Mark's Epic Blog of Randomness

 By Mark Rodriguez Here's another awesome comic from independent artists that opened up an Indiegogo to get it started. I usually don't chip in unless it looks real good, like you just know they're gonna hit their goal. Arachna, a sexy superheroine with a split personality and an amazing art syle, sure looked like a good pick for me.  With lots of clever marketing in advance, even getting a person to dress as Arachna herself to bring the character to life, they hit their goal the same day they actually opened the Indiegogo for donations. I chipped in for the comic and the shirt, and here is my review on the latest superheroine that's bringing sexy back to comics, Arachna! Also note, while I'll try to keep my language as tame as I can, this book deals with way more adult stuff than I usually discuss on this blog. The Adventure Begins The issue opens with Jennie lying in bed naked in her apartment, a noticeable pile of sketches lying on the floor. She awakens to a voi

 By Mark Rodriguez Once in a while it's good to check out the works of these brave pioneers that seek out to publish their independent works without needing to work for 'the big two'. I saw this one on Indiegogo last year and saw that the person running it was close to reaching their goal so I threw my hat into the ring. I got my copy earlier in the year and now finally found the time to check it out. From my understanding it deals with an MMA fighter that has the ability to make her opponents orgasm by snapping her fingers. The only thing is, she needs to be able to touch them first, which isn't always easy in the middle of a fight. Let's see what I got myself into. The story opens with our main character, Amari The Rose, winning a match against The Crusher. It is noticeable that one of her boxing gloves is off and is lying on the mat. The crowd is booing her and some people are claiming the match was rigged. As she walks out, some tough guys approach her claiming

 By Mark Rodriguez One of the cool things about Free Comic Book is discovering new and interesting stories other than the usual Marvel and DC fare. The cover for this one looked pretty interesting and the overall presentation stood out. Unlike most comics this one came with a glossier thicker feeling cover and the pages feel more like regular paper, not newspaper but also not whatever comics are using nowadays. Plus the art style kinda has that Anime/JRPG look going for it, so it piqued my curiosity. The story opens with Jinwoo Sung, struggling to lift his sword, already slashed up and bleeding badly. He's an E Rank Hunter, the lowest of the Hunter's Association, and the weakest of them all, as he's facing off against giant demonic monsters arms with spears and other long-range blade weapons. One of them raises their spear, ready to swing it down for the kill. Jinwoo thinks to himself that he never thought he'd find himself in this situation. Sometime earlier, we see Ji

 By Mark Rodriguez Life is Strange is a popular interactive story type game where the choices you make affect how certain things go. The first game dealt with Max Caulfield having returned to her home town of Arcadia Bay and unknowingly witnessing the death of her best friend Chloe Price. She discovers she has the ability to turn back time, which she uses to prevent Chloe from dying, but now all sorts of weird things start happening around her as well as reality itself. All the while there is a giant storm headed for Arcadia Bay, which Max has been able to predict due to nightmares that is somehow tied to her new powers. There was a prequel called 'Before the Storm' that deals with Chloe and her life before Max moved back and how she became the rebellious teen we met her as in the main game. There was a sequel that dealt with another set of characters, and there is a third game coming out with yet another protagonist. The common theme of all 3 games is that one of the character

By Mark Rodriguez We had a lot of fun this year at Free Comic Book Day. Johnny swung by to visit so it was the first time we both checked it out together. Even when we lived together for a while our jobs made it impossible to check out the comic shops at the same time. This year the two main comics I was looking for were the one for Street Fighter that featured Rival Schools character Akira, as she joins the Street Fighter 5 cast, and one based on Life is Strange. Here's the Street Fighter one.  The story opens with Rufus telling Maki about a fight he had in which he actually died during the fight. Effie and Necro are there too and Effie confirmed they had to use Necro's powers to jumpstart Rufus back to life. Rufus said the guy he fought, Adon, was fighting dirty. Maki says fighting dirty is just another way to get the job done. Just then a biker with a skull on her helmet drives past them. Maki calls the biker hardcore, which leads to Rufus now wanting to tell them about the

 By Mark Rodriguez I managed to grab a couple of Marvel Team-Up books, back in the day when comics still came as one-shots. These guys are pretty old, comics were still 35 cents back then. Checking the comic, it was released August 78. Oh wow. Let's see what Iron Man and Spider-Man were up to in the 70's. "Crack of the Whip!" starts with Spider-Man shining his Spider-Signal upon a group of crooks that are stealing some furs. The crooks try to shoot Spidey with drugged 'Mercy Bullets'. Spidey quickly takes down the bad guys while dodging their shots. He takes their furs, which makes the bad guys think the Bugle was right about Spidey being a thief, but he actually used them to cover them up to make it easier to clobber them.  Suddenly the truck the bad guys were using open fired upon Spidey from its machine gun turret, and the hero is hit. The Mercy Bullets are gelatin encased and shatter upon contact, sending a nerve drug directly into his bloodstream. Spidey

 By Mark Rodriguez Batman finally comes face to face with Hugo Strange after he was framed for kidnapping the Mayor's daughter. Batman was drugged and beaten by Strange and during this, Hugo overheard the Dark Knight call out for his parents. This led to him discovering his secret identity after looking up all police reports on husband and wife murders going back 20 years. When a broken and beaten Batman returns home, he finds Alfred knocked out and mannequins that look like his parents with recordings blaming him for their deaths. Batman loses all control and falls down the stairs to the Bat Cave, letting the darkness consume him. How will this end? "The Kill" opens with Bruce in the Bat Cave, losing himself to his own despair. He laments that maybe he's as crazy as Strange says he is. Everyone is against him from the media to the police. He blames himself for his parents deaths. He also thinks he should end the dream of being Batman since now Hugo Strange knows and

By Mark Rodriguez  Dr. Strange has become obsessed with Batman and has hypnotized Max Cort into being a vigilante named Night Scourge. As Scourge he runs into both Catwoman and Batman and manages to get away. This time Hugo hypnotizes him into dressing up as Batman himself, sending him to kidnap the Mayor's daughter and telling the Mayor that 'Gotham is his'. While this is happening, the real Batman is still out cold, having been knocked out by Catwoman. It's been a while so here are the links to the first 3 parts Prey Part 1   Prey Part 2   Prey Part 3 'The Nightmare' opens with the Mayor understandably upset that his daughter was kidnapped by who he thinks is Batman. He tells Gordon that he has 5 days for his Vigilantee Task Force to catch him or he's off the force for good. Gordon knows in his heart that Batman is innocent, but he has no choice but to order Cort to bring in Batman by any means necessary. Cort says he figured that was the point of the t