Speaking with SciFiNow (via Totalfilm.com), Millar praised Mangold’s movie saying the director is brilliant. The movie started filming before Millar got the consultant job, but he has overseen much of the film’s production. Having written one of the best Wolverine stories, Old Man Logan, Millar believes the character is ripe for solo movies:

I don’t think it detracts having individual Wolverine adventures from the X-Men. He’s like a lone wolf character, he disappears and does his own thing sometimes and then he comes back and hangs out at the mansion, so it does feel quite natural for him to be in these movies.

While Wolverine is a favorite among fans, he does have the potential to be overused as can be seen in several comics nowadays. Millar doesn’t want to make that mistake:

You don’t want to have him out there all the time, because I think if you’ve got him in X-Men and Wolverine movies and they’re all running at the same time, it’s a little bit too much but as long as you’re smart with it then there’s a lot of other characters to explore… The X-Men universe is about the same size as the Marvel universe in terms of the number of titles it sustains at any one time, so there’s a ton of stuff to play with there and a lot of characters I’d like to explore there too.

Wolverine has been slightly overused in the past few years. You can’t swing a cat in the Marvel universe without hitting a team he’s on (CBT doesn’t condone swinging cats, it’s just a phrase). Say what you will about Millar, but the man has had a good grasp on the character. We know Wolverine will pop up in Days of Future Past, but maybe we’ll see his appearances scaled back a bit afterwards. What do you think about Millar’s comments? Do you like your Wolverine in moderation?

Cody "The Thorverine" Ferrell, Mark Millar Doesn’t Want To Overuse Wolverine In Movies

This series, a collision of comedy, sex, and violence, follows the misadventures of America’s most dysfunctional family as they go head-to-severed head with an Oprah-loving ax murderer, a cult-crazy soap opera star, and a neo-Nazi prison gang.
First issue: Todd wants desperately to make friends, but every kid he approaches winds up decapitated. Or worse. Meanwhile, Todd’s mother is on a mission to get even with her husband who she believes is having an affair.

Todd, The Ugliest Kid On Earth is a new four issue series with a story by M.K. Perker and Ken Kristensen. The issue is written by Kristensen with art and letters from Perker. Cemal Soyleyen joins the duo by providing colors. Todd is an odd new book, but is it worth checking out?

A new family is moving into their new home when Todd, the ugliest kid on Earth, comes over to try and make friends with the nice little Korean girl. Todd frightens most other children his age because he walks around with a giant paper bag covering his face. But Todd is a nice, sweet kid who just wants to make a friend. That’s hard to do when Mike, the neighborhood bully, and his gang roll up on the scene to harass Todd and cause him to get into trouble. Mike is the little devil that bullies everyone but uses his silver tongue to talk his way into the good graces of the adults. Back at home Todd has to deal with his drunken father and inattentive mother. While watching the news, the family learns of an axe murderer on the loose who targets children. While the news report tells parents to keep their children inside, Todd’s mom wants him to take out the trash…in the rain…with an axe murderer in the area. You might be able to guess what happens. That sets off the comedy of misunderstanding that ensues.

Perker and Kristensen have a truly unique story on their hands. This odd, politically incorrect, and wacky story features a cast of messed up characters and humor that should hook any reader. While it’s hard to say there’s anything quite like Todd, the nearest compression would be something along the lines of The Maxx and The Oblongs. The art is absolutely amazing. Perker along with Soyleyen’s colors make a beautiful book. I mean this as a huge compliment, but it looks similar to what you would see in a children’s book. You have some cartoony looking art with bright and vivid colors. The backgrounds are fantastic and the characters are slightly exaggerated in their face, size, and features.

Bottom Line: Todd, the Ugliest Kid on Earth is a fantastic book like no other. This oddball story features slightly risqué humor with fantastic art. Perker and Kristense have a lot to live up to with the remaining three issues. If it’s anything like the first issue, we’re in for a great ride 5/5

Cody "The Thorverine" Ferrell, Advance Review: Todd, The Ugliest Kid On Earth #1

Our main characters are Eloa, who becomes our title character Knightingail, and Kaeli who is from a different tribe. Kaeli is a squirrel-like creature whereas Eloa is more of a humanoid or pixie-like character. In this world, there are seven tribes with different skills and cultures. You have tribes such as foresters, hunters, carvers, and dracons. Each tribe has a leader with a special ability, that person is called a centurion. Over all of them is the Master Centurion who is chosen directly by the Sovereign One. The Master Centurion can control the forces of weather itself.  Over the many shadow cycles (years), the tribes have split over their differences and have begun to differ over what they call the Sovereign One.

Eloa serves on her tribe’s council in the place of her father. Eloa has the power to heal and restore, but no one takes her seriously. Towards the end of issue 1, Eloa starts to question her father about her mother’s death. This is one of the big mysteries throughout the book. Unraveling the true reason behind that death shows how Kaeli and Eloa are some of the most important people in the world. It isn’t hard to imagine that Eloa and Kaeli discover they are Centurions. They are also joined by Daniel, the king’s son who Eloa heals in the middle of the first issue. Daniel is deaf and mute, but he is one of the stronger characters in the series. He, Eloa, and Kaeli set out on an adventure of discovery. An invasion begins and the trio must protect their homes. They meet many characters along the way who help them in their quest. It’s a story of twists and turns, but I just wanted to give the broadest of outlines.

The art in this book is absolutely fantastic. It is bright, colorful, and cheery as you see the amazing landscapes and characters that populate this fantastical world. There are, however, moments when it is dark and gloomy. When there are tone shifts and scenes of war the dark colors are dominant, but like the hope our characters represent there are still some splashes of brightness.  The art if fresh and crisp. The writing on this is just as excellent. Wayne Gardiner crafts a world with a rich history that we learn as we go along with the series. The flashback scenes are what I have called the infodump in other reviews, but it is done in a way that is exciting. We are reading the history of the previous battles and how what we dropped in on with issue 1 came about. The only thing I can nitpick with this series is that we know that Kaeli is telling this story to her children and we saw Eloa/Knightingail save someone at the beginning. Because of that, the reader knows those two characters at least are in no mortal danger. They go through trials and tribulations, but we know they won’t die since we’ve already seen them in the present and the action and adventure has already happened. Some of the dialogue is cheesy at times, but you have to remember the characters are teenage girls and boys so it works more often than not. It’s teenage slang, but for a fantasy world.

Bottom Line:  Knightingail #1-6 is an amazing fantasy tale. It reminded me slightly of Thundercats, Avatar the cartoon, and Tinkerbell. I couldn’t stop reading. I read from start to finish wondering what would happen next. The art alone is worth the cover price, but the story is very well done. This is a perfectly formed and rounded world that I would like to see further adventures in. I give Knightingail a 4/5.

Cody "The Thorverine" Ferrell, Review: Knightingail The Legend Begins

I admit it: I’m one of those losers who had a broken PS2 when Shadow of the Colossus was first released in 2005.  I always heard amazing rants from friends and customers alike.  I missed out on a core game that has set new standards that no one has attempted to emulate. Which is why I deemed it absolutely necessary that I picked up a copy of Ico & Shadow of the Colossus collection.  Shadow of the Colossus is in a category of itself, part adventure, part platformer and equal parts hoof stomping action.

Playing this stunning classic for the first time has reignited the open for interpretation experience that has gone unseen for quite sometime in more modern dynasty franchise titles such as Assassin’s Creed, Mass Effect and Fallout.  These games have taken the delivery of story telling to great heights but have left out a key component that leaves a sense of absence, that component being interpretation.  Within each of these titles, which I’m not denuding, the stories are spoon fed to players with little to no room for that classic sense wonderment.  Shadow of the Colossus only serves players tiny morsels of ambiguous story lines after slaying humongous beings. This leaves one pondering from start to finish who’s this tiny boy with a huge horse, are these so called “monsters” deities, am I a monster, and why is my girlfriend so dead?

Shadow of the Colossus is one of the very few games I have ever played that has truly grasped a true sense of size.  In most other games I’ve played *cough God of War, when confronted with bosses that require mounting there’s literally no reaction to their movements, our hero just keeps his cool and doesn’t budge a single frame whilst stabbing baddies in the face. In Shadow of the Colossus simply scaling one of these furious mountains of Aztecian temple size gives one a great sense of how it feels to control a new born giraffe whose has decided to take up ice skating.  Your character is pulled in every direction when a colossus does as little as scratch his nose, which adds tremendously to that tiny guy feel.  This could also be extremely unforgiving when his little hands decide to give out on him and send you plummeting off that moving building that took you nearly half an hour to scale.

Control wise this game hasn’t aged too badly, but I did harp on the fact that there’s a grab button.  I’m not talking about grabbing switches or boxes or anything like that, I’m talking about simple things like ledges, vines and back hair.  Then again, more modern platformers have spoiled me into thinking I never have to press a jump button thanks to that convenient auto jump feature.

Both Shadow of the Colossus and Ico have the option to be played in 3D, sadly I don’t posses a 3D TV and did not get the chance to take advantage of this neat little enhancement.  From what I’ve heard from other fellow gamers that the 3D in this game is no gimmick especially with the ability to actually adjust the intensity of the 3D to get that crisp 3D picture exactly where you want it.  The landscapes, character movements, and enemies still remain unique and gorgeous with today’s standards and will continue for quite some time.  If you have not played the original, do yourself an enormous favor and do so now.

Ryan Rodriguez, Stabbing Mountains In HD