#Dennis 'hopeless' Hallum

[hushedruin]

'X-Men: Season One' Review aka "the nerdy uncle dilemma"

'X-Men: Season One' is a good "year one" kind of story starring the O5 - Angel, Beast, Cyclops, Iceman and the spotlight/centerpiece of our story Marvel Girl/Jean Grey. It's less a retcon and more an updating… bywhichimean Jean is a real character instead of "the girl". But I think the bullet points are the same as those early years of X-Men comics - Scott/Jean/Warren love triangle, a fight with the Brotherhood Of Evil Mutants and Unus The Untouchable, Professor X is kind of a jerk... you know, the classics, lol.

Dennis Hopeless/Hallum wrote this (before he did 'All-New X-Men' which again featured the O5) and it's great! I'd totally get it for my niece and nephews… except it also contains an issue of Utopia-era X-Men and page 1 has a big pic of Emma Frost and her tig ol' bitties. I dont mean to big crude about it but Emma rocks an outfit that is gonna be a nonstarter for the children's eyes. Which is a shame because this story really works on all other cylinders! Hopeless/Hallum's writing is easy to follow and understand. Jamie McKelvie is on art and it looks so clean. Though there is this thing with Professor X's eyebrows that McKelvie seems *deeply* committed to, which is kinda funny but also super random.

This was a deal that was 90% sealed and then really dropped the ball for me. Or rather for the kids. Anyway, if you're over 13, yeah, it's great! If you're under 13, stop when it says "The Beginning!" (instead of "the end").

#XMen #X-Men #Comics #Superheroes #Ramblin Reviews #Intro reads #Mutants #Marvel Comics #Dennis Hopeless #Dennis Hallum #Jamie McKelvie #Cyclops #Jean grey

[villainspo]

Baron Mordo understands that sometimes you just have to get down to business.

Source: Doctor Strange (2015) #24, by Dennis Hopeless (writer), Niko Henrichon (art), and Cory Petit (lettering).

#doctor strange #baron mordo #marvel comics #dennis hopeless #dennis hallum #niko henrichon #cory petit

[that90ssmshow]

"She's a billionaire... of course she wants to take over the world!" Spider-Woman #7 (2016)

#jesse drew #jessica drew #spider-woman #spiderwoman #Agent 77 #s.i.l.k #silk #cindy moon #spider-gwen #spider-women #billionaires #eat the rich #anti capitalist #capitalism #supervillains #Dennis 'hopeless' Hallum #Dennis Hallum #joelle jones #smcomics

[comicbookfx]

BOOM

X-O Manowar #2 L: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou A: Emilio Laiso C: Ruth Redmond W: Dennis "Hopeless" Hallum

#boom #explosion #x-o manowar #lettering #typography #valiant comics #hassan otsmane-elhaou #emilio laiso #ruth redmond #dennis hopeless hallum

[majingojira]

Revenge of Cosmic Ghost Rider -- “Wait, are they serious?!”

Seeing a positive review online for Cosmic Ghost Rider, and learning that Cammi was in Revenge of Cosmic Ghost Rider, I thought, Eh, why not?  

So I read the first issue and it was that kind of brainless stupid fun you can get in comics sometimes.  Not great, but not terrible. Then Cammi showed up, and things were okay.

Then, as a gag, they did the “Has headphones on and doesn’t hear bad things around them” gag, which included a shower scene. It wasn’t framed TOO sexily, but it got my eyebrows to raise mostly because she’s still a minor (16 at best).  

I blame the artist on that one.  

Then, Cosmic Ghost Rider catches her and gives her a Penance Stare.  And we get THIS piece of brilliance.

This is suspension-of-disbelief shattering mischaracterization. I almost laughed out loud at how dumb this was.  And it’s apparently a plot point as Cosmic Ghost Rider drags her around and she tries to be badass but he won’t let her.  

It’s a joke, but a joke that has no idea how dumb it is.  

By the time this gag was playing out in full, I had to stop and go “Who the hell thought this was a good idea.

And I found out: Dennis “Hopeless” Hallum.

And I laughed.  

This is exactly the kind of “not thinking plot points through” that always undermines his stories.  He is definitely getting better, but this sort of thing REALLY hampers his work.

Also, we get this bit of more retconning to Arena from the man himself.

Pretty sure Cammi LOST almost every fight in Arena that she had.

Let me see, she “Fought” Death Locket and both walked away unscathed.

She lost to Darkhawk outright. 

She lost to Apex and had to talk Nico Minoru into fighting for her. 

She stole the Darkhawk armor from Chase, which might be a win, but not really in context.

And was sent running by Nico later on.

I’m sure I’m missing one or two, but yeah, that’s a very bad definition of “Won.” Unless she means “Lived” which, I guess could be a “Win” but it’s a hilarious piece of self-aggrandizement.

“I got my ass kicked 3 times out of 4, but I lived, so that’s a win!”

Now, you might think that such an obvious self-contradiction was intended to drive home the “Innocent” point. But that’s not reading the tone of the book at all.

This is not a thinking person's book.  This is a gags and gore books.  But even by those standards, this is pretty dumb.

The second issue ends with her being sent to hell or something.  I’m sure she’ll be back before the end of the story, but I have no faith in the story at this point.  

Suspension of disbelief was shattered, and there’s no getting that back. 

Edit: it's mischaracterization, not a narrative problem.

#Cosmic Ghost Rider #Revenge of Cosmic Ghosts Rider #Cammi Benaly #Avengers Arena #Dennis Hopeless #Dennis Hallum

[caffeinekrieg]

Jessica Drew's lifelong traumas being magically solved by having a baby is still the biggest load of horse shit and Imma stay mad till my dying day.

#jessica drew #spider woman #marvel #comics #dennis hopeless #dennis hallum #gerry drew #marvel comics

[bizarrobrain]

Star Wars: Vader - Dark Visions  #1 - #5 - written by Dennis "Hopeless" Hallum, cover art by Greg Smallwood

#Greg Smallwood #Dennis Hopeless Hallum #Marvel Comics #Star Wars: Vader - Dark Visions #Star Wars #Darth Vader #Comics

[graphicpolicy]

Messages from Midgard #7- I Am Iron-Odin

Messages from Midgard #7- I Am Iron-Odin. Get the scoop on this week's news from the War (of the Realms) front courtesy of @midnighterbae #comics #comicbooks #marvel

In what is probably a law of averages/regression to the mean situation, a decent issue of War of the Realms happened as Jason Aaron, Russell Dauterman, and Matthew Wilson stopped crafting trailers for tie-in issues (For the most part.) and turned in a damn good Odin and Freyja story. Throughout his run on Thor, Aaron has done a fantastic job creating character journeys for Odinson’s supporting…

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#ario anindito #captain marvel #carlos lopez #comic books #Comics #deadpool #dennis hallum #dennis hopeless #featured #Freyja #giant man #jason aaron #java tartaglia #kim jacinto #leah williams #marco castiello #marvel #matthew wilson #Messages from Midgard #nico leon #Odin #russell dauterman #sean ryan #spider-man #spider-man & the league of realms #thor #war of the realms #war of the realms: spider-man & the league of realms #war of the realms: strikeforce - war avengers

[doublezeroday]

Sea Of Stars #9

#Jason Aaron #Dennis Hopeless Hallum #Stephen Green #Rico Renzi #sea of stars #image #image comics #comics

[thecomicon]

Preview: Aric Must Rescue His Adopted Family In 'X-O Manowar' #4

Preview: Aric Must Rescue His Adopted Family In ‘X-O Manowar’ #4

Cover Art: Christian Ward Valiant Entertainment relaunched the series featuring their flagship superhero, X-O Manowar, with the creative team of writer, Dennis “Hopeless” Hallum, artist, Emilio Lasio, colorist, Ruth Redmond, and letterer, Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou. The first arc is set to conclude later this month but we have a first look at X-O Manowar #4 along with all the different covers. The…

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#Dennis "Hopeless" Hallum #Emilio Laiso #Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou #Ruth Redmond #Valiant Entertainment #X-O Manowar #X-O Manowar 4

[rebelsofshield]

Panels Far, Far Away: A Week in Star Wars Comics 6/13/19

Marvel closes out its experimental Darth Vader limited series in a competent but ultimately disappointing final issue.

Star Wars Vader: Dark Visions #5 written by Dennis “Hopeless” Hallum and art by Geraldo Borges

One writer change over, one great issue, and one controversy later, Vader: Dark Visions closes out its five issue run through the long shadow of the galaxy’s most famous villain. Like every issue except its start, this fifth and final story, “You Can Run…,” shoots for the fences conceptually and with a great deal of ambition but ends up falling short of its apparent narrative and thematic goals.

“You Can Run…” follows a hapless backwater planet cantina owner who after stumbling upon stolen rebel intelligence finds himself hunted by Darth Vader through an alien forest. However, when he is exposed to a hallucinogenic, plant reality begins to break apart and Vader becomes a force of nightmares.

Part of what initially made Dark Visions an appealing project was its ability to experiment visually and explore different styles of Star Wars stories. Its first issue transformed the dark lord into a believable epic hero with some larger than life art by Paolo Villanelli and its second saw a disastrous space campaign transform the structure of the comic itself. While the concept of having Darth Vader hunt down some poor citizen caught in the crossfire of galactic war isn’t necessarily a new one, the idea of using hallucinogens to transform Vader into something otherworldly and ethereal is novel and potentially exciting for a visual medium.

While Geraldo Borges’s art is well rendered and dynamic, it lacks the trippy psychedelic feel that the narrative calls for and Greg Smallwood’s bizarre cover teases. For a story about the transformative fear of this central villain, the nightmares that Borges and Hopeless conjure are decidedly pedestrian and uninventive. It’s not hard to think of what more “non-traditional” artists in Marvel’s large repertoire might have done with this concept. Even this issue’s own variant cover artist Aco, whose visually overwhelming and topsy turvy Nick Fury miniseries from 2017 was such a bizarre little hidden gem, would have been a welcome turn for this final issue. The end result just can’t help but feel underwhelming and lacking in inspiration.

Much of this may just come down to how this issue’s competent but familiar script fails to explore anything new about the figure at its center. As mentioned in my review of last issue, part of the appeal of Vader: Dark Visions was seeing how Hopeless would reimagine Darth Vader from the point of view of those around him and encourage new readings of the character. The end result at the conclusion of the series is one stellar issue of an accidentally heroic Sith, one problematic romance, and three unremarkable stories of how scary he is. The fact that characters fear Vader is hardly a revelation and despite how amusing these stories may be in their own spheres, it makes the project as a whole feel like a missed opportunity.

Score: C+

#Star Wars #Star Wars comics #Marvel #review #reviews #Darth Vader #Vader: Dark Visions #Dennis Hopeless #Dennis Hopeless Hallum #Geraldo Borges

[comicwaren]

From Marvel’s Spider-Man: The Black Cat Strikes #004

Art by Luca Maresca and Rachelle Rosenberg

Written by Dennis “Hopeless” Hallum

#marvel's spider-man: the black cat strikes #spider-man #peter parker #yuri watanabe #mary jane watson #black cat #felicia hardy #hammerhead #silver sable #silver sablinova #marvel #comics #marvel comics

[toniinfante]

It’s NCBD! Here’s my variant cover for Spider-Man Velocity #5.🕷

Written by Dennis "Hopeless" Hallum & art by Emilio Laiso.

———————————

PATREON // GUMROAD // PRINTSHOP

#spider-man #spiderman #velocity #marvel #cover #cover art #ncbd

[comicbookfx]

KRNNK

Marvel's Spider-Man: The Black Cat Strikes #1 A: Luca Maresca C: Rachelle Rosenberg W: Dennis "Hopeless" Hallum

#marvel's spider-man #marvel comics #spider-man #lettering #typography #luca maresca #rachelle rosenberg #dennis hopeless hallum #marvel's spider-man the black cat strikes

[thenerdsaurus]

Revenge Of The Cosmic Ghost Rider #1  (2019)  

“I was a Frankenstein once... I’m more open minded than I get credit for...”

Art Donny Cates, Dennis 'Hopeless' Hallum, Story Scott Hepburn, Geoff Shaw   

Get the comics here 

#Frank Castle #Ghost Rider #Cosmic Ghost Rider #Marvel Comics #Comics #Frankenstein

[majingojira]

Nico Minoru's Magic Part 2

Continued from Here.

So, Avengers Arena.

Avengers Arena is a story told by a writer who has no idea how the genre works and only a fair grasp of how the characters function at best.

This is easily demonstrated by what is established as Nico's status quo for the next few years in this book.

First off, Nico died. She casts a spell for help, and BOY does she get it.

In addition to once more supposedly 'bosting' her magic. She also gains a generic magical blast-attack without incantation, and the Flying Brick standard superhero package. A low end version. Marvel Universe grid method, she'd be at 5's for Strength, Speed, and Durability. Putting her in the same class as most of the 'bricks' in Marvel like Carol Danvers (uncharged), Teddy Altman, and Sif for Strength. Firebird or a basic Power Armor (Iron Man, Iron Heart) for speed, and Luke Cage, Rage, and Emma Frost for durability.

If that seems wholly generic, let that set the tone for the rest of what Nico has to go through for the next few years.

Fun Fact, the preview pages for this issue were actually released BEFORE the preview pages for #11 because her death caused that much backlash online.

Man, even re-reading it about a decade later still gets my stomach all twisted.

So, why should I suffer alone?

Avengers Arena #12

As you can tell, Dennis "Hopeless" Hallum (he chose the nickname for himself) really wants to try and be like Joss Whedon, but lacks the wit.

Having already established that Nico draws her power from negative emotional experiences -- Pain and Suffering, we have that wiped away for Blood. Gamifying the entire system. Now, we can keep track of her health bar (which they had in this series) and correlate it to her overall power access.

But here's the thing: Why should anyone believe Arcade?

In this series, he doesn't even make this Murdeworld, he commissions someone else to do it for him! And what occurs already fits in with multiple things of what is established (Pain/suffering fueling magic, the "Help" spell she cast with her dying breath). So it's REALLY easy to dismiss Arcade here as talking out of his ass.

I mean, this is comic books, we're used to stupidity ("I'm sealing up the fault lines, this is a good thing!"), but not with its own BS as much as this is.

So, it's easier to dismiss Arcade's claims as warrantless, because, really, why would you believe him? He's not just a liar, he's an idiot.

Especially in Arena, despite assertions to the contrary.

The next tidbit we get on Nico's new Magic Staff and Magic Arm of Super-Powered Disability doesn't come until the sequel series Avengers Undercover.

Because it makes dismissing Arcade as an idiot harder.

Avengers Undercover #7

Yes, Alex came back with this series. No, it was actually worse than Arena because it's hook was underwhelming by comparison.

Anyway, while the reliance on "It's totally blood magic now, you guys!" dumbing down of Nico's power, the idea that she's coating in a magical energy field to explain her Strength/Speed/Durability is a pretty viable one.

But the Arm of Disability Super-Powers earns its name rather... handily.

And I am not sorry for that pun.

The analysis of Nico's combat strategy is ... also deeply lacking, but that's another topic.

Once Dennis Hallum was done (Fun Fact #2: Hallum fought for this issue's topic specifically even though by this point, he knew he had only 4 issues left to finish the series), Nico was put in Limbo... until A-Force.

Where interviewers noted that her inclusion was weird because of her... being nearly Hawkman'd.

No new Magic, but Nico continued to display Super Strength in the Secret Wars volume. Why?

Because she took down an Asgardian. Physically.

Not just that, but a MEMBER OF THE THOR CORPS!

A-Force Vol. 1 #4

Arcadia Nico is ... Broken. Flat out Broken.

Anyway, when A-Force is formed in 616, Nico has a Power Up that is actually intelligent after the dumbing down of Dennis Hallum.

A-Force vol. 2 #2

Here, we have Nico taking down a cosmic being in a word, growing in power with her pain and suffering in-line with the Vaughn and Whedon run, AND the most logical expansion of her powers: Linguistic Advancement.

In the series, she is shown speaking fluent Japanese, and using Estonian as a "Heal" word. With 6,500, she has a lot to go with!

Another clever use of her powers comes from using coordinates to teleport.

A-Force vol. 2 #8

Elsewhere in the series, she gets to show off her powers by ... laying out She-Hulk, Captain Marvel, a Dazzler-Thor, and the rest of her teammates multiple times. Depowering them, knocking them out, etc. She also got to fight hard against mind control and subvert the worst of what her controller could do.

A-Force Nico is Peak Nico in terms of raw power.

But it does have some limits. She can keep multiple spells going at once, but doing so is hard for her. This may be an energy thing, but it may be a focus thing as well.

A-Force vol. 2 #6

She does get to punch out the lady mind-controlling her later on, and in One Punch no less.

But after choking out a Valkyrie-Thor, that's pretty pat.

The next really big change to Nico's powers comes in the current Runaways volume (5) with the reveal of The One, a sorcerer who was turned into the Staff and made a deal to use his magic to the benefit of the original caster.

But this is still developing as a story, the 'rules', basically allowing him to parasitize her senses (and probably take full control of her body, you know how these things go). Is also alters the history of the Staff from an implicit long linage to starting with the Witchbreaker.

Which has once again made her more powerful, but it's a much worse deal.

And...it's still developing. I'm hoping it reveals to be her grimmshape, but only time will tell.

So I won't go into as much detail with this. We'll see where it goes.

#Nico Minoru #Runaways #Avengers Arena #Avengers Undercover #A-Force #Nico's Magic