Justice For Hire

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d6/JFH,_Justice_For_Hire_comic_book_issue_01_cover.jpeg

Written by- Jan Lucanus and Jan C Childress

Art- Antonio Rojo

Publisher- Creative Impulse

The Hook- Two martial artist takes up their parent business of disking out Justice for hire. They add their own twist to it, using media and reality TV. This tell takes place in a world that a throwback to 70’s martial artist but still take place in modern day

Always like the heroes for hire idea. It takes me back to the A-Team. It is good for a comic because you get different clients each time. Here it involves 3 heroes. There are, white male, a female and black male.  There race worth mentioning because it seems to have a MOD SQUAD type vibe...fro and all. While the girl wears high boots and dress like a sexy limo driver. The two males are long time friends who trained together and who fathers were martial artist. One thing I like is they didn’t kill the parents like most super hero origins. Well at least, not at the start. So it no Simba...or Bambi mom scene at the start. This gives a good old school vs. new culture clash because the parents don’t like the way the kids show off a bit. While the younger crew figure it about business. We don’t know yet which is wrong since I am only 1 issue end, but something tells me the show boating will get them in trouble. You have to suspend some disbelief that they would be allowed to go on. One scene involves a sex trade where they opening...well sex trading. Instead of just sending the FBI, CIA, or you know arresting them the SECOND they leave the building they send the martial arts crew in. Also they allow someone getting a head shot on national television. As bad as 24 hours news have gotten it hasn’t reach faces of Deaths level yet. But they establish in this world this is par for course where you can accept it. It even at the point they have completion with rival heroes for hire groups. That a neat idea I hope they explore. Also it shows not everyone cool with how they do business. The arts pretty sweet with a nice dark pencil style. The clothes people where is a nice throw back that I expect people to whip out a bottle of colt 45 at any second. It’s a fun read with some nice action scenes. The action scenes are fluid and shows motion well.  The character isn’t super deep but the passable enough to get you through the action story. All it all a very good read B

M3

M3- issue 0 and 1

Publisher-  Vice Press M3comc.com

Writer- Erica Schultz

The Hook- Young Machiavella Maria Marcona parents were assanated in front of her when she was a child. It left her with only one person to take care of her..the man who assainated her…DUH DUH. Grown up the hitman try to keep her out of the lifestyle but to no avail. She become an assain and goes on a mission of revenge while an FBI agent chasing after her. All while a conspiracy happens around them that they both need to figure out.

To book took me by surprise. I was leaving the comic con and basically the last book I grab before catching the train. I figure 3 dollars why not. When I read the name of the character and find her name was Machiavella…I thought this was going to be a bucket of stupid. I assume it would be hitmen talking about Philosophy while they sip on wine. But it better then that. Its really cool. First the art if pretty good. It very stylish and fit the dark action movie tone. It has a lot of style. The style is realistic but with a bit of a heighten tone. It’s a painted, almost photo and cell shaded style. The style makes you buy it as an action movie thriller.  The main character is sexy but not in a Charlie Angel skimpy clothing type of way. Nor is she unstoppable. If she tries to Leroy Jekins her way through 30 arm guards it will end badly for her. So she is force to be smart. It is a nice scene in issue 2 where, her plan messes up due to a rather small error and she freaks out a bit.  It makes her force to use her brains to get out of things and you get to see her plan her hits. So it gives it an Authenticity. This is not to say it doesn’t have big character that happily chew the screen. It leaves room for cool dialogue for you to enjoy. The relationship between her and the hitman who adopted her is pretty interesting. Now I only got issue 0 and 2. I don’t know if there an issue 1. So I may be missing some details. But I may not get why should I root for this particular killer over the others at time. Nor why should the surrogate father who killed the parents in the first place get off the hook

Shawn Atkinson Bombshells Inc

Shawn Atkinson Bombshells Inc

Written by- Shawn Atkinson

Drawn by Shawn Atkinson

Publisher- Power Smith Studios

The Hook- Think Hero’s for hire with two women instead of men. Takes place in a world where the government made Superheroes. These two women were the first, but as the government advance the formula and made more advance metahumans. This made these women look like beta maxes, with breast...absolete and assign to desk jobs. These women decided to then stop working for the government and become bounty hunter, Bodyguard, and anything else that makes ends meet

One thing that stands out is the art. It is pretty cartoony but not to much so.  It makes all the character seem unique and stand out. My pets peeve in art is characters that look to much the same. This was namely bad during the early image era where EVERYONE LOOKED like Cable. Faces are very hard to make different namely with women. This because artist are afraid to add lines to their face out of fear, of making them look Manish or old. One way around this is to give them big, or multiple color hair. Another way is to make their design and shape different enough where if you saw them in shadow you can still tell who they are. This comic does both of that and it add in some different faces. It has 2 characters 1 black and one white. The white one is a big busty Blond Amazon with big muscles named Casey. They manage not to make her look Manish during this by the way.  The other one a slim...less busty black girl with a huge afro puff and funky dress style Named Sienna. She looks like she could be Luke cage daughter. The black girl uses gun and flight. The white girl uses super strength and heighten durability. This makes the character visual stand out and their type of dress look different. Although it make there disguised silly.  Like dressing as a cheerleader wont hide you if you’re a big muscle bound Amazon. But, that goes with the campy nature at times story. The exaggerated faces give even the background character some personality.

The dialogue is a bit old school and so it some of the story. Although that on purpose. For some that may be a bit to old school. It is like reading a 60-70’s era comics at time. The story pretty breezy. They give you are you need to know about the world pretty quickly. You get to know the character personality in a first few pages and you have a pretty good idea what the story arc going to be about in the last page. The characters manage to avoid the cliques. For instance the black character never raise her fist at say “Racism..the only problem I CANT out fly”. The women dress pretty normally but still sexy and they don’t hit you with GIRL POWER that much. It can be corny at times but pretty Fun.

B

Epic

Epic-

Writer/artist- Anthony Marques

Ferano Ruiz

Bob Hardin

Fabio Redivo

Publisher- www.epicsanthology.com

The Hook- an Anthology series with short stories in each book. Drawn and written in a sometimes old school style. The Book dedicated to Jack Kirby with some of the same sensibilities of the old works.  Going over multiple Genera

This one has 4 stories. First one is a simple a soldier in a Jet pack fighting invading Russians in the late 50’s. The second is about a scientist who owes money to Loan sharks and his Robot. The third is about a lady street racer. The 4^th is a noir mystery about a detective investigating a murder. Each has different arts styles. The third has the most different run with a rough art style. The art on this is pretty good going from Goofy, to rough pants of a 60’s, Warhol’ish pop art style. All the stories drawn by the person that writes it. Some are better artist then they are writers. Sense some of the plots at time just a place to show off their art. And it really good art though. Some are too short, and it really makes you wish they expand on some more. Namely when you know all of these stories are probably one shots and this won’t be retraced. The first story is quick and to the point. Not much story to it. It is just a guy in a Rocket fighting in a city where Russians took over. There are Blimps exploding and the whole Jazz. It is basically just an action scene.  I mean I like seeing evil communist get punch as much as the next Rocky 4 fan, but it more an appetizer then a meal of a story. The second one actually does have plot that works well with the short structure. It has a nice origin story about a guy who soul gets put into a robot. It has a nice middle, beginning and end in a short amount of time. The third is basically those old rebel Teens with fast cars movies in the 60’s. The art pretty rough but that the style it going for. Not the style I like but can’t really say it’s bad either... 4^th one is a good detective story with nice pacing.  If you don’t like some of these, it a good chance you least like one of them.