 Wave 2 of TKO Studios. Let's do this. Hey everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode here at We Can Geek them. Gio here talking with you guys about TKO Studios. They kindly offered me all of the Wave 2 trade paperbacks, collected editions of their new titles for me to review. I already did a video on Sentient, so I'm not gonna cover that, but for this video I'm gonna talk about the three remaining books because I thought they were all pretty unique, pretty interesting. If you want a more cool little discussion head on over to the Omnibus Collectors Network on YouTube, specifically Omnibus Live. We're all six of us reviewed the four books and we gave our thoughts and all that stuff. So a big thank you, like I said, to TKO Studios for sending this my way. This is amazing. Thank you so very much for very different titles. Evil of Extinction, you got The Banks, you got Sentient, and of course Pound for Pound. And I'm gonna start with this one. Underground MMA fighter Danny Libra fears nothing except for her recurring blackouts and fractured memories that obscure a bloody past. Her sister gets kidnapped and things just escalate from there. It sort of felt like I was reading a B-movie, Quentin Tarantino-esque, Grindhouse type movie. The art in it is really, really cool. I really enjoyed it. Very bright, colorful, cartoonish, and extremely violent. I mean this is one of the more tamer images that you'll find in the book. But this exemplifies what I mean when it's big, bold, and just gorgeous to look at. I'd love the color palette in this book. It's all over the place. It's really expressive. By the way, that cover image is fantastic. At first I thought this was a wrestling comic but it turns out, you know, Underground MMA somewhat similar I guess. I don't know. The character, she is a badass and she's trying to save her sister from evildoers. It's south of the border, if you will, and it definitely has that grungy, grimy, action movie, B-type movie feel to it with over-the-top characters. And a story that just keeps escalating and getting crazy and crazier by the minute starts out fairly simple, fairly okay, and then it just goes full weird and bizarro gonzo style to the point where you have like huge obese overlord type scumbags, death cults, el monstruo as they call it in the book. There's a lot of swearing in Spanish which I thought was a little cliched and kind of stereotypical because oh you're doing like a Mexican south of the border type story so you better screw some lingo in there. I don't know, I didn't particularly care for that type of writing but the art is really cool. I love how you know flashback scenes get that sepia tone, different color palettes, really expressive action and characters. I don't know, I think it's a nice contrast between something serious and action oriented with the cartoonish sensibility. Now please do be, you know, please be aware this book is not safe for work. There is a lot of violence, a lot of, well not a lot but there is some nudity, drug usage and just foul language overall. Here is some more action so you can get a feel over the art in this book. The action is intense, it's very fluid, it's very expressive the way these characters behave on the page and the way they interact with each other. The dialogue is really smooth regardless of the swearing thing that I found kind of cringy. The characters, the way they behave with each other is very natural. Yeah just over the top bombastic B-movie type scenarios so if you like that I think you're gonna enjoy Pound for Pound from Natalie Chavez, Andy Bellinger and Danielle Miwa. Sentient already talked about it, you can check out my review on it because that was the most hyped book because of Mr. Jeff Lemire. A lot of huge fans out there eagerly awaiting whatever Jeff writes and I thought it was exceptional. I really liked it. I think Pound for Pound and Sentient were my favorites out of the lot but each book has something special so go ahead and check that video out. Very operatic dramatic space story with kids surviving in space that was pretty cool. Next up we have The Banks with a really cool looking cover but I unfortunately have to say this was my least favorite of the four books but there was still something to be liked. This is written by Rox Henke which I didn't know she worked on a Marvel comic. I thought this was the first go-around with comic book writing. She's more famous for novels and all that stuff and it shows because this does not really read like a comic book. I kept reading it as a script for a movie that you might watch at like a November or a January release that type of film. It's a bank heist involving a generation of bank robbers, the grandma, the mom and the kid, the young adult. She's in her early 20s and she works at a information bank thingamajig and there's a villain involved which relates to all three characters and why they wanted to pull off this heist and all that stuff. The premise is fun casual and interesting that I think a lot of people could get behind and read but unfortunately I don't think six issues was enough to get the point across you know. I think the story has interesting elements as you can see there's a lot of word balloons. There's a lot of dialogue in this and unfortunately one of the things I did not like the most about this series is the um it's the way the panels are then you know the art I should say. It's very staticky. All the characters just they're standing there and there's not a lot there's no sense of fluidity especially with it being a bank heist or a heist type comic story you would think it would be faster paced with the characters being a little bit more fluid. Unfortunately they aren't. Also some of the background characters are really trope heavy and kind of dull and uninteresting. There were a lot of times where I simply did not care about any of the side characters like for example right there you know that it's just static images. It doesn't have that movement that I would like like pound for pound that was uh frantic in the way it presented its characters but again it's a different story and I get it. The banks however you know it could have been a lot better if you would have given it more time to breathe because it's only six issues and by the time you're done reading it the final issue just rushes through a lot of stuff and it ends sort of in a dud. I think it could have been better. The concept is there plus they're trying to rob and I'm we talked about it on Omni Bros. They try to rob this guy who has Bitcoin. I'm sorry that currency does not work the way that they're setting it up in this book. I think that was a little bit lame. I suggested that this book should have been a period piece. I think if this was a late 70s early 80s thriller roaming a bank of like a multibillionaire in that era instead of modern times I think it would have been a lot cooler a lot better and would have left a better impression on a lot of people but for me unfortunately not not the best thing in the world. I did like Ming Doyle's art I think she really did a good job like the facial expressions and the characters they look really interesting you know the characters don't necessarily do the the best sensible things but the characters look great aside from the static stuff they really looked at the part and another thing you kind of see where the story is headed you understand what's as soon as you understand what's happening you can figure out the character beats you know page by page and what's going to happen at the end of the book and you know I get it people aren't that smart they do dumb things and you see this in this book with certain characters so you know it sucks because you have a really interesting concept that you could really explore because the story begins in the 70s and then you see the mom in the 80s and now the modern character in the 2000s I think that was really cool the way it starts and you shift through time as you see the three characters backstories develop I thought that was really interesting but overall you know just uh fell a little flat for me I think they could have explored it in a different way I think. Finally Eve of Extinction a horror book action horror basically if you mixed why the last man the last of us and zombie movies this is what you get it's pretty interesting in this book hurricanes have gotten deadlier as in real life and they bring about mass destruction but in this book it's a little bit different with sort of this virus infecting the men in that area where it rains and all that stuff and they get affected by rain it brought something that started changing the men in order to reach their stranded daughter two mothers must survive the hurricane and the horrors it unleashed I appreciated the take on the whole monsters and how they looked kind of bio-organic this parasitic entities they remind they really reminded me of the clickers and last of us stuff like that and just you know the story about a family trying to make amends with each other over past uh squabbles and series of events it's it it played beat for beat as a straight up action horror title you kind of figure out what's happening but it's still fun all the way through I really liked it because it's just a really quick scenario this is happening these characters are stuck in the middle of this thing and they have to escape and survive most importantly the art is uh by the way this is written by Sal Simone I think and Steve Simone and it's done by Nick Varela and uh Ruth Redman the thing with this book is that the beginning art in this is pretty interesting here is when you you see the virus starting to happen with the characters as the hurricane moves into Houston the characters reminded me of shadow line comics from image like the subdivision it has sort of that plain digital look not necessarily my favorite but I I grew to like it as I kept reading but unfortunately like for example here I really like the way the characters look I thought that was really cool but then midway it starts getting darker which is you know fitting because you lose power it's getting dark monsters and then by the end of it uh let's see yeah I can show you guys this real time the art changes I think I was fine with the beginning art all the way through I didn't necessarily want an artistic change halfway through the story but yeah if you like these sort of uh action horror zombie apocalypse type stories where they have to survive against that thing then you're gonna have a fun time maybe the ending uh could have been a little bit uh different but I liked it I thought it was perfectly fine and I stated on the broadcast with the omni bros that what I really the horror aspect that I really enjoyed was the fact that it's a hurricane and hurricane season you know June through November and it's one after the other after the storm passes what happens when we get another one if the storm is bringing about this change and this infection and all that stuff it's going to keep continuing other areas are going to be hit by it so I thought that was pretty frightening uh if you start thinking about it but I did like the characters I I appreciated that it's you know the mom uh is trying to make amends for what happened with her family and how you know uh she got divorced and her daughter is no longer speaking to her and now she's back and trying to fix things when all of a sudden this craziness starts happening and forces everybody to try and get along so that was fun a little cliche some would say but still fun overall this is my first experience with tko studios I thank them so much for the opportunity to read and review these things not only on the omnibus collectors network but on this channel as well thank you to tko studios you guys are the best I love these books they're gorgeous books the editions you know they're taller than a standard trade paper bag they're wider too the paper quality is great too they kind of smell a little funky but I didn't mind I thought that was pretty funny and I am very much looking forward to wave three I need to go back and read wave one because those titles looked amazing and and I'm in I really want to check out their stuff and I like the format of binging six issues you do that story and you move on hopefully some of these can be revisited like the banks I could see as a movie eve of extinction I don't know about that but sentient I could very well see a sequel comic in the future I think it would be great overall just a really interesting look at independent stories and just very lovely so thank you so much guys have you read these tko titles wave two let me know in the comment section down below thank you for liking commenting and subscribing that really means a lot to me you guys are the absolute best I love every single one of you follow me on your favorite social media platform Facebook Twitter Instagram all that fun stuff I have got to go I will catch all of you on our next video