Stay Awake

Posted by cat2002116 on August 6, 2024
Posted in: Books, Mystery, Reviews, Thriller. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

I actually heard about this book when I watched a YouTube video about horror/scary books that should be made into TV series. The explanation of the plot sounded so intriguing, I was immediately interested and looked up the book on Amazon Kindle. It wasn’t very expensive, so I bought it…and then the YouTuber commented that the book wasn’t all that great, in spite of the interesting premise.

Since books (and movies, TV series, video games, etc.) can be subjective, I decided to give this book a try anyway, and I did find it a really quick, easy read. I will say, however, that it did hit a couple of my dislikes when it comes to books. For instance, there was a huge amount of info dumping in Detective Halliday’s sections of the book…and the book also kept switching between first and third person and present and past tense, which unfortunately made the book a little confusing and hard to follow at times.

A lot of this book made me think of the movie Memento, which this book had a very similar premise to. I did find Liv to be a character who was really easy to relate to and empathise with. Right from the very first scene, when she’s in the cab going back to what she thinks is her apartment, I was able to feel her confusion and disorientation about what was going on. It was clear that she didn’t have any memory of what had happened and why she had a bloodstained knife in her hand, and I could definitely empathise with her confusion and fear as the news reports start talking about the murder scene with the words Stay Awake written in blood at the scene; the same words that Liv has written on her own skin, because every time she falls asleep, her memory resets.

I will say that the constant flashbacks to two years ago made it really hard for me to follow the exact timeline in the present day. Later on in the book, it’s heavily implied that the entire murder investigation took place in a day…and I’m sorry, but that just didn’t feel realistic to me. I know, I know. It’s a book about a person whose memory resets every time she goes to sleep; it’s not exactly realistic. But suspending my disbelief about that was vastly different to suspending my disbelief about two detectives doing so much in less than 24 hours.

While I did find the constant flashbacks to be quite confusing, it was good to learn about what had happened to Liv gradually, as she herself learned about what had happened two years ago. However, I do think there could have been a different, better way of gradually revealing that information, since the constant changes in tense and voice made it difficult to switch focus.

Despite the problems, I did actually enjoy reading this book. It had a really interesting premise, and the main character was someone I really cared about and empathised with. I would be interested in reading more books by this same author in the future, so long as just one style is used when writing!

Spirited Away

Posted by cat2002116 on August 5, 2024
Posted in: Fantasy, Plays, Reviews. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

I’ll preface this review by saying that the animated movie of Spirited Away is one of my favourite movies of all times. I’d say that it’s one of my sister’s favourite movies, too. So when she offered to pay for tickets to the theatre showing in London this year, for my birthday, I immediately jumped at the chance.

I seriously loved the show, and I’m so happy that I got to experience seeing it with my sister. I will say that being in the balcony did give a bit of a restricted view, as the balcony itself blocked a small portion of the stage. Unfortunately, part of the story did take place in an area that was blocked from view, so if you go to see the play, I would suggest avoiding the balcony seating.

Spirited Away the movie is an animated movie, and I was really interested to see how that carried through onto the stage. I thought the animated parts worked really well…and I especially liked seeing Yubaba’s giant head and how that was created on the stage.

I really loved the visual aspects of the play. The opening scene played out at the very front of the stage, which unfortunately did mean I missed a few moments of Chihiro and her parents. It had been a while since I saw the animated movie, so while I remembered most of the basic storyline, I couldn’t remember all of the intricate details. However, after Chihiro and her parents went through the tunnel, the whole stage opened up…and I felt like I was getting a glimpse into a much bigger world. There was a lot of space on the stage, and the cast definitely made use of it.

The costumes and look of the characters fit so well with what I remembered from the original movie, which was really awesome. I loved Lin especially, as she looked and sounded so much like her counterpart from the movie…and Lin was always one of my favourites from the movie, along with Chihiro and Haku, of course.

Speaking of Chihiro and Haku, I thought the play did a really good job of showing the friendship and relationship between them. Since that was one of the strongest elements of the original movie, it was really important to me that that come across well in the theatre show…and I really felt it did.

Another aspect that I truly liked about this show was the music. The song about the gods going into the bathhouse right at the start was really good…and I particularly liked the song and dance when the gold is scattered in the bathhouse the first time; although to be honest, I was confused and thought they were golden fans at first!

The show was actually subtitled, which is something I’ve never experienced at a theatre show before. It wasn’t entirely easy to read the subtitles and watch what was going on at the same time. However, the screens showing the subtitles were very clear; they were just set quite far above the stage, so I was trying to read the subtitles as fast as possible and then watch was going on on the stage. I’m a fast reader, but I did find it difficult to take in both at times.

Despite the issues with the restricted view, I did really enjoy this show and I found it a really good retelling of one of my favourite movies. I would definitely recommend watching this show, especially if you’re a fan of Japanese animated movies.

Artificial Wisdom

Posted by cat2002116 on August 3, 2024
Posted in: Books, End of The World Book Reading Club, Reviews, Science Fiction. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

This was another book I received through the End of the World Reading Club…and I was immediately intrigued by the cover and the blurb. Given the content of the book, it felt like it fit very well with the current affairs of the world.

Given I was reading this book during the summer, when it was quite hot, the heatwave in the book that killed millions felt like it could really happen.

Tully was a character who I was quickly able to empathise with, given how he was suffering from the loss of his wife and unborn child…and had had no chance of finding her body, until the mysterious whistleblower who reached out with footage from the tabkhir that had devastated the Persian Gulf.

While I was able to empathise with Tully really well, and gradually learned about Livia, I have to say that Lottie and Randall weren’t really developed to the extent that other characters were.

I thought that the whole murder mystery part of this book worked really well. It was really good to follow along in the investigation with Tully and October…but I have to say, I really didn’t like October as a character. I know she and everyone else said that the Floating States had different laws, but from an ethical standpoint, I felt that a lot of her actions were very questionable.

One of the things I really liked about this book was the description of the technology used in the world. While it was clearly futuristic, it felt like the technology was close to the kind of technology that exists now.

I liked the whole backdrop of the election, with the human running against the AI. I found Solomon a little bland as a character, to be honest. I guess that made sense, considering the fact he was an AI, but I would have liked a bit more about him…especially his relationship with Martha, who was effectively his mother, as she was the one who created him.

I mentioned that the murder mystery aspect of the book was really good, and I was really engaged with it…until the end of the book. I thought things made sense…and then it was like the rug was pulled out from under me with a random, ‘No, it wasn’t this at all!’ Without going into too much detail…I felt the ending was pretty meh.

On the whole, the book was easy to read. The main characters were engaging and well-written, even if some of the secondary characters felt a bit flat. And I definitely felt that the ending didn’t need an extra ‘twist’. But I am glad I was able to read this book, and while it isn’t something I’d read again, it was definitely intriguing for an initial read-through.

Deadpool and Wolverine

Posted by cat2002116 on August 3, 2024
Posted in: Marvel, Movies, Reviews, Superhero. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

So, let’s be honest. Deadpool and Wolverine? Yeah, I was always going to go and see it. I love Marvel…and my love of Marvel started out with the X-Men movies. And Deadpool 1 and 2 were just so good. Even after his original failed debut in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Ryan Reynolds actually is Deadpool. I couldn’t imagine any other actor being able to portray him nearly as well.

Sometimes, the very first scene of a movie will make me realise instantly whether I’ll like it or not. The opening scene of this movie? Had me nearly crying with laughter. Who else but Deadpool would try to dig up Logan’s body, and then use the bones from his skeleton in a battle montage…while dancing to the opening song?

I actually had very little idea of what to expect from this movie, apart from it being the long-awaited teamup between Deadpool and Wolverine. I did watch the first season of Loki, so I was familiar with both the TVA and the Void…but I don’t think you need to have watched the MCU to understand what was going on. (My sister isn’t a fan of most superhero movies, but she always enjoyed X-Men and Deadpool…and also really liked this).

I can’t say that I’m all that familiar with the comic universe, so although I appreciated the huge army of Deadpools who appeared at the end…I didn’t know much about any of them. I did love how classic!Deadpool commented on how ridiculous the multiverse was getting, because by the time that scene rolled around, I was finding it a bit tiresome. But I loved Dogpool (Mary Poppins) and I liked Nicepool, even though he had none of the attitude that makes classic!Deadpool so interesting.

I’m always a fan of humanising villains, or at least making them more interesting than ‘just destroy everyone in sight’, and I did think that Cassandra Nova was a really interesting villain in this movie. I did cringe a whole lot at the way she read people’s minds, by forcing her fingers into their heads. That just made my skin crawl, even though she explained why she needed to do it that way.

I loved all of the easter eggs in this movie…and there were a lot. I was a bit surprised that the fight between Logan and Sabretooth lasted such a short amount of time, but with everything else happening in the movie, I guess I could understand why. I probably also missed a lot of the easter eggs in the movie, due to not being familiar with some of the comics.

So yeah, I have to say that this movie is definitely worth watching. It was a lot of fun and didn’t take itself seriously at all. In my opinion, if you’re a Marvel fan, you’ll really enioy this movie…but you don’t have to be overly familiar with the MCU to understand this movie.

Twisters

Posted by cat2002116 on July 28, 2024
Posted in: Disaster, Movies, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

I’m pretty sure I did watch the original Twister movie, although all I really remember is that it showed a scene from The Shining on a TV screen at a gas station. Basically, I didn’t really remember much of the original when I went to see this one at the cinema.

I didn’t have huge expectations for this movie. Nothing to do with the movie itself, but I figured it wasn’t going to be a ‘difficult’ movie to watch…and since the last movie I saw at the cinema disappointed me, I didn’t want to get my hopes up too much.

I will say that this movie was a lot better and more engaging than I was expecting it to be. The very first scene starts with a group of five tornado chasers, who are actually trying an experiment to weaken and maybe even disrupt a tornado entirely. Right from the start, from that initial opening scene, I felt that this movie was doing more than I expected.

Unfortunately, I did get a bit confused between the characters who initially appeared in the opening scene. The beginning was incredibly intense, but because I didn’t know the characters very well, I didn’t have quite that emotional connection with them when the inevitable happened.

I did think this movie did a good job showing the obvious trauma Kate experienced after what happened to three of her friends. Having her take a completely different path to the trajectory she was originally on worked particularly well…and I could feel her discomfort when Javi reentered her life and wanted her to go back to doing what had caused her so much pain before.

I would have liked a bit more of a scientific explanation as to why Kate was able to tell which tornado was the one they needed to chase/which one was likely to wind down without actually causing damage. While there were some attempts to explain away that ability, there was a little too much reliance on instincts for the genre of this movie.

I will be honest that my first impression of Tyler was that he was a real jerk. It was good that, as the movie progressed, he was shown to have a lot more depth to him than I initially thought. I also really liked his bonds with his crew, although I would have liked a bit more detail about their history and how they all became friends/started working together.

I will say that I’m not a fan of Hollywood’s need to shoehorn romance into everything. I was more of a fan of the friendship bonds that formed…and I could have done without the whole ‘will they, won’t they’ between Kate and Tyler.

Apart from that, though, I did enjoy the movie as a whole. I can’t say that there were many easter eggs from the original movie in this, as I don’t remember the first movie, but I don’t think you need to have seen the original movie to be able to follow this one. I would definitely recommend watching this movie if you’re thinking about it.

Longlegs

Posted by cat2002116 on July 21, 2024
Posted in: Horror, Movies, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , , . 1 Comment


So…from a fairly good horror movie to one that, in my opinion, was nowhere near as good as it could have been.

Okay, so this movie was one that I booked in to see at the cinema without knowing anything about it other than it being a horror movie. After I booked it, YouTube then decided to play a trailer for the movie while I was watching a video…and the trailer was really creepy and immediately spiked my interest.

Unfortunately, this was a case of the movie not living up to its potential.

I really struggled to connect to Lee as a character. I had no idea why she’d joined the FBI in the first place…and it was extremely confusing why they had a whole setup to determine psychic abilities. There really wasn’t enough worldbuilding to set up why Lee’s superiors would assume that her intuition would indicate psychic ability.

I struggled a lot with my suspension of disbelief; not just because of the aforementioned ‘she must be psychic!’ but also because it felt like the movie didn’t make a whole lot of sense as a whole. Lee is told about ten cases and spends a whole montage listening to 911 calls and looking at crime scene photos…and when she’s asked to give a report on what she’s learned, she says something along the lines of, ‘Two of the families had shotguns in the house. Eight used knives. And one had a hammer.” And this number added up to eleven. Not ten. There is an eleventh crime scene found, but no one mentions that she’s identified eleven cases and not ten? The series Medium did a far better job when the main character talks about a third victim and it turns out one of the murdered women was pregnant.

Speaking of the FBI, this line made me quite literally roll my eyes: ‘The father’s wounds appear to be self-inflicted, but we can’t be sure until we’re sure.’ I just…huh? What happened to Forensics? CSI? They were on the scene; I saw the jacket saying CSI!

One thing I found strange about this movie was the use of the camera angles. When Lee was talking to Ruth, and later to Carrie Ann, the camera just showed her face and then the face of the person she was talking to. It felt kind of like the filming of the two people hadn’t even taken place in the same location, as there were hardly any scenes showing them in the same shot. I figured Lee and Carrie Ann were seated opposite each other, but both of them were looking to the side, so…who knows?

I was also really disappointed in the titular character of this movie, played by Nicolas Cage. Especially recently, I’ve found that Cage’s acting is very over the top…and while that worked in Renfield and Dream Scenario, it really pulled me out of the movie in this case. Not that that was hard to do.

Sadly, the only good thing I can say about this movie…in my opinion…is that the trailer was pretty good. And that’s it. Unfortunately, the movie did not live up to my expectations…and I was pretty bored throughout.

I wouldn’t recommend watching this movie, which is a shame, because it looked like it was going to be a really good, scary supernatural horror.

A Quiet Place: Day One

Posted by cat2002116 on July 18, 2024
Posted in: Horror, Movies, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

I’d seen the previous two movies in this franchise, so I was immediately interested in seeing this prequel movie. I will say that, based on the trailer, I thought that Sam was going to be a completely different character to the one that actually appeared in the movie. I wasn’t expecting the movie to open with a group of terminally ill cancer patients, including Sam, in a hospice…but with that opening scene and that understanding that Sam was going to die very soon, it allowed me to have a better, deeper understanding of her character…and what motivated her throughout the movie. I listened to a review earlier where the reviewer seemed confused about why Sam was so desperate to get pizza…but to me, it made perfect sense. She was already dying; with the whole world ending around her, she’d never get another chance to have that pizza…to have that memory of her father, which the movie shows was a big reason for her wanting to go and get pizza.

I did really enjoy the friendship that formed between Sam and Eric, even though it was sometimes difficult to hear what they were saying to each other. While I understand needing to keep the atmosphere of near-silence in the movie, I feel like there was too much quiet and that some of the character development was lost during those moments, where the conversation was too quiet to really figure out what was going on.

I obviously loved Frodo the cat in this movie…and if you don’t mind a minor spoiler and, like me, love cats, I can safely say that the cat is fine. There is a bit…okay, a lot…suspension of disbelied required, as even the best trained animal isn’t likely to just be absolutely fine with humans being killed all around him, but I could do that for the sake of, ‘At least the cat is fine!’

I thought there were some really nice scenes in this movie, such as the one where Sam is walking through the street right after the bus she’s on is blown up. I also really liked the scene where she dreams the world is back to normal. I actually believed the world was back to normal for a second…until the obligatory jump scare.

I also really appreciated that, despite the fact there were a lot of people dying through the movie, there wasn’t a lot of detail shown. It’s really good that this movie actually paid attention to the idea that less is more.

I will say that the only real nitpick I have is…how did everyone figure out that the aliens were hunting by sound? I know that the helicopters were broadcasting this message, but it went from the aliens killing people to everyone then being as quiet as possible…and that didn’t really make much sense.

Despite the problem mentioned above, though, I did really enjoy this movie and found the three main characters engaging and interesting (cat included). I don’t think you need to have watched the previous two movies to enjoy this one, but if you have seen them, I do recommend seeing this one too.

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder Season One

Posted by cat2002116 on July 14, 2024
Posted in: Reviews, Television, Thriller, Young Adult. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

So, I really liked the book A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. When my oldest nibling told me that the TV series was available to watch on BBC iPlayer, I was immediately interested in watching it…and I watched all six episodes in one night.

While I did have some mixed feelings about this series, I did like Pip in the series. My sister mentioned that she felt Pip’s autistic traits were more obvious in the TV series than in the books, and I’m inclined to agree…though Ry always felt that Pip was obviously autistic to them in the books.

It’s hard not to compare the series to the book, as it was obviously based on that. I will say that a lot of the actors portrayed the characters they played really well. I’m more used to seeing Matthew Baynton in comedy roles than serious ones, but I did think he did a particularly good job at portraying Elliot Ward.

While the book was always going to be better, I was kind of disappointed that so much was left out of the series. There was a lot of intrigue that wasn’t included…and I really didn’t like the fact that one of the main characters had her entire backstory completely changed (Nat Da Silva). One of the really good things about the book was just how many secrets Andie was revealed to have, showing that she wasn’t the ‘good’ girl everyone had assumed her to be. I can’t really say that there was subject matter the series didn’t want to touch on, either, as it didn’t shy away from showing what had happened to Becca.

I did like the flashbacks to Pip as a child and when she saw Andie for the last time, but I did kind of feel that that particular flashback was shown a lot more than was really necessary. While it was good to gradually know more about that situation (such as Pip telling Sal where Andie was), I didn’t think it needed to be shown as many times as it was.

I mentioned above that I was disappointed in one of the characters having her backstory changed…and I have to say that I didn’t like the way her brother, Daniel, was changed in the series. The series really didn’t need a charming potential love interest (it was a bit weird that Pip called him cute, since he was always angry, and older than her…not to mention married…in the book), especially as the series already had Ravi!

I did like Naomi and Cara and their relationship with each other, as well as their friendship with Pip. I thought that Yasmin Al-Khudhairi did a really good job of capturing Naomi’s personality, along with the guilt that clearly affected her after the car crash and everything that happened with Sal. And I really liked Cara’s interactions with Pip. I can’t really say the same for the rest of Pip’s friends, though. I didn’t feel any real connection to them, as I didn’t feel their characters were developed very much throughout the series…which is a shame, as there were a lot of good things about Pip’s interactions with them in the book.

I did enjoy Pip’s interactions with her father in this series…but I didn’t really like her relationship with her mother as much. Her mother seemed to be trying to parent sometimes, only to be distant and preoccupied later on in the series. Plus, unlike in the book, Pip showed very little sign of her project affecting her in a negative way. Yes, she went out to a party…but her parents seemed entirely on board with her doing that. In that respect, I’d say that the series dropped the ball a little.

I do think that the series stands well enough on its own, but it’s not a truly faithful adaptation to one of my favourite books. While I can understand having to change certain things when switching from one medium to another, there was too much changed in this series that actually took away from the story instead of adding to it, in my opinion.

If you watch the series on its own merits, you’ll probably enjoy it. But as an adaptation, I will say that I was a bit disappointed in many of the changes that were made from book to TV series.

Not Alone

Posted by cat2002116 on June 25, 2024
Posted in: Apocalyptic, Books, End of The World Book Reading Club, Reviews. Tagged: , , , . 1 Comment

I love the fact that I now have a new book coming every month…a book that I have no idea what it will be, other than the genre of apocalyptic/dystopian. Unfortunately, I missed the initial delivery of this book, so I had to avoid spoilers for what was in the box until I could get the rearranged delivery.

When I opened the box, I was immediately drawn in by the front cover. The blurb succeeded in piquing my interest even more, as I’m always kind of a sucker for reunion stories…and more so when they have an apocalyptic style setting.

The stronges part of this book was definitely the relationship between Katie and her son, Harry. However, I did feel like Katie’s decision not to tell him the real truth…and let him think there were ‘nasties’…made things so much more difficult. Children tend to understand a lot more than they’re given credit for, and what Harry’s imagination came up with was clearly much worse than the truth, given that he wasn’t that scared when Katie finally told him the truth.

I did find the constant flashbacks to before the storm a bit jarring and not really necessary. I guess those did a good job of showing that Katie was stuck in the Before and not able to embrace the new world, despite being forced to live in it…which is also understandable, since every breath she takes exposes her lungs to the toxic fumes of the air.

Katie’s struggles to breathe and her constant chest pain gave a kind of urgency to this book that didn’t really feel like it translated to the long descriptions of her driving the car along deserted roads, or walking with Harry. I felt that some parts of the book really dragged, while others rushed by too fast.

I did feel bad for poor Harry, who was wrenched from everything he knew and was thrust into a complete unknown. His reactions to being carried out of his safe space made a whole lot of sense, especially when he ended up getting motion sick from being in the car for the first time. The poor kid was actually pretty resilient, compared to how a lot of children his age would be.

I did feel that this book was pretty hopeless and depressing to read. It wasn’t easy…but that was the whole point of the book, really. It wasn’t a nice, easy read because the world the characters were in wasn’t a nice or an easy one. I just kind of wish that the multiple flashbacks hadn’t been included, as they pulled me out of the book.

On the whole, I felt this book was worth reading…but it isn’t something I would really want to read again. I recommend giving it a try, at least.

Marvel Platinum: The Definitive Doctor Strange

Posted by cat2002116 on June 16, 2024
Posted in: comic books, Marvel, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

After watching Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, Stephen Strange became my third favourite Marvel character…replacing Steve, who dropped down after the events of Endgame. And after one of my brothers got me this comic book for Christmas last year, I definitely wanted to read this. It just took me a little while to start reading.

Much like Iron Man and Captain America, I’m very familiar with Stephen Strange’s origin story. An arrogant surgeon who loses the use of his hands, he ends up learning magic during his quest to somehow restore the use of his hands.

Unlike the MCU, in the comics, Stephen and Mordo are rivals pretty much from the start. Though none of the comics in this collection show their initial meeting, Mordo is well established as someone who hates Stephen and wants to kill him and the Ancient One, so that he’s the strongest magic user left. I will say that this hatred for both his fellow apprentice and his mentor does confuse me a little, as why did he even become the Ancient One’s apprentice if his only goal is to kill the older man?

The first two comics didn’t really feel as tense as the later ones did, as Mordo felt very much like a minor annoyance rather than an outright threat. Stephen seems to find it really easy to outwit Mordo and beat him in both of the storylines.

The third comic in this collection definitely ups the stakes a bit. Compared to Mordo, Shuma-Gorath is a much bigger threat…especially as it’s revealed that it needs to get to Earth through the Ancient One. I found it interesting that Stephen was faced with the moral dilemma of having to take a life in order to save the rest of the world, especially as it went against his vow to never take a life. I would have liked to see a bit more of his feelings after doing so. While the Ancient One’s soul was free to become part of the bigger universe, I still feel like the act of taking a life should have had more of an impact on Stephen. Maybe it does in future comics. I don’t know.

Weep for the Soul of Man was definitely an intense read, where it actually seemed like Mordo’s nefarious scheme succeeded. While I didn’t really know the characters he was about to sacrifice, I still found myself empathising with their plight. It was interesting to see Man-Thing, who’s a character from the comics I’m not really familiar with. I definitely felt bad for the fact that he’d awoken Man-Thing’s human self…and that Stephen couldn’t reverse what had turned Sallis into Man-Thing. While he did return Man-Thing to a mindless state, I definitely felt like that was a poor way to repay Man-Thing for what he’d done…though Stephen seemed to feel that way as well.

I did find it a really intriguing storyline where Stephen had to give up his white magic, and pretty much everything about him, in order to fight Shuma-Gorath again. I thought that taking Victoria’s power from her was really wrong, though. While it was obvious why he felt the need to do so, given the threat Shuma-Gorath was to the Earth, I think he definitely went against a huge part of his nature. Victoria did tell him she wanted to help, but she didn’t agree to him taking her power from her…and that definitely made me dislike Stephen a bit in this storyline. In this instance, I really don’t think the ends justified the means…and I would have really liked to see some of the aftermath of what he did in order to fight Shuma-Gorath.

I always like redemption arc storylines, so seeing Mordo get one was really good. Originally, upon finding out that Mordo’s cancer had been transferred to Stephen, I assumed that Mordo’s apology and plea for forgiveness was nothing more than a trick. However, when Mordo took the cancer back into himself and revealed that it had been his daughter who’d been responsible for the transferrance. While the storyline did have a sad ending, I felt that there was some hope in it, given that Mordo was able to rejoin the Ancient One’s spirit and Stephen asked him to save a place for him.

The penultimate comic in this collection involved the Fantastic Four…although I was surprised, and a little bit disappointed, to see that the blurb gave away what happened in that comic. As soon as I started reading, it was exactly what had been summarised, so there was no surprise or tension when it turned out that Agatha Harkness was helping the Salem Seven, or that the spell was actually intended to unleash Shuma-Gorath. Reed Richards actually seemed to realise that something was wrong, but didn’t put a stop to the spell being read by Sue? Apart from that, though, I really enjoyed seeing the Fantastic Four…especially Johnny and Ben, as they’re two of my favourites. And I loved that Johnny was the only one who didn’t drink the tea, so was therefore the only one unaffected by losing his powers.

The final comic was the one I was looking forward to the most. The basic storyline involves a cosmic cube-twisted Steve Rogers, whose reality has been changed so that he’s been a HYDRA agent all along. I was a bit disappointed to see that Mordo was back as a bad guy, as I liked the way his storyline had been ended, but he did seem to give Stephen more of an enemy to fight than I’d really seen in the first two comics. I especially liked the DnD references in this comic, along with the fact that Wilson Fisk was helping Stephen, Jessica and Ben Urich. I loved seeing Ben Urich as an avenging angel and how he reacted to Wilson Fisk being willing to help them, despite still being a criminal/bad guy.

All told, I really enjoyed this collection. Reading these storylines made me want to seek out many of the other storylines, especially the final comic. I would definitely recommend reading this if you enjoy Marvel comics.