The latest volume of David Lloyd’s award-winning digital comics anthology, Aces Weekly Volume 3, is now available as a collected edition on ComiXology with some old friends returning and a host of new characters and stories as well.  

Publisher: Aces Weekly
Writer: Alberto Jimenez Alburquerque, Antonio Bifulco, Martin Griffiths, Marc Hempel, Roger Langridge, Steve Marchant, Paul Maybury, Gavin Mitchell, Seth Tobocman, Mark Wheatley
Artist: Benjamin Dickson, Marshall Dillon, Martin Griffiths, Marc Hempel, Roger Langridge, Steve Marchant, Paul Maybury, Giuseppe Rungetti, Seth Tobocman, J.C. Vaughn
Price: £6.99 from ComiXology

As it was with Volume 2, the highlight of Aces Weekly Volume 3 is Benjamin Dickson & Gavin Mitchell’s returning Santa Claus vs. The Nazis, which continues to defy our expectations of what a comic about Father Christmas and the Third Reich could be. As the Nazis look to impose their will on the captive elves of Lapland and use Santa’s toy distributing technology for nefarious means it is up to chief elf Reggie to take matters into his own hands. Having escaped their captors, Reggie and former slave boy Peter, join forces with the Allies to plan a retaliation and rescue mission. With a superb training montage featuring a certain Captain Windsor (who readers will no doubt recognise, but not expect!) and the debut of a certain red-nosed animal companion, Santa Claus vs. The Nazis should be trite, cliched and mawkish, but instead is an absolutely compelling read.

Also returning, this time from volume 1, is Mark Wheatley & JC Vaughn’s Return of the Human which continues it’s mix of pulp science fiction as Lance McCoy attempts to save the world from alien squid creatures. It’s both dynamic and exciting but also confusing and difficult to follow, but it looks rather fantastic and again is the only title to not use traditional panel based story-telling so it has a bit of something extra to it!

The new titles in volume 3 are a mixed bunch and range from the compelling to the confusing. A prime example is Gabriel, a futuristic swords and sci-fi tale of a warrior exorcist who battles for the church against the Cult of the Devil Machine. Told in sinister black and white, writer Giuseppe Rungetti’s script is high on detail and low on exposition meaning it feels like you are joining a story half way through, while artist Antonio Bifulco’s beautifully rendered artwork is so dense it makes the already complex story rather difficult to follow.

Changing the tone completely is Marc Hempel’s Love Brothers which reads like a devout version of Beavis and Butthead as two holier than thou brothers dispense their own abusive wisdom in a comic strip form. It’s a lot of fun and makes for a great antidote to the serious tone of the rest of the stories. If that’s not your thing and you’re after something more metaphysical then Paul Maybury’s Line Story Zero is a surreal dialogue free story about an evolving world and the strange half rendered people who populate it. It’s not the easiest story to follow and doesn’t entirely make any sense, but it has a nice cyclical resolution and Maybury’s artwork is interesting and geometric which makes it, at least, a thought provoking journey.

Unfortunately this is it for longer form stories and regular series, as the rest of the volume is filled out with an odd mix of one-shots and short stories which go nowhere. The best of the bunch is The Fez – Eldritch Detective from Roger Langridge, which is a quirky Victorian adventure featuring the invisible man, a Frankenstein’s monster butler and a haunted laundry basket. It’s reminiscent of UK comics like Viz or the Beano with it’s surreal and crude sense of humour (which is no bad thing!) and is one we would love to see return in the future.

Two self contained short stories are Steve Marchant’s Six Past Midnight: which sees two art students take up residence in a haunted house and is a passable short ghost story; while Seth Tobocman’s One City is a look at the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and is told in a crude form with sketchy digital artwork and simple lettering that has a very worthy and personal feel to it.

Finally there are two episodes in this volume which have promise, but go nowhere and they are Marshall Dillon and Alberto Jimenez Alburquerque’s It takes A Village, a a gory swords and sandals type fantasy adventure involving zombies and girls in loin cloths which is over all too quickly. And Martin Griffith’s Microscopic Alien,  which is a snapshot of  aliens being dispatched off on a long journey which ironically doesn’t really go anywhere either.

“Another eclectic collection of unconventional tales as Aces Weekly continues to set itself apart from all other digital comic anthologies. Unfortunately this volume is just too darn eclectic for it’s own good, with so many one-shots and stories that go nowhere, Volume 3 lacks the consistency and stand-out offerings of previous editions, which make it’s £6.99 price tag a tough ask for all but the most dedicated fan.”