Review: The Unbelievable Gwenpool

The Unbelievable Gwenpool Vol 3: Totally In Continuity 
Rating: 5/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy!
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher! 

Gwen Poole continues to make friends and influence people across the Marvel Universe! But what will some of Marvel's greatest heroes make of Gwen and her bizarre perspective on the world they live in? Whatever happens, it'll be Unbelievable!

So, I see this has some mixed reviews over on GoodReads, but I'm really enjoying this series! The art is bold, bright, colourful and well drawn. The writing is freaking hilarious. This series is just so laugh out loud hilarious, and entertaining right from the first page. It's genuinely hilarious and never fails to crack me up and make me chuckle. 

In this volume, Gwen gets her Buffy on as she faces off against a Vampire to save some sassy Skeletons and a Necromancer. Then she's thrown in to a fantasy game setting and RPG references and jokes abound as she teams up with some familiar faces to fight her way out. It gets all SAO/Elder Scrolls, I'm not going to lie. Just without the virtual reality of SAO. Then we get some The Hobbit vibes as Gwen has to take down a ring of Dwarves up to no good after busting out of prison. 

There's some brilliant cameo's in this volume for you guys to look forward to! Not just characters we've seen in the series before, but Hawkeye (Kate Bishop), Ghost Rider and....the character we've all been waiting for. Yep. We finally get that face off, I was a bit worried about said character at the beginning, he looked like he was trying to cosplay Robin Hood very badly, and was getting way to in to his role as 'The Unkillable Beast", the description of this, when paired with the knowledge that it's this specific character...completely slayed me. 

There's also some nice little Easter Eggs as well as cameo's throughout this volume, for instance, you might want to have a close look at Big Ronnie's shelves.... 

Gwenpool is fast becoming one of my favourites, she's snarktacular and sarcastic...it's brilliant! She breaks the fourth wall perfectly, and throws out references left, right and centre that you can understand and relate to. Like she's probably all of us when put in her position, let's be real. I actually find her to be fairly relatable because of her nerdy knowledge. 

The story is moving in an interesting direction if the cliffhanger ending is anything to go by and things might be able to take a turn for the serious...sort of. It probably won't get too serious let's be honest but you'll see what I mean if you read the volume! 

The Christmas Special is also included in this volume and Christmas is all wrong, to the extent that we have some greats like "I Saw Spidey Kissing Galactus" which I found hilarious, Pantsgiving I was a bit eeeeehhh about and Red Skull going all A Christmas Carol gave me pause too. Like it was wacky but I wasn't entirely in to it, I'm not going to lie! Still, it was nice of them to include it, right?! 

If you haven't checked out Gwenpool yet you're missing out on a hilariously wild ride, populated with familiar faces and the guest stars as it where, don't take away from Gwen or her story, the plot still focuses on Gwen which is nice to see! 

Review: The Mighty Captain Marvel Vol 1

The Mighty Captain Marvel Vol 1

Rating: 4/5

Buy or Borrow: Buy 

Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher! 

Behold the mightiest, fightiest super hero there is! Captain Marvel returns to her helm as Alpha Flight commander with the world cheering her on. She's the biggest hero in the world - but has Captain Marvel become someone Carol Danvers no longer recognizes? New York Times bestselling author Margaret Stohl (Beautiful Creatures, Black Widow: Forever Red) makes her comics series debut with a blockbuster Marvel story decades in the making! 

I've been eagerly awaiting this volume being released, because I love Stohl's writing and I was intrigued to see what she was going to do with Carol! I can't say I'm a leading authority on Captain Marvel because I haven't actually read that many Captain Marvel comics, so this is just my opinion but I actually really enjoyed this volume! 

I loved the opening, and I'm going to be needing that entire group to team up for their own comic at some point in life, it'd be so awesome! We join Carol after the events of..well..you know. Those events. Civil War II. Things got quite dark and grim, but this volume serves to bring the fun back. 

Quite frankly, this volume is hilarious. Carol is snarktacular. I love her and I love how Stohl's voicing her. She's dealing with some stuff, and struggling a little bit after the previous events. She's got some inner struggles to deal with, and she's kind of fighting against herself. We get to explore her background a bit more, which I really enjoyed, both Kree and Bostonian. 

We get some top quality banter and humour thanks to Carol and her crew, and it's quite punny here and there. I found myself chuckling or at least smiling multiple times while reading this volume. Puck and Wendy are my favourites, I think...but I love them all really! 

The art and story pacing, I thought where good. We get to see some familiar faces, there's some brilliant pop culture references, there's adventure and excitement and it's a real mood lifter after previous Captain Marvel issues. We get the first phase, as it where, of what's going to be an interesting storyline, and there's just the right amount of intrigue and dangling threads for the next volume! 

I feel like Stohl has created Carol perfectly, she's expanding on her character while keeping in mind and utilising things brought to the table by previous writers. I love all the undertones to Carol and her situation and how she's perceived, and been perceived since she was a kid. Carol goes against the grain a bit, and it's very relatable how she was expected to do one thing because she's a girl but she was like nah, eff that, I'm gonna do what I want to do. She's badass. 

All in all, this was a humorous and fun volume that brings some lightness to what had turned very dark with previous volumes. There's plenty to enjoy, and plenty to look forward to in coming volumes, I have a feeling this is going to get better and better and be an excellent series!