What Child Is This?: A Sherlock Holmes Christmas Adventure by Bonnie Macbird

With illustrations by the incomparable Frank Cho (Liberty Meadows, Harley Quinn), I really thought that this was a graphic novel. Without doing any further research, I promptly ordered this through Amazon with trade credit and awaited to spend the holidays with the master detective. Imagine my disappointment when this package arrived and inside was a novel! Only a few pages were graphic and most of those pages were of small trifling items like a bottle of booze and as gas light. 

I thought about it long and hard. Do I return this? It's clearly not what I wanted. But I do love me some Sherlock Holmes. And a little bit of Frank Cho artwork is better than no Frank Cho at all. Plus the book is only 225 pages and it's set during Christmas. Thus I decided I will read me another prose novel this year!

Sherlock Holmes and trusty Watson are tasked with solving 2 mysteries; both involving sons. A nobleman asks the sleuth to locate his son who has gone missing in time for Christmas dinner. Then when a young child is nearly kidnapped in broad daylight in the streets of London, Sherlock takes it upon himself to find the would-be abductor and to determine why.

I can't really go too much into the specifics of these cases; least I spoil the book. This book debuted just a few months ago and it's just too new to ruin it for you. Needless to say, I actually figured out both mysteries in this book ahead of time and that's rare for me when it comes to Sherlock Holmes. True, those original mysteries were written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. But to say I figured things out was also in no way a slight towards Bonnie Macbird. 

Macbird's version of Holmes is just as inviting as the original. The only difference is that while Macbird's Dr. Watson, the story's narrator, is just as loquacious and poetic in his descriptions, this book isn't filled with Victorian era vocabulary and old-dated Londoner terms that would require me pulling out the dictionary to decipher. Though the author may not have intended it, I very much can envision Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as the main characters of this story as I read it. 

I enjoyed this book very much- despite not being a graphic novel. I enjoyed it so much that after the holidays, I'm going to order the first book in the Bonnie Macbird series. I'm looking forward to a return to Victorian London and with Mrs. Macbird as my guide, I'm rather confident that I shall not get lost.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

Harley Quinn #68

Harley Quinn finds herself a holiday fugitive in this festive issue!


Harley Quinn #68
Written by Sam Humphries
Art by: Sami Basri
Covers by Guillem March, Frank Cho
Published by DC Comics
Retail: $3.99

This has not been a great holiday season for the Joker's ex-girlfriend thus far. The first Thanksgiving after the death of her mother, didn't leave much for the Quinzel family to be thankful for.  Thus, Harley Quinn is determined to make this Christmas the most holly jolliest of them all!

Harley Quinn finds a way to get herself accepted to Tinseltown- an all-inclusive Christmas resort! But when memories of Momma start to bring Harley down, the self-proclaimed Cupid of Crime finds herself on the wrong side of Tinseltown's security force. For it's a mandated law that in order to be welcomed to this Yuletide wonderland, one must be full of Christmas Spirit!

Now in prison at the resort, can Harley 'Escape From Tinseltown?'

I loved this issue. There's been a Harley Quinn Christmas issue for the past couple of years. These holiday home runs have become an annual tradition for me. And this one was worth the wait.

Citizen Jack's Sam Humphries took over the reigns for this series earlier this year from Amanda Conner, Jimmy Palmiotti and Chad Hardin. They were the best group to handle Harley since she was first crafted by creators Paul Dini and Bruce Timm. So, I was a little cautious that Humphries' holiday take of Harley Quinn just wouldn't be the same. But like I mentioned earlier, this issue was a home run. Thus, Sam Humphries really knocked it out of the park!


On top of the writing, I was in love with the art. Sami Basri (Batgirl) gave all of the characters such life and warmth. It reminds me quite of bit of Frank Cho's (Liberty Meadows) work. (By-the-way, Cho illustrates that festively fun variant that has Harley hijacking Rudolph!) Basri has this long standing member of the Gang of Harley's stamp of approval.

I would have liked a little more of Harley's interactions with Tinseltown before her banishment. But other than that, I enjoyed this Christmas comic book very much! And kudos to the gang at DC Comics to actually use the words Merry Christmas (and a Happy Hanukkah!) instead of a generic Happy Holidays! It was refreshing for the House That Superman Built to actually be a Cindy Lou Who instead of a Grinch for once!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars. 

X-Men: Battle of the Atom

 A few months ago, I noticed that both the collected volumes of Marvel NOW series All-new X- Men and Uncanny X-Men were missing a couple of issues. Battle of the Atom is the work that collects those missing issues. A couple of issues of Wolverine and the X-Men ( along with the 2-issue miniseries of Battle of the Atom) are contained within this volume as well. I assume that those issues are missing from the Wolverine trades, but my library doesn't carry that series, so I'm not sure if this is the case.

   I was really excited to finally get this book as I have waited forever for it. I had requested that my local library carry this book since before Thanksgiving and it took until late last month to finally arrive.  But it was worth the extra wait.

    Pressure mounts for the original X- Men to return to their own time. With no one to trust, Jean Grey and Scott Summers make a run for it. But on their tails are a group of X-Men claiming to be from the future. They to want to see the original Children of the Atom returned to their proper place on the timeline.  Only this group of X-Men  more vindictive and cunning in pursuit of their goal, leads Wolverine to smell a rat and do something he never thought he'd do in a million years- team up with the present's Cyclops band of mutant freedom fighters in order to save and protect the first X-Men from being wiped out of existence.

   Battle of the Atom was an epic adventure that pits multiple X-Men teams from across the decades. The only team missing it seems is the Giant-Sized X-Men team created by Chris Claremont in the mid-70s.Written by Brian Michael Bendis, with Jason Aaron and Brian Wood, this trio actually gives Claremont a run for his money on this. The artwork lead by Frank Cho and Stuart Immonen was really good too. However, the last two chapters seemed to have a different inker as the art didn't quite look as clean as the rest of the book.

    Essential reading and a must to complete your Marvel NOW X-titles run, especially if you are collecting only the trades.

  Worth Consuming

  Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.