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Wacky Wizard Games Imprint and Three New Games Announced by @wwizardgames

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Wise Wizard Games announced the launch of Wacky Wizard Games, a new brand imprint focused on family-friendly, lightweight games. Three games are planned for release in 2024 as part of this new brand imprint: Star Realms Academy, Caution Signs, and Pack the Essentials. If you are interested and attending PAX Unplugged they will have prototypes of Caution Signs and Pack the Essentials. "We are super excited to be adding this new family friendly product line to our catalog. We wanted to maintain the focus of Wise Wizard Games on strategy card and dice games with geeky themes, and have created Wacky Wizard Games as an umbrella for lightweight games with a more whimsical, cute vibe," shared Debbie Moynihan, COO of Wise Wizard Games. Star Realms Academy Forge your own star realms, overloaded with cuteness! A kid friendly but still fun for grown-ups version of the popular Star Realms deckbuilding game for 2 players. A little less math, no reading necessary, but still tons of fun! 

Guest Reviews: Talon #2 - First Strike

Talon #2 Review


Talon #1 Cover
First Strike Original Review by Batwatch at Comic Vine

I have been a big fan of Tynion IV’s work on the backup features for Batman, and though I was somewhat skeptical with the idea behind Talon, the first two issues have made me a believer. Calvin seems to be an interesting and likable character with a fairly unique set of tricks, and though I hope his series becomes more than just a quest to overthrow the Court of Owls, I do not mind them being the starting point for Talon’s superhero career. Does Talon manage yet another great caper this time around, or does the master escape artist get tangled in a few narrative traps?

Plot

In this issue, Calvin breaks into the Court of Owls largest treasury in attempt to cripple the court financially and steal some secret files.

Review

Oh, How the Mighty Have Fallen!

Considering the brief run of this series, I suppose that heading is a bit melodramatic, but I still cannot help but feel extremely let down by this issue. Most of the problems are in the first couple of pages, so let’s break it down.

When we first see Talon, he is balancing his entire body on one arm above a laser grid which is ready, presumably, to sound an alarm. At first, this scene might seem really cool until you take the time to actually think about it and ask yourself how Talon managed to get in this predicament. Apparently, Sebastian Clark had not managed to disarm the security in this section of…ventilation? Did Calvin see the grid was still up and decide to leap into the middle of it just for fun? In the very next panel, we see Sebastian watching Calvin via hologram in a completely different pose which he could not possibly be making without tripping the grid from the previous panel. Even the image of Calvin itself presents a problem. Is Sebastian pulling this image from security…holograms, and if so, who puts security holograms in the unoccupied ventilation shafts? Oh wait, Sebastian must have access to this scene via the security system for in this same hallway/ventilation shaft/wall space, there is a video camera apparently capable of imaging in three dimensions which has a nicely mounted screen beside it that lets any who might pass by it know that the security camera is being overridden which is a feature I am sure all security cameras possess…especially those mounted in unoccupied wall space.

Read the rest of Batwatch's Review on Comic Vine


First Strike Original Review by Tomlikesfries at Comic Vine

Review

The Good

The two first issues of this series were brilliant, and proved how Talon is an amazing addition to the New 52. The second issue is no different.

In this number we get to see Calvin infiltrating The Orchard Hotel, where the Court's treasures are kept. The ex-Talon, much like Batman himself, uses a gadget created by Sebastian Clark, and I would definitely love to see Rose using more pieces of technology. There are fascinating dialogues between Calvin and Clark, who most of the time is yelling at our protagonist. What made them even better was Ryp's artwork on the facial expressions, which demonstrated his anger perfectly ....

The Bad

I couldn't understand how Calvin opened the safe. And seriously, most of the DC comics I've read today (JLD #14 and Aquaman #14) had a change of artists. As much as the art for this second issue was very good, I think March can do a better job on the penciling ....

Read the rest of Tomlikesfries' review on Comic Vine

What I Thought

Cover - 4/5
Art - 3/5
Colors/Ink/Lettering - 4/5
Layout/Flow - 3/5
Story - 4/5
Verdict - 3.7

The cover for this issue really doesn't make sense but the variant cover looks nice and would attract me to pick up the book. I'm not a fan of the art in this issue at all, and the inking doesn't help. I also had an issue with the overall flow of the story, at times it seemed long winded and confusing. There were also issues with certain panels and the events from one to the next didn't make sense. The concept of this series seemed promising after the 0 issue, but so far has just be okay. Hopefully the series picks up soon.

Purchase Talon #2 on Amazon


Jeremy Sims is a blogger at https://batwatch.squarespace.com/. Both Jeremy and Thomas are comic book reviewers at Comic Vine. The use of their reviews have been authorized by the original authors.

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