot twist, as well as some references to characters/events from the novels.

Unfortunately, the comic book plot was written with the expectation of a continuing series, but apparently the series got cancelled after 5 books, so there are a lot of loose ends never tied up. The characters and the foreshadowing also don't work well, and there are no clues that you could possibly use to predict the plot twist. I can see why the series got cancelled after such a short time. The book is only recommended for die-hard fans of the Magicians, but even if you are one you might want to set your expectations low.

Review: Miles Morales: Ultimate Spider-Man 1 and 2

 After playing the Miles Morales video game, Boen asked to read the Miles Morales comic books, so I checked Vol 1 and Vol 2 of the Ultimates Collection out of the library via Hoopla. Being part of the Ultimates universe, this is a different universe and timeline from the mainstream Spiderman books. That didn't confuse Boen - he seemed to understand that the comic books, video games, and movies were all separate universes.

What was annoying, however, was that the story moved at a snail's pace. Having just come off the first collection of Stan Lee's original run, it's quite clear that the new manga-style Spider-man series never told a story in 3 panels when it could do so in  23 pages worth of slow-moving pacing. That's OK when reading manga, because you get a phone book's worth of material in one go and you get a substantial chunk of story, but in a 6-issue format, you just feel ripped off, even when just checking it out of the library for free.

The story also branches off into some cross-over story (Civil War 2?) that never properly resolves, and so things get nice and confusing. We finished both volumes and Boen wanted more, but I'd be damned if I spent any of my hard-earned money for more reader abuse.

Review: Yowamushi Pedal Vol 5-7

Starting from Vol 5, Yowamushi pedal jumped the shark, by introducing what I feared all along, the exposition and star treatment of "secret ninja skills" trotted out by competing cyclists, including one competitor who names his muscles, Frank and Andy (yes, it's funny).

The thing about cycling is that the history of cycling is replete with legends that could use illustration in manga or comic book form, like that of Eugene Christophe or even the stars of the past like Eddy Merckx. The fictional stuff in Yowamushi pedal can't even compare.

What makes it worse is that none of the team tactics deployed in real cycling races show up in the comic, including strategic placing of someone in a breakaway to try to break up the rhythm of a lead group, or even working together as a team to tire out an opposing cyclist.

I'm dejected enough to take a break from the series for a while after the promising earlier start. Not recommended.