Longbox Junk The Lone Ranger (Vol 3) Part 2: Issues 13 25

The Terminator.

Relentless killing machines created by the all-powerful computer, Skynet.  Their only purpose to infiltrate and destroy the last remaining vestiges of human resistance in one of the bleakest futures ever to be put on the silver screen.

I love The Terminator franchise.  Within the framework of a dark future ruled by machines, there's potential to tell both hopeful AND hopeless tales of resistance and desperate battle against monsters created by mankind's own hubris.

Welcome back to the second part of the Lobo series that it seems EVERYONE hated!

I'm serious.  I've searched the internet for information on this series and 99% of what I found was negative.  Most interesting to me is that, except for some reviews of the trades, ALL of the information I found was actually from before the first issue of this series even came out!  There is VERY little to be found beyond the advance hate and chatter about the first issue.

But I'm gonna be honest here and repeat what I said in the first part of this series review. . .I really don't think it's as bad as people were thinking it was going to be.  It seems there was a LOT of fan backlash, but I wonder how many people actually read the comics themselves instead of basing their opinion on Kenneth Rocafort's advance preview character design. . .which I discovered most of the hate centered around. . .not the comic itself, but a single picture that came out in advance of the comic.

Lobo is one of those characters I really like. . .but only in small doses.  

Some of my favorite mini's and one shots of my entire collection are Lobo.  With a great creative team and done right, Lobo is one of the most hilarious characters out there.  Unfortunately, the character never really seemed able to sustain a regular series.  I guess it's hard to keep the right level of comedy and brutality going long term.

The series at hand is NOT Lobo as you might know him.  It's a highly-controversial reboot of the character done during DC's New 52 days that seems to be pretty much hated by. . .well. . .everyone.

Welcome back to another "Retro Review" edition of Longbox Junk, where I take a look at some of the older single issue comics in my collection and give the internet a review that NOBODY ever asked for!  Why? Because that's what I DO, son! So let's do it!

TARZAN OF THE APES #186

I wasn't really that impressed with the first Batman/Alien crossover.  It had its moments, but overall it was average at best, with cardboard cutout disposable 80's action movie cliche characters and art that was half and half. . .good on monsters and backgrounds, bad on human characters.

BUT. . .

There seems to have been enough people who liked the first one to merit Dark Horse and DC getting back together a few years later for a sequel.  Is it any better?  Let's take a look and find out!

As I've stated before on this blog, I LOVE the Aliens franchise.  One of my favorite movies is the much-hated Alien 3.  You know anyone who publicly confesses a love for Alien 3 without a single bit of shame is a true Alien fan. 

AND. . .

When it comes to DC comics, Batman is pretty much my favorite character of them all.  I have 36 longboxes in my comic collection.  5 of them are nothing but Batman comics.  I have more Batman comics in my collection than a lot of people have in their TOTAL collection.

Welcome one and all to another "Retro Review" edition of Longbox Junk, where I take a look at some of the older and more "valuable" single comics in my collection, and give YOU yet another review you never asked for!

This time out, we travel back to 1966 and take a look at an early madcap adventure of everybody's favorite Merry Marvel Mutants. . .The X-Men.  Let's do this!

THE X-MEN #23

I've never been a fan of Cloak and Dagger for a couple of reasons. . .first and foremost is that I'm generally not interested in "Gimmick" mainstream superheroes, so I don't really seek out comics starring them.  The second reason is pretty much the last part of the first. . .because I don't seek out "Gimmick" mainstream superheroes, I've read very little about Cloak and Dagger.

Most of what I know about the characters comes from the few issues I have of "Strange Tales", a short-lived Doctor Strange/Cloak and Dagger split book Marvel put out in the 80's, and their small role in the recent "Secret Empire" story.

BUT. . .

If you (like me) are fond of digging through bargain boxes at your local comic shop, trying to find those nuggets of comic gold among the Longbox Junk, then you have more than likely spotted at least one issue of this four part mini. 

As far as I know, those shiny hologram-enhanced covers are as much a fixture of dollar bins as anything Image ever put out during their "Gotta be like Marvel!" 90's Heyday.  They must have printed a billion issues of this series because I come across them all the time.

So let's take a closer look at this common Longbox Junk find. . .