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2.8 AVERAGE
2.8 AVERAGE
Dejah Thoris is the Princess of Mars from the books by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This book collects issues 16-19 of the series, but it's a complete story arc. This book is mature because Dejah wears her traditional costume from the Barsoom novels, which amounts to a cape and not much else. This seems a little silly when she's wandering around in the ice, but maybe Martians are tougher than me.
In the book, Dejah is in a self-imposed exile in the frozen north. She is captured and enslaved by one of the yellow men. She escapes and then is captured and taken to Saturn which is run by a race of alien vampires who have their sites set on taking over Mars and turning the residents into a living blood farm.
It's all over the top. There are huge prehistoric looking alien creatures. There are fights in the skies. There are allies and betrayals. In fact, it seems like everyone Dejah teams up with is out to betray her in some way, and that gets a little tedious by the end of the story arc. The art by Debora Carita is good, and the book includes a cover gallery from each of the covers by Paul Renaud and Fabiano Neves.
In the book, Dejah is in a self-imposed exile in the frozen north. She is captured and enslaved by one of the yellow men. She escapes and then is captured and taken to Saturn which is run by a race of alien vampires who have their sites set on taking over Mars and turning the residents into a living blood farm.
It's all over the top. There are huge prehistoric looking alien creatures. There are fights in the skies. There are allies and betrayals. In fact, it seems like everyone Dejah teams up with is out to betray her in some way, and that gets a little tedious by the end of the story arc. The art by Debora Carita is good, and the book includes a cover gallery from each of the covers by Paul Renaud and Fabiano Neves.
Colossus of Mars is part of Edgar Rice Burroughs' science fiction setting. This side story looks at the history of Barsoom (Mars) following Dejah Thoris. The setting is pretty rich since it is able to pull from Burroughs' existing work.
I like the story quite a bit. Dejah Thoris is engaged to be married to the son of a rival tribe to create an alliance. The rivalry between the tribes isn't delved into much. It does provide a good backdrop for the events of the book. The secondary part of the story involves one of the tribe leaders resurrecting a colossus, which is an ancient artifact from the earliest days of Mars. He uses this construction to attack his enemies.
There is a lot of action in the book. It moves along really well. Dejah Thoris develops into a fairly strong character. The art is good, but there is a lot of skin shown throughout the book. It is pretty even between the sexes, although it seems to objectify Dejah Thoris a bit. This is based again on the works of Burroughs, so it isn't contained to this work. The visual aspect just makes some of these things more apparent.
It's worth checking out for a view into the setting.
I like the story quite a bit. Dejah Thoris is engaged to be married to the son of a rival tribe to create an alliance. The rivalry between the tribes isn't delved into much. It does provide a good backdrop for the events of the book. The secondary part of the story involves one of the tribe leaders resurrecting a colossus, which is an ancient artifact from the earliest days of Mars. He uses this construction to attack his enemies.
There is a lot of action in the book. It moves along really well. Dejah Thoris develops into a fairly strong character. The art is good, but there is a lot of skin shown throughout the book. It is pretty even between the sexes, although it seems to objectify Dejah Thoris a bit. This is based again on the works of Burroughs, so it isn't contained to this work. The visual aspect just makes some of these things more apparent.
It's worth checking out for a view into the setting.
Some of you may recall that I reviewed the first volume of an adult comic series called "Warlord of Mars," which was a retelling of Edgar Rice Burroughs's series based on "A Princess of Mars". The comic featured the start of the journey for hero John Carter, the Princess Dejah Thoris, friend and alien leader Tars Tarkas among others.
Well, there's a spinoff series to that particular comic called "Warlord of Mars: Dejah Thoris" and it features the aforementioned heroine taking the reins of the adventures. I think it's set well before Dejah actually meets John Carter, by about 400 years.
"The Boora Witch" is the third volume of that particular series. Only...it took me a while to sort through my thoughts on this. The artwork is quite well done and I liked the compilation of covers they included in the galley for each issue as it was released before combining them all into one consolidated volume (though one should note that considering this is an adult comic and delves into many archaic fantasy tropes of yesteryear, Dejah's posed provocatively and about as scantily clad as she is on the cover.
I knew what I was getting into when I picked this up, though. For what it's worth, I like Dejah and wanted to see more of what the series would do with her character in subsequent adventures in the storyline.
I went into this volume blind because I hadn't read any of the previous installations of this series, but the gist of the story is that Dejah becomes subjected to and manipulated by the magic of the Boora Witch. The Boora Witch invades Dejah's body (a la "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" style), subjecting her to all kinds of horrible things - pretty much setting her nation at war, manipulating familiar characters and enemies to turn on each other, and all without Dejah knowing the true extent of the damage she's done until she's saved by her father and male soldier companion.
Suffice to say, when Dejah comes out of the trance, she's absolutely horrified at what she's done and leaves her kingdom behind in shame and secret. I think even at one point she wants to end her own life, but in transition to that darkness, she sees an invasion of giant insects called the Sith and saves a population of people subject to their torments.
I was of two minds reading this work - the critical part of me hated the fact that Dejah was subjected to some of the things the Boora Witch made her do. I hated the fact that she's manipulated through the first part of this story and has a passive role that has her "saved" by her male companions. But at the same time, I understood the betrayal and depression she felt for the things she did while under the Boora Witch's control, how it manipulated the political relations between kingdoms, and I did like seeing her play more of an active role where she's defending other characters against the Sith. It still felt like a threadbare story to me when I considered the whole of it. I wasn't necessarily taken with the scenarios or the subsequent development of the characters as much as I would've liked, despite reading it quickly to the end. It's worth reading for an afternoon perusal, and if you like the Dejah Thoris series in terms of the artwork and a quick conflict, but as far as the story went in and of its own consideration, I really think it could've been more engaging and had the characters have greater coming to terms and weight than what it did, especially for Dejah. I am looking forward to seeing if the next volume brings more to the forefront for Dejah, though, and maybe I might find a flow to the series from there.
Overall score: 2.5/5
Note: I received this as an ARC from NetGalley, from the publisher Dynamite Entertainment.
Well, there's a spinoff series to that particular comic called "Warlord of Mars: Dejah Thoris" and it features the aforementioned heroine taking the reins of the adventures. I think it's set well before Dejah actually meets John Carter, by about 400 years.
"The Boora Witch" is the third volume of that particular series. Only...it took me a while to sort through my thoughts on this. The artwork is quite well done and I liked the compilation of covers they included in the galley for each issue as it was released before combining them all into one consolidated volume (though one should note that considering this is an adult comic and delves into many archaic fantasy tropes of yesteryear, Dejah's posed provocatively and about as scantily clad as she is on the cover.
I knew what I was getting into when I picked this up, though. For what it's worth, I like Dejah and wanted to see more of what the series would do with her character in subsequent adventures in the storyline.
I went into this volume blind because I hadn't read any of the previous installations of this series, but the gist of the story is that Dejah becomes subjected to and manipulated by the magic of the Boora Witch. The Boora Witch invades Dejah's body (a la "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" style), subjecting her to all kinds of horrible things - pretty much setting her nation at war, manipulating familiar characters and enemies to turn on each other, and all without Dejah knowing the true extent of the damage she's done until she's saved by her father and male soldier companion.
Suffice to say, when Dejah comes out of the trance, she's absolutely horrified at what she's done and leaves her kingdom behind in shame and secret. I think even at one point she wants to end her own life, but in transition to that darkness, she sees an invasion of giant insects called the Sith and saves a population of people subject to their torments.
I was of two minds reading this work - the critical part of me hated the fact that Dejah was subjected to some of the things the Boora Witch made her do. I hated the fact that she's manipulated through the first part of this story and has a passive role that has her "saved" by her male companions. But at the same time, I understood the betrayal and depression she felt for the things she did while under the Boora Witch's control, how it manipulated the political relations between kingdoms, and I did like seeing her play more of an active role where she's defending other characters against the Sith. It still felt like a threadbare story to me when I considered the whole of it. I wasn't necessarily taken with the scenarios or the subsequent development of the characters as much as I would've liked, despite reading it quickly to the end. It's worth reading for an afternoon perusal, and if you like the Dejah Thoris series in terms of the artwork and a quick conflict, but as far as the story went in and of its own consideration, I really think it could've been more engaging and had the characters have greater coming to terms and weight than what it did, especially for Dejah. I am looking forward to seeing if the next volume brings more to the forefront for Dejah, though, and maybe I might find a flow to the series from there.
Overall score: 2.5/5
Note: I received this as an ARC from NetGalley, from the publisher Dynamite Entertainment.
Oh man, where to start with this particular book. The cover art illustrations are fine, as were the ones for the particular issues, but what happened with the rest of the artwork in this volume, particularly in the middle and towards the end panels? It's terribly inconsistent throughout the volume and made me cringe at the off-look of some of the characters, including Dejah, who had a face so misshapen in quite a few panels that it didn't even seem like the same character.
I usually read these volumes for the stories they offer and understand the problematic tropes they may have, especially given the formulaic origins of the original story, but usually I can get something out of the story to see where it's going, and I know this is based on an adaptation of Burroughs work, just an adult re-imaging. For this particular tale - I didn't see the point of it. Vampire like beings abduct Dejah after she traverses (in usual attire if you will) in an Arctic-like climate. She's held captive, finds who she thinks is a friend and busts out of prison, only to be betrayed and find herself captive yet again, and there's very little to no character action on Dejah's part. I couldn't even think much of the character death that was in this because it was so quick and of little shown consequence.
It was a quick read, but honestly, it wasn't worth the thirty minutes it took for me to read it, I didn't like it at all. I'm not sure if I'm going to follow the next volume but it depends on if the storyline ever picks up to the point where Dejah's actually being more proactive (or if the quality of the artwork improves past this particular volume).
Overall score: 0.5/5
Note: I received this as an ARC from NetGalley, from the publisher Dynamite Entertainment.
I usually read these volumes for the stories they offer and understand the problematic tropes they may have, especially given the formulaic origins of the original story, but usually I can get something out of the story to see where it's going, and I know this is based on an adaptation of Burroughs work, just an adult re-imaging. For this particular tale - I didn't see the point of it. Vampire like beings abduct Dejah after she traverses (in usual attire if you will) in an Arctic-like climate. She's held captive, finds who she thinks is a friend and busts out of prison, only to be betrayed and find herself captive yet again, and there's very little to no character action on Dejah's part. I couldn't even think much of the character death that was in this because it was so quick and of little shown consequence.
It was a quick read, but honestly, it wasn't worth the thirty minutes it took for me to read it, I didn't like it at all. I'm not sure if I'm going to follow the next volume but it depends on if the storyline ever picks up to the point where Dejah's actually being more proactive (or if the quality of the artwork improves past this particular volume).
Overall score: 0.5/5
Note: I received this as an ARC from NetGalley, from the publisher Dynamite Entertainment.