Comics Round-Up, Part the Third

One of the two major Star Wars releases this summer is The Force Unleashed, a story told through a novel, a graphic novel, a computer game, and with several accompanying toys. I thought the graphic novel told a pretty interesting story. Set two years prior to A New Hope, we see Darth Vader take on an apprentice to help hunt down the few remaining Jedi. The story ties in the development of the Death Star, the birth of the Alliance, and more in a fairly seemless continuity implant. It's not ground-breaking stuff, but interesting.

I've generally liked Christ Claremont's work on X-Men, but the X-Men: Die By the Sword mini-series was a trial to get through. Focusing on Captain Britain and the multi-verse, other-dimensional "Captain Britain Corps", the story is one of those cosmic "all of creation is doomed unless the villain is stopped" pieces that tends to make my eyes glaze over. Basically one extraordinarly long fight scene after a decent first issue, this contained way too many characters I've never heard of and really couldn't care less about. Unless you happen to be a major Captain Britain fan, skip this.

The best part about the second volume in Spider-Man's Tangled Web? The story "Ray of Light" by Kaare Andrews. Drawn in almost photo-realistic style, it's the touching story of two young brothers and their differing beliefs about the existence of Spider-Man. The rest of the collection is just average, however.