Manhunter, Vol. 4: Unleashed, from Marc Andreyko (DC Comics)

Hi, there! Today I’m going to review my very first heroes comic book ever! As I had no clue for where to begin on comic book reading matters, I asked for a sweet and helpful guy to pick a Wonder Woman volume for me on the last comic book fair that I’ve been to, last June. The guy picked me up Manhunter, volume 4: Unsleashed. It’s the Wonder Woman trial ❤ Months passed and I finally got around to read it and the results are not quite what I expected.

from my Instagram

The Story

(Goodreads blurb)

Collecting issues #24-30 of the acclaimed MANHUNTER series, written by Marc Andreyko! Manhunter Kate Spencer takes on her biggest case yet with Wonder Woman as the client, but the stakes are higher than anyone knows! Is the Amazon princess guilty of murdering Max Lord?

The Analysis

Just remembering that those were my impressions and opinion as a reader 🙂

So, I wanted to make some things clear before starting my review. First, this was my first hero comic book ever, but not my first comic book ever. I’ve been reading those since I’m a child: Tex, the Texas Ranger; Asterix and Obelix; Garfield comic books; Disney and children’s comic books. I’m not completely clueless of the genre. At the same time, I didn’t use to have the habit of taking comic books seriously, unfortunately. I promise that I have changed, but it was only recently that I gave a serious thought to starting a “serious” comic book reading. Third and last thing: I watched so many hero cartoons when I was a child (sometimes I still do; all it takes it’s for them to be on the tv, haha!) and still watch a lot of heroes movies, so it made sense to finally give a try to heroes comic books. From this, this read was born.

I know that reading a comic book isn’t always something neat and organized or ordered at all, so I had a had time adjusting to the fact that I was starting to read something that wouldn’t give all the previous information that I needed to have a perfect understanding of the storyline in any moment at all. Also, I had to brace myself for loose ends, as I only bought volume four for Manhunter. I mean, okay, the trial of Wonder Woman is a “closed story”, but one inside a big picture. Now add all of this to my high criticism of the art on this volume (in which sometimes women looked like dudes or drag queens in the worst way possible) and the fact that the story kept coming and going to other parts of the plot instead of focusing on Manhunter and Wonder Woman’s problems and you have a highly disappointed reader.

Even if I had the opportunity of picking up the other issues of Manhunter, I wouldn’t. I gave it three stars on Goodreads because it was my first time and this comic book managed to keep my attention while I was reading, but I don’t think I’ll re-read it or trying a new hero comic book again in a while

As I already said, the narrative kept coming back and forth between Kate (Manhunter’s actual name) and her attending to Wonder Woman’s case and this random guy in another part of the world. Besides, the story wouldn’t stop coming back and forth in the past without even a note or subtitle to indicate it. Seriously, this drove me mad. I had to re-read several pages until I understood a little where I was 😦

The plot was simple, as Kate had to prove that Wonder Woman was innocent of Max Lord’s murder and we all already know how this ends. I can’t say much more because I sincerely didn’t understood the rest of the plot to form an opinion about it.

The characters are the only thing that kept me reading this comic book. I loved Kate and Diana’s relationship and how Kate was deeply attracted to Wonder Woman (in case you’re new to the heroes world, Diana is Wonder Woman’s real name <3). Also, Batman was hilarious on his few scenes, haha!

As I already mentioned as well, I didn’t really liked the art, but I really loved the original cover for this volume:

And, of course, some pictures inside of the volume were brilliant, but I can’t give more than three stars for the art as a whole 😦 It was too bulky.

Overall, I think this was a good experience. I don’t know if I’ll be reading more heroes comic books for a while, but I tried.

That’s it! Thank you for reading 😀 Do you read comic books?

Eerie Queerie!, from Shuri Shiozu

Hello, again! Another manga review from my dissertation times is on 😀 Eerie Queerie! is a light and fun boys love series from Shuri Shiozu sensei ❤

The Story

Mitsuo Shiozu is a high school student with a very peculiar ability: he can see ghost. Moreover, some spirits manage to go as far as to possess his body to solve their unfinished business on this realm.

During one of those possession moments, Mitsuo meets Hasunuma, a very gentle and good-looking boy. As their friendship goes stronger (and more spirits come to their ways), Mitsuo needs to figure out what he feels for Hasunuma.

And, if it’s not asking for much, without losing his body to weird haunted souls.

 

The Analysis

Just remembering that those were my impressions and opinion as a reader 🙂

I’m that kind of person that wakes up one day and says: “hey, I think I’ll start a new manga series today!”. So I randomly search a title online, get it and read it to my heart’s content. Eerie Queerie! was one of those titles, found by chance in a catalogue. I didn’t expect to like it the way I did, as all I wanted was to have a nice time, haha!

Eerie Queerie! is a four volumes manga series, of the kind that improves with each passing chapter. The author develops her drawing style a lot and the story is involving to the point that you can’t stop reading. Overall, four out of five stars 😀

The narrative pace is slow and kind of confusing in the beginning. The reader can see flashes of Mitsuo’s life and then what he does to help the spirits around him to move on. Until volume two, there were more isolated cases than a sequential story, which isn’t necessarily bad. I though confusing, but okay.

The plot was simple, but full of twists. Every time a new character was introduced, I knew that I, as a reader, would have a headache trying to understand if the new person was good or bad. Btw, that was nice, haha! Other interesting thing is that, despite being a clear yaoi manga, the romance is not the main genre. The adventure and the spirit world have all the focus and that’s okay. Almost, haha!

I liked the main characters overall and found them to be very funny and charismatic, each on their own way. Mitsuo is the cutest guy and I felt sorry for him on more than one occasion for several reasons. My favorite was Hasunuma, as he was the most real and non-absurd one in the group, haha! (cof, and the most handsome, cof).

The art is the big flop in this series if you ask me. As I said, the author develops a lot during the chapters, but it went from weird to not so weird, haha! And I’m very picky with manga art, so good bye to one star.

Examples of the art*:

One thing that also made me take off that star is the relationship between Mitsuo and Hasunuma. They clearly have feelings for each other and they even say so many times, but we never got to see any kind of action. ANY. KIND. I got disappointed. It’s not because the series is not romantic that people don’t kiss and do stuff, ugh. The author makes the reader believe that the amorous feelings between characters are meaningless 😦

Overall, it’s a good ghost series, a light and funny read for those days when you don’t want to think and need a good laugh 😀

That’s it, thanks for reading! How do you feel about the art style when reading a manga??

 

 

*I do not own these images, they were found at Google and are here displayed with illustrative purposes only. They belong to  Shuri Shiozu sensei.