Gail Simone

A fun, if slightly abrupt, ending to the first story arc. I like the strong female leads and the crazy mishmash of Scientology, demons, aliens, alien abductions, possession and exorcisms. The storytelling had the train tipping slightly off the rails at times, but that just made the journey more eventful.

I had to grit my teeth when yet another Jessica Jones book began with the return of the Purple Man. (Can we put him in a box and set him aside for a good long while, please?) But the story slowly moves Zebadiah KIllgrave to the side as Jessica gets increasingly involved with her alternate reality doppelgängers -- the multiversal "variants" of the title -- who suddenly start popping up.

The required slugfests upon first meeting lead to a Jessica Jones support group with some humorous show more one-upmanship for who has it the worst and who can be trusted the least.

What really lifts the story though are its Luke Cage moments. He steals the scene every time he shows up, from introducing someone to the most dangerous real estate in the world, to being kinder to a woman on an elevator than she is to him, to being "damn bulletproof."

Jessica is at her best when she is with Luke, and all those sad variants are just gonna have to be jealous of that. show less

Gail Simone’s Red Sonja: Consumed might leave Sonja fans with some questions. The book is good and there is plenty of action. No denying that. With a well written and fast paced story, readers are getting a much different Sonja than Smith and Tierney left us with in the 80s. I prefer the 80s Sonja for several reasons….we had a Sonja that was much more conflicted internally due to her history and she was seemingly far more North on the moral compass. With that being said…she would still show more spill your guts. With Simone’s Sonja, we have an unhinged, alcoholic, bi-sexual, blood thirsty monster with a penchant for threesomes. That is fine but the old Sonja seemed more human. Simone gives a great view of what Sonja endured as a child and what it took to survive…which in turn justifies her actions. No one…not even in Hyborea would be normal. The connection between Sonja and her horse, the Hyborean/Hyrkanian history was well done. In that aspect this was better than the original books. All in all “Consumed” is a great story with a good plot. I will surely be looking forward to another installment by Simone. show less

One of my favourite super-books. Simone nails the unlikely found family dynamic for her group of third-tier villains and antiheroes, with hilarious interactions and witty comments galore (especially from Ragdoll). There are also multiple genuinely emotional arcs for several of the characters, not in the least the perhaps most unlikely one: The Mad Hatter, who completely breaks my heart in the final pages. I also like that the stakes here are quite high for the Secret Six themselves, but on a show more personal level, without it ever making the typical team-up book mistake of being a shallow action frenzy where the world is at stake with cameos from every major character. (The closest it gets is a gratuitous appearance of the Doom Patrol, but it's worth it for a couple of fantastic Robotman lines.) This is the arc that made me a Secret Six fan. show less