Pokémon Profiles: Salamence (#373)

Welcome back to IGN's Pokémon Profiles! In case you missed the last installment, Pokémon Profiles is a video series in which we discuss the overall awesomeness of a different monster every week for your catching and watching pleasure. Afterward, we ask you to vote on which monster you'd like us to profile next. No generation is off limits - we intend to give due love and credit to them all.

And just to be crystal clear, the video below is the "profile" of which I speak - not this article. It is also in no way meant to include every detail of every Pokémon discussed - it's simply a brief, hopefully fun look at one of the many monsters we hold near and dear to our hearts. Make sense? Good, because up next is the badass known as Salamence. You guys sure do love your flying dragons!

That wraps up this week's Pokémon Profile! Starting next week, I'm actually going to have you folks vote on which monster I'm going to profile the following week, rather than the one I'll feature two weeks from then. It should be a bit more exciting (and less confusing) that way, as you won't have to wait a whole two weeks to see if your choice gets the spotlight. Since I already have the results of last week's poll to go on for the next episode, this means that voting will resume as normal next Monday. Did Lugia take the win, or did one of the other legendaries reign supreme? Come back next Monday to find out!

And be sure to let us know your thoughts on the beast that is Salamence. Has it ever graced your team, or did you give up halfway to level 50? Let us know in the comments below.

Until next time, PokéMasters - Game on!

Audrey Drake is an Associate Editor at IGN and a proud member of the IGN Nintendo team. She is also a lifelong gamer, a frequent banisher of evil and a wielder of various legendary blades. You can follow her wild adventures on her IGN blog and Twitter. Game on!

Source : feeds[dot]ign[dot]com

Animal Man #12 Review

With any episodic story there inevitably comes the “recap” installment where the characters spend a majority of the issue reflecting on the past and little else. Luckily, Jeff Lemire and Scott Snyder sidestep the painful parts of this necessary evil and add in just enough new content to set up for the long-brewing Rotworld storyline.

With so much build up to Buddy Baker finding Swamp Thing, their first meeting proves to be underwhelming. Both are some of the best written characters in DC’s current stable, but they wind up having a bland interaction that merely serves as a giant information dump. Where’s the friction and personality to these two heroes that have made their books so enthralling to read? The one highlight of their interaction comes when Swamp Thing lifts up a startled Buddy and leaps into the Rot-pond. The look on Buddy’s face is priceless.

Steve Pugh ups his game for this crossover issue and provides more minute details to the setting than ever before. Vines creep up a railing, haunting figures are showcased in front of an apocalyptic backdrop, and the first journey into the Rot has a sickening amount of bones, teeth, and flies. A montage detailing the interactions between the Green, the Red, and the Rot looks stunning with its veiny structure not unlike Yanick Paquette’s plant-paneling in Swamp Thing. With the marrying of both art style and story concepts, the Animal Man and Swamp Thing creative teams have set up a crossover that I can’t wait to read. Given general hate for crossovers, that is a strange feat indeed.

Joshua is a writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter or IGN, where he is hell-bent on making sure you know his opinion about comic books.

Source : feeds[dot]ign[dot]com