Check out my review of the Mafex Dark Knight Trilogy Joker!

Check out my review of Marvel Select Carnage!

Carnage

Check out my review of the most recent Select Hawkeye!

Damn. What a great read. I don't know what it is about creepy old towns, but I love the stories that can arise from them. And the TREES! Holy shit, something about the looming branches and gnarled roots just gives me goosebumps. I'm reading Wytches by Scott Snyder and those trees freak me out too. Harrow County definitely shook me up a little.

We're given a brief backdrop of the history of Harrow County right from the first pages. An eerie tale of the town witch, Hester Beck. There was a duality to her. She was known as a healing woman by the townfolk, yet wherever she went, livestock dropped dead. She held sermons and baptisms at Sulfur Creek in the presence of the local children, and the people of Harrow County were disconcerted by this. Eventually, they discovered her in the act of something unforgivable, and did what any old-timey townfolk would do. Hang her from a tree and set her on fire. As her face melted away, the witch whispered a promise...a promise that she will return to judge those who killed her.



It is now present day, and we are introduced to 17 year old Emmy. Haunted by dreams of ghouls and ghosts, she wakes and sees this huge tree outside her window. This tree has caused her a lot of distress and you understand why as soon as you see it. A barn on the farm Emmy lives on gives shelter to a birthing mama cow. The calf comes out bloodied, and another just a few feet away looks like its insides were torn out. This continues with more animals on this farm, and I think she began to see a pattern. I'm afraid of going into this further for fear of giving away too much, so I'll stop there. However, it seems like Emmy's Pa has some kind of idea on what's happening.



In the final scene, we see Emmy wandering through the woods close to her farm. She felt trapped at the farm, and the woods were a way for her to escape that feeling. She comes across a boy on the other side of the creek. She calls out to him, and in good creepy story fashion, he runs away. She chases after him and is lead through a thick gathering of thorns. I'll let you try to guess what she finds...



Sorry about the intermittent reviews these past couple of weeks. Work has been getting crazy and I won't be able to get a review out next week because I'm getting officially initiated into the union I work for. Because of that, I wanted to make sure I got something out for you guys this week. As always, support the art. Buy the book if it interests you. If you don't buy it, they don't make it!

Check out my podcast on iTunes and Stitcher also. Just me and my friends bullshitting, so if you have an hour to kill on a drive, at work, or anything like that, give it a listen! Thanks everyone.

Convergence has taken over my life. I didn't want it to be this way, but I have bought into the madness. Okay, maybe I'm lying. I was pretty excited when hearing of this massive event spanning all of DC's comic book universes. However, I didn't expect it to be this far-reaching. Much of the ongoing story lines and universes are ones I am very unfamiliar with. Being sort of a n00b to the whole comic book game, I have a very limited amount of information and back story on them. So for any future Convergence reviews I do, I will be taking the position of someone who has no idea what the hell has been going on in all these multiple universes. That won't be too hard considering that's the exact position I'm in!

What I've enjoyed the most so far of this whole Convergence madness is that you really feel the chaotic nature of the circumstances at hand. Every story from these past 3 weeks has taken place right before Telos' voice rings loud throughout the multiverse as he communicates to the lesser beings that they will fight to the death until one city stands. The reason I chose to review The Flash this week is because I think it shines a light on the struggle the heroes have gone through being powerless and lost under the dome.




I can imagine it being pretty damn demoralizing for the "Fastest Man Alive" to not only jog alongside the common people, but to be outrun by them. Barry Allen clings to the hopes that everything will turn back to normal. He'll get his powers back, he'll be with Iris West again, and that things will just go back to the way they used to be. Yet, there is a part of him that is trying to grasp the concept that this new life they lead is the way it will be forever. It's been a year under the dome and nobody has any clue who did it, why they did it, or how they will fix it. All he does now is run and work. 

Later that day, he meets with his universe's Bruce Wayne, and it seems more like a therapy session than a lunch between friends. As Barry leaves to return to the Gotham City Police Department where he works, the voice familiar to Convergence readers booms across the dome. "CITIZENS OF MY WORLD! NOW IS THE TIME! THE HOUR IS NEAR! JUDGMENT IS HERE!" Suddenly, Barry feels the power of the Speed Force surges through his body once again, and hope is still alive.




The art in this book is beautiful too. It's probably been my favorite art so far out of all these Convergence titles to come out. Federico Dallocchio did a fantastic job illustrating this version of Gotham City, and colorist Veronica Gandini really made the scenery pop.

There is a great resource for those of you who don't feel like reading 11 titles a week in order to keep up with this event. the DCR Podcast has been covering every Convergence title in a very entertaining way, If you don't want to read every issue, just plug in your headphones and let these guys give you a rundown of what's going on! Their episodes recapping the week usually come out a couple days after the comics so keep your eye out for that.

I'd also like to say, thanks for being patient with me. Last week I wasn't able to get a review up due to my work and school load. 60 hour weeks are killer and schoolwork and homework on top of that make it very hard for me to do the things I enjoy so thanks for still checking in! Do me a favor and check out my podcast on iTunes and Stitcher and if you could, leave a quick little rating and review! You guys are the shit!

CONVERGENCE IS UPON US! Well holy shit, this is crazy. DC's Convergence event is finally here. Things have been set in motion and I cannot wait to see how it unravels!

So, I'm relatively new to the whole collecting comic books gig. It's been an amazing experience, but there is something that has always thrown me off about these huge superhero universes! I find the whole continuity, keeping up with multiple universes thing pretty difficult, especially since I got into comics during the wrapping up stages of DC's New 52 titles. 

It takes some serious research to get up to speed with each different universe, and there really is a limit to how much you understand about them unless you've read all the material. I can imagine how hard it would be to juggle all this Infinite Crisis, Zero Hour, pre-New 52, pre-Flashpoint, post-Flashpoint, Kingdom Come, Injustice craziness if you aren't a comic book reading MACHINE. So in that sense, I'm actually really happy Convergence is happening. It seems like an effort to tie up all these straggling universes and meld everything into one cohesive story line moving forward. Executing an event of this scale seems like a hefty task, and I feel that DC has brought on some of the best writers and artists in the business to usher in this new era.




The beginning of the book shows a disaster in what appears to be the universe influenced by the Injustice: Gods Among Us titles. You can kinda tell based on Batman and Flash's suits, as well as the crazed and psychotic look in Superman's piercing red eyes. Gotham City has been decimated, and it's citizens have been annihilated. A booming message fills the air, yet they cannot find the source. 




In a different universe, Thomas Wayne and Dick Grayson are zapped into the sky and land on the dusty ground of an unknown desert. Now, these iterations of Batman and Grayson are not to be confused with the Flashpoint Batman and super spy Grayson (thanks to a couple redditors for checking me on that). Following closely behind are other Earth-2 heroes Jay Garrick (Flash), Val Zod (Superman) and Alan Scott (Green Lantern). Ripped from a battle with Darkseid, they now try to figure out what the hell is going on as their powers start to fade.


ENTER TELOS! Cosmic being with a set of orders from Brainiac to pit different universes against each other in a Hunger Games-style tournament until one city stands victorious! It it destiny. It is Convergence. Witness...it has begun!

You guys, this is the beginning of something INSANE. I got a rush just reading this first issue. It's a lot to digest right off the bat, but I feel like these writers are really putting in an effort to make all this multiverse mumbo-jumbo palatable for the layman. You MUST get this book.

Also real quick, I'd like to apologize for skipping my weekly review last week. Some personal stuff came up and it had to be dealt with. But I'm back in action and excited as ever for what's to come in the following months! Be sure to check out the rest of the Unparallelled Universe blog!

Aaaaand ONE more thing. So me and a couple friends decided to start a podcast. We bullshit around and talk about kinda silly stuff. It's for fun, and if you have some time to kill, you should definitely check it out. The podcast is in no way affiliated with Unparalleled Universe, just something I'm doing and I'd love for you to check it out! Thanks so much!


Suggested Listening: Molossus composed by Hans Zimmer for the Batman Begins score

Favorite Quote: "Citizens of my world! I have brought this convergence upon you. Now is the time. The hour is near. Judgment is here. Only one city shall survive, only the strong." - Telos

Marvel Knights: The Inhumans What's up everyone? I am here to show you a couple of customs I made recently.  If you read my last post about customs, you know that I haven't been able to put a lot of time into customizing for the last couple of years but that's about to change. Here I have two customs I would like to share with you,  Marvel Legends Style Triton and Gorgon from Marvel's Inhumans Royal Family.  I have always been a huge fan of the Inhumans.  I really liked that they were a family but all very different from each other and I was always fond of the strange powers each of them have.  It's nice to see all the attention they are getting these days but to be honest, it feels kind of forced and generally not very exciting. A lot of people say Marvel is trying to have them replace mutants because Fox blah blah rights blah blah.  Those kinds of conversations make it difficult for me to enjoy this new Inhuman uprising, I always liked the fact the Inhumans were kind of like Marvel's hidden eccentric treasure. With all that said,  I really enjoyed the Uncanny Inhumans comic that recently came out. It is definitely hard to hate on a Blackbolt VS King the Conquerer no matter how you look at it.  You should check that out for some great Blackbolt action.  One of my favorite Inhumans stories is the Marvel Knights Inhumans by Paul Jenkins & Jae Lee. It is a really interesting story about the Inhumans and their culture, it almost feels like a documentary. You can pick that up here...Marvel Knights:The Inhumans

Let's start off with Gorgon.  It seems like he is pretty much always drawn different, unless we are talking about his Kirby days. He is the General of the Inhumans army,  cousin to Blackbolt and the royal family's resident hot head.  I didn't really go with any specific look for him with this custom, but I would say this custom is somewhere between his Marvel Knights look and his War Of the Kings look.

He was made using Ajani Goldmane from the Funko Legacy: Magic the Gathering(pictured above) figure as a base. The figure was really easy to work with. The plastic was pretty soft so I was able to cut the unwanted details off with very little effort and sanding. For his head I used the Despro Collect and Connect DC Universe figure. All of the other details were sculpted using Aves fixit.  I am a little unhappy with how the paint came out but I can live with it.  Some of the paint I was using had been sitting around for a few years and was not very smooth.  I do plan on making a more classic version of him using the same base.
Now on to Triton.  He is also Blackbolts cousin and he is Karnaks brother. Aside from Blackbolt, I would have to say that Triton is my favorite Inhuman and to tell you the truth, I am not even sure why.  I really like the fact that he is kind of a freak amongst freaks and he aways seems like a bit of an outcast in a society of outcasts.  Plus he's green and pinkish/purple, that's always a plus in the Marvel Universe.
I did a little sculpting on his chest, legs and arms to make it look like he has scales.
I tried to do a lot of modifying on the Bullseye head. I really dislike being able to tell where the heads on customs came from.
For Triton I used Cyclops from the Jubilee build a figure wave as a base. I used Bullseye's head and Bucky-Caps boots.  The rest of the details are sculpted. I really enjoyed making him mostly because I like to use green and purple.
Thanks for checking  out my customs.  Feel free to leave feedback good or bad.  Check out this video for a quick look at the articulation.








      

Martski here, and if you're like me you've got big convention plans this year. With the Convention season pretty much upon us, I wanted to share some tips I've learned over the years while attending many shows, including the grand daddy of them all, San Diego COMIC CON. Think of this as a survival guide for attending an event as small as your local Toy Show to something as big and grand as Comic Con. These are in no particular order.

Action figure customizing is the art of creating, modifying or rebuilding action figures.  You can do this for the purpose of making characters that the evil toy companies won't touch or even improving existing figures. You can do those things by switching around parts, sculpting parts and/or painting them.  This is a hobby I was really in to a few years ago. I use to make them for myself or to sell on Ebay and I would even take commissions for people.  I wasn't as good as a lot of people out there but I tried to have my own style with it.


There was also really cool communities of people that are also into customizing, like Figurerealm.com and the Fwoosh forums. Both of those places have people that are knowledgeable about customizing and they were very supportive in helping me learn what I know.



 Being a customizer also makes you a different kind of collector. Instead of crying about Hasbro not making Earth X Captain America you are excited they haven't so that you can do it your self. Instead of being excited about a new White Iron Fist coming out, you are excited about a white base body so you can make a classic Karnak without paint rub. Or instead of being mad that your Black Series Luke Skywalker doesn't have a paint wash, you are excited to try out your new washes and dry brush technique on a new fantastic sculpt.  You also kind of go from sounding like nerdy collector, to sounding like a deranged Dr. Frankenstein type of psychopath when you make comments like "all I need is the head, the body is useless", like I did when I saw the DC Direct Aquaman.

I recently posted a couple of my old customs eBay.  I sold my Drax, Triton and Ghost.  I didn't really mind selling Ghost but it hurt getting rid of the others. Drax sold for more then I expected though, so that was cool. I made them for myself and they've been on my shelf for a couple of years now, but Mezco Batman was coming out and sacrifices had to be made.

             
What was cool though, is that I  was contacted by a lot of people that were familiar with my customs and wanted me to do commissions. So the fact that people were still actually into my customs made me very happy and kinda reignited the fire to make them again. With that being said, I have started on a few new customs and I've taken a few new commissions. I am excited to post them here on the blog and see what people think. Thanks for reading!

Peace.


**all of these customs are a few years old but I will be posting new ones soon.

Awesome. That word flew out of my mouth as soon as I flipped the last page of this issue. Wow. I'm absolutely loving this new character in the Spider-Verse. From the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man run with Dan Slott at it's helm, she web-slung her way into our lives and our hearts. Well, mine at least. Cindy Moon is very much a child at heart and she's growing right before our eyes.



She was bitten by the same radioactive spider that gave our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man his powers just moments after he received his bite. She tried to control the awesome web-slingin', wall climbin', ass kickin' powers that she shared with Peter Parker, but unfortunately they were too much for her. Her family was approached by a man named Ezekiel and she locked herself in a sealed, windowless bunker underground. 

In an attempt to keep this review concise, we'll fast forward a bit. She was released from the bunker, the epic Spider-Verse catastrophe concluded, and she now roams the streets of New York a free woman. But how do you just pick up the pieces of a life that you were torn from so abruptly and hardly remember? As a start, Cindy begins the search for her family, whom she hasn't seen in many years. So far this Silk solo series has illustrated her efforts to resume the life she led, while also balancing her powers and her new life as a force for good.


What makes Silk so relatable is that you can really see her struggling to make sense of everything. It's apparent as she fights her enemies that all of this stuff is insanely foreign to her, yet she tries her hardest to be the best she can be. When faced with a "Hydra tentacle-monster-robot-thingie", she pretty much beat the shit out of it. Silk has a lot of potential to be one of my favorite new Marvel characters, and I can't wait to see how she grows as a character and a superhero. Remember, don't take my word for it, pick this book up for yourself!







Favorite Quote: "We've got one last night together. And I don't want to waste it fighting."

Suggested Listening: Becoming Spider-Man composed by James Horner from The Amazing Spider-Man score



HEY! Don't forget to check out the rest of the blog. Awesome action figure reviews and more! We're just some nerds who want to share it with the world. Check us out and spread the love! Comment and let me know if you like it! Thanks guys.

Twitter: @BiGNasty91_

Check out my review for the new Marvel Select Cable figure!






Thanks everyone!

So what does this mean for us, the fans? Well let us not confuse MARVEL Studios with MARVEL COMICS. Yes, there will still be a MARVEL presence at Comic-Con. MARVEL STUDIOS is not the only one making MARVEL movies. Did we forget about X-Men: Age of Apocalypse or the Fantastic Four reboot? You did? Well never mind then. As hard as it is to believe, they do more than just movies people. What about the small screen and the upcoming NETFLIX shows they have planned? We still get a chance to see and meet all our favorite writers and artists who work on the books we know and love. With several projects in the PC and gaming world, not to mention their mobile APPS, I'm sure they will have something for all that as well. Not much has been announced yet, but it's only a matter of time till we hear about all the great panels MARVEL will have lined up for us. Breaking into comics the "MARVEL" way is always a popular one.
Unfortunately this news has brought out the worst in some. It hurts my heart to read comments like "I'm glad I didn't get tickets this year" or "MARVEL's not gonna be there, good who needs 'em?" Was that really the only reason why you wanted to go to the biggest show around? Just to see the latest test footage or gawk at the latest Avengers cast? Come on! Look, I get that there are some out there that don't even like MARVEL but "Who needs em?" We do! The rivalry between MARVEL and DC has spawned great stories and characters that we love all because these two giants are constantly wanting to outdo each other. FANBOYS please before you HULK out and SMASH the Interwebs with your comments of RAGE, remember, there's more to MARVEL than just movies.