Comic NEWS! Dark Horse brings Ghost back

Dark Horse Comics' gonna bring back Ghost this year!
Ghost, that's right!
Remember her?

Dark Horse will launch a new series featuring Elisa Cameron this summer.

She will first make a quick comeback in Dark Horse Presents #13 before having a new on-going returned to her.


Ghost will now be written by Kelly Sue DeConnick and illustrated by Phil Noto!

It's gonna be a simple reboot, rather than a continuation of her previous series.


Noto redesigned her look as you can see above and below, and there's a nice interview of both creators on comicbookresources
Ghost will start back from her origins/mysterious murder story-arc.


She was one of Dark Horse's most successful original creations.
We'll see how this turn out if will be the worthy successor of the original comic that launched Adam Hughes' career.

Check out some more sketches by Phil Noto:

Nice designs. A bit less classy (exposing more leg-action and whatnot), but still captures pretty much the same feel as the original.

Wait and see~

CBR Ghost OMNIBUS: Vol. 1

Something new! Something different!

Like always, my goal with these Comic Reviews is to shine some light on some underrated books or show my opinion on the more mainstream titles.
This time, it's a little lesser-known book, called...

Comic title: Ghost OMNISBUS: Volume 1
Written by Eric Luke
Art by Adam Hughes, Terry Dodson, Scott Benefiel, Matt Haley and more!
Colors by Various...

Published by Dark Horse Comics
From 2008
Lineup Ghost
Format: Omnibus-Trade paperback containing Ghost Special #1, Ghost vol.1 #1-12, and "Sweet Things" from Decade of Dark Horse #2.

During the 90s, most comic books were all about super giant buff dudes with tons of pouches, guns and ammo everywhere or skinny underage girls doing karaté kicks with barely any clothes on (nor a proper body structure). You may know this era as the glorious Rob Liefeld years, the rise of Image comics. During that time ever at Marvel or DC, it was all about supra-muscular heroes with irrealistic guns, big angry dudes with 'tude. Marvel had the X-Force, Cable, etc.. DC had Superman using guns, Azrael, etc..

Few "original" new titles tried a different approach.

Ghost is a comic series about a dead woman that came back to life as a, well, a ghost and was trying to find how she died, why and who killed her.

A ghost using guns? Now that's something you don't see everyd..AGH!..

Well, to be honest, it's not too far from the 90s typical successful series. But it uses its own twists!
Eric Luke created is own twisted unique universe with Ghost.

Elisa Cameron died in unknown circonstances for some reason. But she can't remember anything from her past life, the details are blurry and she only grasps some little facts about her past life.

Now as a ghost, Elisa can pass through walls/kinda everything. Though she seems to be unable to pass through nor break jade...
She doesn't know why, she doesn't understand how things work now.
She can also turn invisible. To combat crime, she uses two little double .45 calibers (when the bullets leave the gun they became material while Elisa can still stay in her immaterial form).

Bit by bit, she remembers or find more about her past. And the story follows Elisa/Ghost as she wreak havoc through the city of Arcadia.

This first omnibus collects her very first and earliest adventures.

She even got quite a memorable rogue gallery during her early run~

This series never was a huge hit back in the day. I suspect a lack of interest from the 90s comic book readers for a book without huge muscular dudes, anorexic girls or gigantic guns. That would explain some later Dark Horse crossovers with Ghost and other more marketable characters...

But it woudn't be for a lack of quality, talent involved or originality!

This omnibus covers her first adventures.
Trying to understand her condition, meeting her first villains (Joe Yimbo , Dr. October, Cameron Nemo ..), finding her sister again...
I kinda prefer the issues featuring her own cast than the crossover ones trying to raise interest in the book.
X (appears in the very first issue and many others), Dark Horse answer to the extreeeeeeme~ attitude is kinda ok, in an "over the top" kind of way.
But I could do without Barb Wire, King Tiger and the Furies... 

Eric Luke is a pretty good writer, the whole story has a sort of mystery/noir/detective/crime/hardboiled feel to it. (apart from crossovers, which are you usual superhero stuff)
There's a lot of contribution from famous and cult artists, specially Adam Hughes, which I love the style, and Terry Dodson. I don't really find these page to have aged that much.

 
Overall, it's very immersive story.
It's very easy to lose yourself in the streets of Arcadia, with it's grim and art deco-ysh settings.

The story is pretty original and unique. You'll find yourself asking for answers, wanting to know more about the "hellish place" Elisa shortly goes in everytime she teleports across the city.
I personally really dig Nemo, the satan-like figure she created which becomes a regular foe for Ghost.

These omnibus Dark Horse's been releasing are a very fun way to discover comic runs from the past, from the early 80s to the 2000s. I'd say, if you're interested in this whole story and character, give it a try ;)

I give it:

  2 / 3 FlamingCarrots!

Blog entry06

Ah!
Finally finished that Spider-Man: Web of Shadows on the Xbox 360!
Finally, cause it was turning a bit repetitive at the end.

I kinda like those recent Spider-man games for the "being Spider-man in New York" aspect. Yes even the movie games. But they aren't very good, it's a fact. Treyarch, responsible for most of them since the first movie and billed as co-developer on this last one, are  getting a bit lazy each new game...

This game should have used some little Arkham Asyleum aspects. Not talking gameplay-wise or spirit, this is Spidey afterall.. But on the development aspect of the game.
Like using actual Spider-writers.
The plot was pretty bad and stupid (I'm sure 12 years old will love the symbiote/Venom/dark suit aspect of the game... but seriously, I couldn't count the plotholes on my hand nor the absurdly bad written dialogue!)
And the game could have used some past Spider-man cartoon voice actors. Only Wolverine (dubbed by the same guy from the Wolverine & the X-men cartoon series) was good, I mean really good. And compared to his acting, the others sounded reaaaally bad, I mean worse than they actually were. And Spider-man, who's the main character in this, huh, spider-man game, was sooo bad..... Arg...
It seems like they voice acted the scenes in chronological order. The game started really bad, with a Spidey not sure he was voicing him good then went a bit geeky and over the top.. but got kinda average/ok around the end. So I started a new game (to unlock the new game + mode) and realized how bad he truly was at the start of the game... yuck....

Anyway, final words on this game. Fun physics, decent gameplay, average fighting system, repetitive missions/sequences, fun web slinging, nice boss scenes, bad story, bad Spider-man, great Wolverine and not enough cameos (really? Only Moonknight, Black Cat and Luke Cage stayed in this symbiote-invaded NYC? I can buy the Fantastic Four and Avengers being out saving the universe, which they mentioned, but were was the Punisher or Daredevil? you know, those who know Spidey and usually meet him in every day New York stories??)...
 
Oh yeah, and the game box totally makes you think Venom would join your side as your Dark ally like Wolverine does for the good side... but since he's the one causing all this (totally out of character too), he's only the Godzilla-like final boss (King Ghidorah-style).
I would kinda have prefered they use another symbiote, say Carnage, as the one causing all the trouble and have Eddie Brock join and help Spidey instead! That way it would have been 1) true to the character's personality and 2)totally kickass for kids, I'm sure they would have loved Carnage in this mess game.

Oh, and I played me some Puzzle Bobble 2 the other day.
Also known as Bust-A-Move 2.
Really fun game^___^
Tought I should share this pic with ya:

Yes, making your own Puzzles is totally fun and they don't even turn out easy all the time once you try them. (mostly because of the random colours you may get)

Playing this on the Sega Saturn, in case you're wondering.

I've been reading the Ghost Omnibus Volume 2 lately.
She's a nice original character from Dark Horse. The comic book publisher that not only makes a ton of comic adaptations (Terminator, Predator, Aliens, Star Wars, Serenity, etc..) but created a lot of very imaginative characters which were brought alive in movies with more or less success along the years (The Mask, Hellboy, Sin City, Barb Wire, Mystery Men...)

But I'm not here to talk to you about Ghost right here, nope.
But X.

 X... for...X-cellent deep storyline with complex character development and X-traordinary writing?

What or Who is X exactly???
The most insance X-TREME character I've seen in a comic book in a long time....
You know, during the 90s, when comics went all X-TREME with comic artists/writers such as Rob Liefeld and Todd McFarlane.. Well, DC had their darker and grittier enemies like Darkseid or Bane defeat both Superman and Batman, Marvel went nuts into X-Force and many other spinoff titles around gun crazy mutants like Cable and such..
X was Dark Horse answer to the super popular Image Comics character Spawn.

X-TREME!!!

But allow me to read (write) you a little official description of X:
"[The] Dark Horse series that made "grim and gritty" superheroes seem like cuddly plush toys. Violent and morally ambiguous, X walks the thin line between heroism and obssession (...), the cure may be worse than the disease..."

That's right. He makes grim and gritty looks like plush toys.
That guy's insane!
You gotta love the over the top, insane level of X-TREME comics went on during the 90s...
I don't really know this character that much, and honestly don't really wanna read his own series, but the few issues he's guest-starred in Ghost were more than enough to me to know how X-TREME he really is!!

Look at the guy! He lost one eye, has a cape that would make Spawn jealous, use tons of guns, never dies, walks over fire with no problem whatsoever despite his leather costume... he's X-TREME!!!

Oh, and you gotta admire the guy's costume. A lock at his neck. And just imagine him every morning tying all the red laces...
And is that... a corset???