Category: Editorial

Story by Michael Le Galli
Art by Francis Manapul

Seven Warriors, a historical fantasy tale set in the fictional north-African kingdom of N’nas Amon during the middle ages, begins at the fall of the capitol city of Tamasheq. Queen Tsin’inan recruits a crew of six female Sarmatian warriors to escort her son to the hidden city of Jabbaren, away from the danger of the impending war.

Amongst all of the historical references and abundance of apostrophes, Seven Warriors is a simple adventure tale. Le Galli laces the story with excessive dialogue at times, spending a few too many words explaining somewhat straightforward situations. The book begins on a sex-scene that the writing in the book never adequately explains, relying on artwork that doesn’t fully clarify its place in the story. The story picks up pace once the introduction to the world is handled, but perhaps not enough. The end of the book feels forced, ending in a cliffhanger that creeps up almost as an afterthought.

Francis Manapul’s art is strong throughout, evoking Michael Turner-esque style of his Aspen and Top Cow roots. The story is as much about its environments as its characters, and Manapul doesn’t skimp. From the ancient city of N’nas Amon to an alpine snowscape to a long-forgotten underground passage, the book’s environments are given solid attention to detail. Unfortunately it’s sometimes difficult differentiate some of the characters, leading to the aforementioned confusion regarding the book’s opening.

It is of note that the book is also presented in a strange square format, reminiscent of Archaia books like Mouse Guard, but still printed at standard size. This leads to large bars of blank white at the top and bottom of every page, almost like letterboxing, and feels like a lot of wasted space.

The last few pages of Seven Warriors can be forgiven when taken as a set piece in a larger tale. Although this wasn’t the strongest first issue, there’s potential for a fun medieval adventure if the right beats are put in place.

Story by Tom Morello
Art by Scott Hepburn

Intellectual escapee Simon and headstrong prostitute Orchid, along with Orchid’s little brother Yehzu, have been captured and sold into slavery. Although Simon insists that escape and rebellion are not only possible, but right, his words fall on the deaf ears of his broken fellow slaves. Moments before being sold at auction, Simon devises a plan to escape and gain entry to Fortress Penuel, where he will mount a rescue of the rebel leader Anzio…

While the first issue of Orchid, by necessity, focused on introductions and world-building, Morello spends significantly more time building on the personalities of his protagonists here. Simon is a know-it-all who runs his mouth too much, and spends much of his time confusing Orchid into discounting his ideas. Orchid is stubborn to a fault, single-mindedly focused on her and Yehzu’s survival after their mother’s murder. The character moments can be heavy-handed but they work, and never distract from the budding adventure at hand. The historical asides help to build Morello’s post-apocalyptic vision – one that is not devoid of life but teeming with it, and all of it dangerous – and serve to provide context for “present day” events.

Hepburn’s art is strong throughout, an interesting mix of gritty and cartoony that serves the character depictions well. His character designs are intriguing and distinguishable, and his monsters are suitably scary – whether they be animal or human in nature. His backgrounds are lush, showing us the swampy remains of a once waterlogged world rather than the standard desert terrain typical of the genre.

Orchid has its flaws – primarily in dialogue – but a lot of story is told in a small amount of space, and the world being built is a unique blending of different sci-fi and fantasy genres that, so far, works well. A new character introduction at the end of the book leaves us on a great cliffhanger, eagerly anticipating next month’s issue.

Story by Tim Seeley
Art by Victor Drujiniu

Rob Bailey is a successful college student with a beautiful girlfriend. Everything was going his way until he was possessed by an ancient spellbook called the The Sword that grants him magical powers. A suspect in the murder of one of his professors, Rob must figure out what The Sword – and its pursuers – want with him while avoiding any police entanglements.

The Occultist #1 picks up immediately following the events of The Occultist #1. If that sentence confused you, imagine how I felt reading the book. It was originally a Dark Horse one-shot in 2010 that, while critically well received, didn’t make much of a splash. Unfortunately, this new start reads too much like a second issue, dropping readers into conversations and situations that require far more setup than the meager intro paragraph can provide.

Tim Seeley, typically deft at blending comedy and action in his creator-owned Hack/Slash series, misses the target for much of this issue. The lack of successful humor could be forgiven if balanced by tension, but even the action and horror scenes merely plod along, attempting to toe the line between exciting storytelling and necessary exposition but failing at both. The result is a lack of narrative arc that’s absent of stakes.

Drujiniu’s art is solid, and Dalhouse’s colors give it a painted feel that’s well suited to the material. One panel gives us a glimpse of Drujiniu’s traditional style, though, which I’d like to see shine through a little more. Unfortunately, two characters in the book look distractingly like celebrities (Rob’s roommate as portrayed by Anthony Anderson, and an eyepatched menace that’s clearly William Fichtner). One of the character designs – a bounty-hunter that looks like a girl in “female Indiana Jones” cosplay – is just absurd.

I feel like The Occultist is floundering for a direction. The creative team either needs delve into a grittier interpretation or embrace its absurdity. As it stands, though, it’s just a little bland.

Story by Mike Mingola and John Arcudi
Art by James Harren

Concluding the short mini-series, Abe Sapien: The Devil Does Not Jest #2 picks up immediately after the unfortunate lapse in Abe’s focus that landed him in hot water at the end of the last issue. He awakes injured and hallucinating, conversing with the ghost of a dead demonologist.

The presentation of this conversation is excellent, providing a well-crafted fantastical framework for some necessary historical exposition. It’s an interesting look at the subject of the first issue, and leads us directly into the events of the second half of the book. That transition was a tad confusing, though, and it took several re-reads to really understand. Once that was handled, the rest of the book is a fun, old-fashioned monster bash.

There is a very small side note of a story featuring Salvatore Tasso and Hellboy that could have been left out of the issue entirely. It feels pointless in the context of Abe’s story, and only inserted for a lame punchline in the last panel that actually serves to weaken the payoff at the end of the book.

James Harren’s artwork is considerably stronger in this issue than the first. The historical segments and hallucinations are well rendered, and one particular panel involving a demonic transformation is exceptionally creepy. His monster designs are suitably gruesome, and his action during the primary fight sequence is kinetic and engaging. I was pleased with the art throughout, which is well complimented by Dave Stewart’s colors.

As an individual issue, this one weighs in a little light, but it’s a better-than-average conclusion to the overall tale. I think this story would have been well served by editing it down to a fat one-shot rather than splitting it over two issues.

Story by Mark Millar
Art by Leinil Yu

Issue #5 picks up with Superior on his way into Afghanistan, ready to take care of the business that the U.N. cannot seem to complete. The remainder of the issue is a series of vignettes showing Superior well on his way to solving all of the world’s problems, all the while taking the time to live out every single Make-A-Wish Foundation fantasy he can imagine.

In preceding issues, Millar played up the relationship between Simon and Chris and the superhero story suffered, feeling a little too derivative of Superman. In issue #5 he turns the tables, and I’m not sure it’s for the better. Simon’s relationship with Chris is almost completely sidelined in favor of the superhero tale, which Millar cranks up to 11 with Superior jet-setting across the world performing impossible humanitarian feats directly in contrast to his previously small-time offerings. Even Maddie Knox’s role in the issue is suspect, stripping her of what little depth she had built until this point. The build-up feels like a shallow lead-in to the book’s punch-line, serving up one (although likely not all) of Ormon’s machinations in an ultimately underwhelming conclusion.

Leinil Yu’s art is excellent, with only a few dips in his standard level of quality. I am consistently impressed with Yu’s depiction of Superior as a cross between Superman and Shazam, and one early panel gives us a subtly elegant portrayal of the excited young boy inside the marble-jawed superhero exterior. The artwork is unfortunately marred by Sunny Gho’s heavy-handed coloring, which at times distracted me from the story.

Although Superior has never been the deepest comic on the shelves, this latest offering feels even more shallow – a haphazard means to an end rather than an intriguing character tale. I’m still interested to see where it leads, but this single issue fell flat for me.

Story by Enrique Carrion
Art by John Upchurch

Vescell #2 is split into two separate, unrelated stories. The first is a tale of a vengeful high-school girl who plots to steal her cheerleader sister’s life, and is ultimately foiled by Moo and Machi. In the second, Moo is called in by Vescell to assess a client for v-trans (a consciousness transfer into a new body) – only this time the client is an artificial intelligence. He denies the claim, and hilarity ensues.

Carrion’s characters lack any depth and are entirely unsympathetic. In the first story, Moo and Machi brutally kill two people – one of which was a high-school jock who was more dumb than evil – with no explanation of why they deserved such a fate. Moo just tramples blindly forward on orders, no consideration given to the scope or consequences of his actions.

The text in the second story is excessive, comprised entirely of exposition paired with a healthy dose of eye-rolling absurdity (an assassin fighting off an attacker with a dildo?). One conversation consisted of some chunky dialogue overlaid on top of a two-page sex scene, actually making me wonder if they’d accidentally mis-paired the text and imagery. There’s even a page that I had to re-read multiple times because it breaks the basic rules of panel-flow.

Upchurch’s characters are generally well constructed, especially facially, but their overall designs are rather boring. The rest of his artwork is just bland, a problem not helped by his almost religious aversion to drawing complete backgrounds. If a panel contains any background at all (most are just a slate of color), it is usually blurred rather than finished.

Vescell #2 as a whole is just a mess. The makings of an interesting high-concept sci-fi noir tale are here, but they’re buried beneath a heap of poor execution, shallow dialogue, and blatant immaturity.