Bye bye Virgin comics

So apparently Virgin Comics are dead in the water. Hardly a surprise when you consider that the people in charge had no idea what they were doing. Let's have a look at a few of their bright ideas...

1. Trying to sell books about Indian Gods to American spandex fans. X
2. Paying Dave Stewart and Guy Ritchie to put their names on comics into which they themselves had minimal input. Presumably this was done in the drug addled belief that a large proportion of comic book fans are also crazed followers of the Eurhytmics and Mockney cinema. X
3. Believing that you can sell Dan Dare to the Yanks. Hey it worked with Judge Dredd right? Oh wait. X
4. Putting Jenna Jameson's name on a comic WITHOUT any porn in it XXX

I thought the Gamekeeper started off well enough before fizzling. Ditto Dan Dare. I never bothered with any of the Indian God twaddle, neither did anyone else apparently.

Not much of a legacy then, but least Virgin did give us the coolest comic book ad EVER

LLC does NOT recommend

Jenna Jameson's Shadow Hunter is something of a disappointment.

"No fucking shit Sherlock" I hear you cry "What were you expecting?"

Well errm, porn would have been nice. Honestly if you're going to put Jenna Jameson's name on a comic, then you should at least have the decency to include a hand job or at the very least the odd crotch shot. I mean come on, that's what your average Jenna Jameson fan is looking for isn't it?!

Sadly the only reason your going to need tissues after buying Shadow Hunter is to wipe away the tears of frustration at having wasted £2 on a seriously shit comic. The plot (as far as there is one) centres on a young woman (the eerily familiar sounding Jezeree Jaden) who sees demons. She goes to visit some past life regression hypno prof, fights a load of badly drawn monsters with a sword that pops out of her arm, gets covered in blood (not quite the warm sticky substance Jenna fans were hoping for) and finds out she's the daughter of some high ranking demon or other.

What a load of old bollocks.

The mystery of the whole thing is how the endless succession of classic porno set-up scenes don't end with our heroine getting down to some REAL business. Take this moment for example...



Ahhh yeah! Alternative methods of payment Jenna Jameson style. Crack open the Kleenex right? Sadly not. Desperate looking old landlord man just takes Jenna...sorry, Jezzarie to some nightclub where she spots her boyfriend frittering the rent money on cocktails and hos.

BOO!

Then there's the scene where Jezzarie is wired up to some sci-fi hypno table by the mysterious Dr Ingersoll...


Yes another filthy old bespectacled man in a position to take advantage of our heroine: "Look into my eyes. Not around the eyes. Into the eyes" etc etc and yet NOTHING!

Gahh! Curse you Virgin comics, that's not good enough from a comic carrying Jenna Jameson's name. Can you imagine putting out a comic called Evel Knievel's Moto Devils without any stunts on bikes? How about Hulk Hogan's Fight Lords with no wrestling? Wouldn't happen. You put Jenna Jameson's moniker on your comic and I want porn!

If you can't give me a wank mag, at least give me a decent read, not this bag of old balls. The art's not bad, but the story, such as it is, reads like a hastily cobbled together stream of consciousness. I could have forgiven that if Jenna Jameson had written it herself, but she didn't. It's penned by someone called Christina Z. Sounds like another porn star, but apparently she's the co-creator of Witchblade. That's hardly a surprise as Shadow Hunter is essentially a very bad Witchblade rip-off.

I'm guessing that it won't be around for long. If Virgin keeps churning out toss like this instead of the excellent Dan Dare then I reckon they won't be in the comics biz much longer either.

Shopping list

I have piles of comics to read at the moment, but that won't stop me buying more this Thursday. Here's what I'll be shoveling into the old nerd sack..

Umbrella Academy Apocalypse Suite #6 (Of 6)
The first couple of issues in this series were excellent, but #3 and #4 were garbled and poorly paced. I haven't read #5 yet, but perhaps the whole thing will work when read as a whole. If not I can still get a few quid selling the set + Free comic book day prelude to some EMO kid on e-bay.

Checkmate #23
Reading Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps from start to finish has been rewarding, I get the feeling that sitting down and doing the same with Checkmate would be a good idea too. This is one of my favourite books, but there's so much going on that digesting it in short monthly bursts can be difficult. I want to support the book though, so I'll keep buying the floppies instead of the trades.

Amazing Spider-Man #551
After two ssues of the Guggenheim/Larocca triptic, it's clear that they aren't as good a match for this title as Slott and McNiven. I'm still enjoying the book though. It's a better read than Ultimate Spider-Man at the moment and I may drop the latter as a result, after all who needs two regular Spider titles in their life?

The Order #8

I'm a few issues behind on this, but I know it's good. Sadly it's also been cancelled. Baw bags.

Ultimate Human #2 (of 4)

OK so this is only there to be released in trade paperback format in time for the new Hulk and Iron Man movies, but unlike other blatant movie cash-ins (I'm looking at you Spider-Man v Doc Oc and Silver Surfer Requiem) this is actually good. Warren Ellis and Cary Nord are a shit hot team who, if issue #1 is anyhting to go by, are going to serve us up some good wholesome gamma on iron action.

Jenna Jamesons Shadow Hunter #1

Porno sword and sorcery shenanigans. KERCHING! No lame jokes about the fact that it's being published by Virgin, I promise.