Category: Comic Books

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.

Story by Brian Pulido & Mike Wolfer
Art by Gabriel Andrade

After learning of New Abreffaw’s supposed alliance with the Death Queen, Hope throws away any idea of recruiting the independent city state to her cause and decides to burn it all to the ground. Before she can act, the general Behemoth and his monstrous legions attack the city, forewarned of Hope’s presence as well as that of the rebel leader Wargoth.

In truth, I was pleasantly surprised by the latest issue of Lady Death. Upon first glance, it could easily be written off as thinly veiled smut, but in spite of the abundance of well-endowed and scantily clad women, this fantasy tale carries an unexpected weight and charm along with it. While Wolfer’s scripting isn’t anything earth shattering, this latest issue is entertaining and culminates in real consequences for the lead characters.

While there is one gratuitous scene toward the beginning (two naked women somehow speaking to each other while kissing is a magical ability I was not heretofore familiar with), the remainder of the issue consists of a well-handled fantasy battle sequence replete with monstrous generals, giant fire-spewing spiders, and hordes of undead. The story is well-paced and entertaining, if mildly shallow.

The real draw here is Gabriel Andrade’s frenetic artwork. While his women are suitably sexy and his battles requisitely epic, he truly excels in the expressions and emotions of his characters, especially in a particularly wrenching moment of loss for one character late in the book. His posing and detail is excellent throughout, lending mass and movement to all of his embattled players.

While I’ve never been a fan of Lady Death, I’m intrigued by this issue. Although it was filled with primarily action, I’m impressed enough – especially by Andrade’s artwork – to seek out more.

Story by Andy Hartnell
Art by Chris Bolson

Having lost the Necronomicon to an African warlord during a retrieval mission, Abbey Chase and the Danger Girl organization have followed their only lead – a page from the cursed book itself depicting an unknown man’s face – to a federal prison where their target is being held. The perfect sort of place for Abbey’s associate Sydney Savage to infiltrate…

After a far too lengthy introduction to Sydney, issue 3 of this franchise crossover finally leads into what we’ve been waiting for all along: a member of Danger Girl meeting up with Ash for the first time. Hartnell is clearly very comfortable with the Danger Girl characters; their dialogue is smooth with just the right hint of cheeseball, and their interactions carry the coolness that has always been the series’ appeal.

Ash, on the other hand, seems clumsily handled here. Although he’s meant to be a bumbling idiot, somehow his dialogue comes across immature rather than funny or goofy. He never feels quite like the dumbass turned badass he’s supposed to be, and never really captures the Bruce Campbell flair that made him so popular in the first place.

Sadly, Bolson’s art only adds to this effect. While he has a solid grasp on Abbey and company, Ash is inconsistently rendered throughout the book, never really feeling like the Ash we know and love. The artwork in the book is otherwise solid (although at times the colors are a little overdone), especially during the action-heavy sequences.

Overall, you’ll get what you expect out of this book. It’s a campy mash up of two diametrically opposed franchises that come together unexpectedly well, with a few stumbles in Ash’s portrayal. Danger Girl and the Army of Darkness is an entertaining throwaway, and worth at least one read-through.

Story by Doug Murray & Frank Cho
Art by Axel Medellin

In the final issue of the 50 Girls 50 limited series, the women of the ESS Savannah open a wormhole to return home, only to find it occupied by an alien craft with which they are destined to collide. The lead-up to the collision is suitably tense, but everything that comes afterward is a jumbled mess of hackneyed dialogue and awful fiction-science.

The second half of the issue is filled with half-explained teasers, undoubtedly meant to drive readers to the hopeful ongoing series. Unfortunately these teasers lack intrigue, instead serving to frustrate and alienate. The end of the book is wholly unsatisfying, failing to provide any unifying thread to the random, one-off fight-fests of issues 1 through 3, and offering no closure to the crew’s story whatsoever.

Perhaps the worst offense of 50 Girls 50 was the almost offensive character arc of the Savannah’s crew. In issue 3 we’re given a glimpse into their seemingly power-mad view of their mission, only to have that viewpoint reinforced here as though it’s unfailingly correct. None of the women in the book think to question the mindset of their captain or Oksana, which makes them not only two-dimensional, but completely unsympathetic.

Even Medellin’s art, which I thought was excellent in the first issue, has steadily declined over the course of the series, feeling more and more rushed and sloppy. Where he initially succeeded in differentiating characters through unique attributes, his figures are now almost identically constructed and his facial expressions so muddied that his women are now defined by their hair color and styles.

Although 50 Girls 50 started as a potentially interesting sci-fi adventure with a unique twist, each issue of its four-issue run has quickly marked it as nothing more than a disappointing, monster-of-the-month schlock-fest.

Story by Sam Sarkar
Art by Garrie Gastonny

After excavating an ancient sarcophagus from the Sable Island pit, Dr. Gabrielle Page and her crew have discovered that its contents are not what they expected. This quickly leads members of Gabrielle’s team to take sides in the heated disagreement about how to proceed.

Sarkar effectively portrays a group of morally ambiguous characters whose motives are largely undefined, which leaves the reader scratching their head about who can be trusted. Unfortunately, this also has the side effect of making it difficult to know who to care about. When characters are put into jeopardy, the tension tends to fall a little flat without knowing who to root for.

As with any story of found horrors, a balance must be struck between environmental dangers and the perils of human interaction under extreme pressure. Sarkar does an admirable job finding this equilibrium, but a few characters’ reactions toward the middle of the book feel forced and somewhat unnatural.
This is also where the story falls apart, if only a little bit. After a major event changes the situation for everyone involved (I’m trying my best to avoid spoilers), I feel like the script gets very choppy, rushing to the end of the book and skipping around too much in the process.

The realism that Gastonny’s linework infuses into his characters is exceptional, and at times almost takes a back seat to his equally realistic environments. Where the script may fail at endearing these characters to me, the art succeeds at making them relatable and unique. The artwork is this book’s biggest draw.

Although The Vault is very reminiscent of other tales like The Abyss and Leviathan, I’m intrigued enough to follow it through to the end and see where Sarkar’s taking me.

Story by Kevin McCarthy
Art by Paolo Pantalena

Epoch tells the tale of a popped-collar action hero caught in the middle of the age old conflict between fiery blue demons and super-goateed angels in their battle for supremacy on earth. The story centers around Jonah, a New York detective investigating a series of grisly murders who finds out quickly that there’s more to this case than he could have imagined.

While McCarthy’s writing isn’t bad, there’s nothing really special about it either. He neither inundates the reader with exposition nor trusts them to figure things out, which makes the comic read strangely like a textbook. There are parts where a great deal of text could have been removed (like a pursuit scene where Jonah recaps the whole first half of the book), and doing so would have streamlined the story into something more entertaining than informative.

Anyone familiar with Top Cow knows what they’re getting artistically. In this case, Paolo Pantalena’s art is a solid mix of Turner-esque action and manga stylings ala Udon. Pantalena’s a decent enough artist, but his style just doesn’t fit this story. Every car’s a Lamborghini, every gun’s a high-tech paramilitary weapon, and don’t get me started on Jonah’s Ming The Merciless jacket. The writing here would have been better served by a more grounded, even gritty style.

I feel like I’ve seen this cookie-cutter approach to Heavenly conflict a few too many times. While reading Epoch, it reminded me of how a manga might approach The Prophecy, and by the time I finished it I just wanted to go watch The Prophecy.

Story by Cullen Bunn
Art by Tyler Crook

After the cliffhanger ending of issue #13, the latest issue of The Sixth Gun steps away from the main storyline to give us a glimpse at the origins of our newest villain, the 9-foot living mummy known as Asher Cobb.

Anything that builds the mythos of The Sixth Gun’s world is a welcome addition. Cullen Bunn deftly weaves his flashback tale into the current storyline, giving us even more insight into the events that preceded the current issue. After reading #14 I couldn’t help but re-read the current arc, and found a whole new layer to the events that unfolded on the Hidden Railway.

The world that our heroes inhabit deepens with each bit of canon that Bunn builds into it, which ratchets up the tension at every turn. Even though the issue doesn’t really address what’s happened to Drake at the end of the train battle, it calls into question much of what we’ve seen in the Bound storyline, setting up a fascinating left-turn in the plot.

Tyler Crook (of Petrograd and B.P.R.D fame) takes over artistic duties from Brian Hurtt for this issue. While I enjoyed Crook’s style here, I feel that it lacked some of Hurtt’s dynamism at times. Overall I think his art is well-suited to the storyline, but some of his looser renderings felt a bit awkward. Maybe Hurtt’s art has just become so synonymous with the series that I honestly have trouble judging Crook without direct comparison.

Issue #14’s detour was an oddly welcome one. Normally I’d be bothered by stepping away from the main story at such a crucial point, but in this case it adds depth and intrigue to Drake and Becky’s adventure.

Story by Jason Rubin
Art by Tyler Kirkham

Shortly into the latest issue of Mysterious Ways, our main character Sam utters the phrase “None of this makes any sense…”. This turns out to be an accurate (and prophetic) statement, since the rest of the issue is a jumbled hodgepodge of barely related imagery, full of clichés and red herrings.

The first issue’s plot was simple: Sam is a loser at the end of his luck who gets half-accused of a murder, and spends the rest of the issue running from the cops with some confusingly random teasers thrown in. The second issue almost completely re-hashes the plot of the first, in such aggravating fashion that I felt I was reading the same comic over again.

There’s little to nothing likeable about Sam or any of his surrounding cast members, and the attempts to build intrigue – like the pieces of an artifact that were introduced so poorly that we don’t even know how they came into Sam’s possession – simply result in eye rolling disappointment.

I’m equally disappointed with Tyler Kirkham’s artwork. His style is still couched in a mid-‘90’s aesthetic that forgoes simplicity for over-inking and excessive line work, substituting actual detail with swaths of cross-hatching and scribbles. The framework is fundamentally sound, but it’s buried under a clutter of needless rendering.

Recently, I rather harshly judged individual issues of Kurtis Weibe’s Green Wake for a perceived randomness that left the reader more befuddled than entertained. The conclusion of Green Wake’s first arc redeemed the narrative as a whole, even in light of the failings of individual issues. All we can hope is that the same is true of Mysterious Ways, but I’m less optimistic, and can’t recommend picking any of it up before it’s finished.