Mortal Terror #2 - Comic Review

 

The second issue of the inverted vampire story, Mortal Terror, reveals more of this strange and twisted world as the vampire nation prepares to end the threat of the human terrorists as quickly as they can; and a shadowy figure visits Mina Murray in the middle of the night, preparing her for a transformation.

The first chapter of this story had a lot of promise, and it was the world that the two writers, Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon, had created that really drew me to this tale, and the second chapter continues to layer in more and more interesting pieces of lore and world building that makes me really want to read the next issue as soon as possible. 

Last time I theorised as to who the vampire king character could be, thinking that it was going to either be Dracula, or Van Helsing, but both of those guesses were fairly simple ones, quick and easy go-tos thanks to them being characters from the original Dracula novel. And whilst I was kind of expecting them I was hoping that the book would give me something a bit more interesting than that; and it certainly delivers. It turns out the fabled vampire king is Rollo, the ancient Viking ruler. This just raises so many more questions for me. What does the history of this world look like with Rollo being a vampire? I feel that this reveal just throws up even more possibilities than either of my guesses, and I can't help but want an entire mini-series depicting the thousand years of vampire Rollo's un-life that led up to this point.

Elsewhere in the book Lucy Westenra and her team are preparing to find the human terrorists who attacked the train in the previous issue. This sees her and Jonathan Harker heading up to the ruins of the surface London to look for clues. Heading up during the day, they don protective suits, goggles, and helmets in order to survive up their. The surface London is a very cool environment, a long abandoned and ruined version of the city, with buildings half collapses and overgrown with nature. The level of destruction on the surface seems to suggest that perhaps the London Bellow and the vampire nation has been around for longer than we'd maybe suspect, and it could be possible that this isn't still the Victorian Era, that these characters have been vampires that long that they've forgotten being human, and it may even be a time beyond our own now.

Whilst searching for clues Lucy and Jonathan come across a map that reveals a possible location for the terrorists, and they gather up the rest of Lucy's team, including a freshly healed Quincy, who's looking to get some revenge for almost being killed. As the team head towards the location of the rebels, so does Renfield, who's been spying on the activities of Doctor Seward, who's been experimenting on humans in his asylum. It seems like he's been trying to find some kind of viral weapon that can be used to wipe out the living whilst not affecting vampires. The issue ends with Renfield reaching the humans, ready to give them the information, just as the vampire team is about to launch their attack. 

During all of this we also have Mina Murray, who is visited in the night by her 'dark man', a human lover who has promised to some day turn her into a human too. It's revealed here that as humanity was hunted to near extinction by the vampires some force in nature inverted their roles, and now if a human bites a vampire it will turn them into a human. Once again, this raises so many interesting questions that I really hope that this series has time to go into.

Peter Bergting's art really fits the tone and feel of the book well, and Chris O'Halloran's colours add to this. The book is dark and gloomy, with a feel of oppressiveness whenever we're in the London Bellow; appropriate to both the location and the tone of these scenes. However, when we go above ground things change considerably. The book gets brighter, with splashes of almost golden light, and the first panel of the surface world, seen as the sunlock doors open and bathe Lucy and Jonathan in daylight is so well constructed. The light is blinding, almost washing everything out before they get used to seeing the daylight world. 

Mortal Terror continues to be a really interesting and expanding world, one that I'm very much enjoying and want to spend more time in. However, with us now being at the halfway point in this four issue mini-series I'm beginning to wonder that all of these questions the book raises won't be answered, and that there just won't be enough room to see everything I want to see by the time it comes to a close. Hopefully, if that is the case, this is just the beginning of a number of stories set in this universe, and this creative team can continue to play around in this toybox. 

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Mortal Terror #1 - Comic Review

 

Dracula is one of the most popular horror characters to ever be created, and a large part of that is down to the fact that he's in the public domain. Anyone can use Dracula, and the fact that he can appear in any story in any kind of role means that we've been spoilt with great Dracula's over the years. Just this year we've had two cinema releases with the character in both The Last Voyage of the Demeter and Renfield, both of which are wildly different from each other. 

Mortal Terror, by writers Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon, is taking the Dracula story and doing something kind of new and interesting with it. Instead of dealing with the menace of a vampire coming to terrorise the mortal inhabitants of Britain, things have been flipped. London is a vast underground city, inhabited by vampires. Jonathan Harker, Mina Murray, Lucy Westenra, and Lady Goldaming amongst other classic characters, are now all the undead.

This first issue of the mini series is focused on laying the groundwork, and we spend a great deal of time with characters, getting to see what their roles are in this flipped world. We learn that whilst the vampires have built a good life for themselves beneath the surface, not too far removed from what we'd expect from this time period, there have been increasing attacks from terrorist-like elements. Mortals are fighting them.

The mortals are spoken about in almost urban legend ways, with many characters making them out to be not real, or not the threat that others are saying they are. But, this book does make a point of them being real. An attack on a train leave dozens of vampires dead with Jonathan Harker the only survivor, and Lucy Westenra is part of a special unit fighting mortals, and we see Quincey Morris badly wounded by them.

Other parts of the book explore the mortals in different ways, with Sewards asylum being home to a mortal woman who claims that she was once a vampire, and that the vampires have forgotten that they were once all mortal too. I'm expecting one of two things with the series, the Eternal King spoke of will either be Dracula, or Van Helsign, and will be the one responsible for turning everyone into vampires. I expect that which of them it is will dictate who the shadowy figure Mina is seeing is, with it being the opposite. I imagine the King will be Van Helsing, and that Drcaula is the mortal hero for this story. I also wouldn't be surprised if the year isn't actually 1893, and that the characters have been vampires a lot longer than that and don't know it; which is why their memories have had time to fade.

But that's all conjecture, based on not a whole lot, because whilst the book does lay a lot of foundation for stuff to come not a whole lot happens in this issue. It's got some great ideas, and as someone who's a fan of the original book it's fun to see this twist on the tale. But I'm not sure how much this issue will grab people who've not got prior knowledge.

The art on the book is done by Peter Bergting, and Chris O'Halloran on colours. The art suits the story well, and has a dark and gloomy feel to it. It very much fits the Dark Horse style, and evokes books like Hellboy. The art does a lot of the world building too, as we're dropped into an unusual world that no one really comments upon. Instead, the art showcases the differences, the city beneath the surface, the style of buildings, the way people dress. One of the panels does raise some questions too, as we see Seward's asylum surrounded by trees and plant-life, a night sky above it. I'm interested to see if this was an art error, and the artist forgot to put it below ground, or if some of the vampires have surface buildings too. 

Overall, this was an interesting introduction to the series, one that raises a lot of questions, and answers none. It's a neat twist on the expected tale, and I'm very intrigued to see where it takes us. 

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Savage Squad 6 #3 – Comic Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

Savage Squad 6 has felt like something of a cheesy action romp that would be made in the 1980s for a while now, but with the third issue the book seems to have left any effort of realism and sensibility behind to embrace wild and violent action scenes that make little sense when you take a moment to stop and think about such things.

The Savages, a group of six young female soldiers, have been sent deep into the irradiated remains of Pripyat in order to steal nuclear material from the ruins of the Chernobyl reactor. They’re part of the a resistance group fighting back against an evil regime that has slaughtered its way across the globe in a bid for planetary conquest, and the nuclear material is needed for one last desperate bid for victory. As such, when the team comes under attack from giant mutant wolves (and I do mean kaiju size giant!) they will do everything it takes to complete the mission. Everything except use tactics or work smart.

The series has been pretty fun so far, with the book giving you a chance to get to know the members of the team before they start getting picked off one by one. They group of heroes is very much the kind of varied and over-the-top bunch of personalities that you’d find in a shooter game or a corny action flick. They’re all bad-asses, and they’re all out to fuck some shit up. Unfortunately, it looks like none of them are particularly smart, as the third issue makes some pretty big errors that makes the Savages kind of unforgivable.

With the monster wolves attacking the team at the end of the last issue, this one is focused solely on survival. It’s a run and gun issue where we’re barely given a chance to slow down, and it’s all action all the time. Whilst that in itself isn’t a bad thing, there are things that happen here that either don’t really make much sense, or are downright awful decisions on the character’s parts. Spoilers ahead for the stuff that absolutely dropped this issue an entire star.

One of the team gets injured pretty early on in the issue, a severe wound in their shoulder that’s causing them to bleed out, and makes them unable to use that arm. The team medic wants to patch them up, and even has all of the equipment to do so, but the team leader literally slaps the medical supplies out of her hand and tells her no. As a result, that injured team member bleeds out to the point of being unable to move, and has to be left to die. Great leadership skills and decision making from the leader there letting someone die for no reason. Another thing that feels like a ‘that happened for no reason’ decision is another of the team, someone uninjured and able to fight on, throws herself at the wolves and detonates a pile of grenades, blowing herself up. It’s a suicide play that comes out of nowhere and makes little sense.

The third member of the team to go down this issue is grabbed by one of the giant wolves. They’re grabbed when their back is turned, but the way in which the art depicts this moment has their body hanging in the wolf’s jaws, with their arms behind them clamped in the creatures fangs. The physics of how this worked don’t quite seem to line up, and the character would have had to have had her arms sticking out backwards for the wolf to grab her like it does here, which again, makes very little sense.

In this one issue the team is wiped off the board, leaving our lone protagonist to face the horrors of this situation on their own. This was kind of expected from the beginning, as these kinds of stories tend to come down to the lone survivor trope. But this issue seemed so desperate to get to that point that it killed off everyone else so quickly and indiscriminately that a lot of it feels rushed and ridiculous, and that it’s only being done so that the final issue can be a solo one. It’s a shame, as I was enjoying this series up to this point, but this issue just doesn’t do much for me, and kind of takes away a lot of the goodwill that the previous instalments had built up.

Despite my gripes with the story direction, the art on the issue is decent, with Dalts Dalton, and Geraldo Filho, creating some impressive visuals. The book’s cover depicts a number of the giant mutant wolves scaling a building to get at the Savages, and that’s the kind of stuff you get inside the book too. There’s action all over the place here, so expect lots of monster wolves, explosions, blood, and gunfire across the pages. It looks great, even if it’s very much flash over substance at this point.

Savage Squad 6 has felt like its been focusing on a very small part of a much more interesting world since the very first issue. The fight against a fascist, murderous regime by a desperate female led revolution sounds like a great story, and one I’d love to see. Instead, we’ve been given a story that focuses on the wrong part of that world, on a story that doesn’t feel half as interesting, and has gotten to the point where it almost feels like it could be a parody. With one issue left, I’m almost nervous to see how it all ends.

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Black Hammer Omnibus Volume 2 - Graphic Novel Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

We’ve previously covered the first volume in the Black Hammer Omnibus series, a book that collected the first dozen issues of the award winning series. A love letter to the superhero genre, particularly the books of the golden and silver ages of comics, the first volume of the omnibus series presented itself as something of a mystery story.

Several heroes who helped to save the world from the evil Anti-God find themselves stuck on a farm just outside a small town, unable to pass a barrier that means their death. Having been there for years, some have resigned themselves to that being their life now, whilst others are still trying to find a way home. When the daughter of one of their dead colleagues arrives on the farm things begin to get complicated.

The first volume ended with Lucy, the new Black Hammer, having gained her father’s powers, and the knowledge of what’s happened to the collected heroes. But now, before she can tell them what’s going on, she’s dragged away to another place, a plane of existence that claims to be part of the afterlife. In order to make her way back to her friends, Lucy will battle through hell, and meet the gods of stories, but all of it pales in comparison to what happens when she’s able to make it back and deliver the truth to the others. Now the fate of the entire universe hangs in the balance, and the heroes have to decide what role they want to play in what comes next.

Black Hammer is a phenomenal series, and this second omnibus collects together all twelve issues of Black Hammer: Age of Doom, the first real sequel series to the first story. Having ended the original Black Hammer on a cliff-hanger, the creator, Jeff Lemire, told some spin-off tales, before finally continuing the main narrative a year later. This book skips those spin-off titles, choosing to focus on the core story. This is a decent move, as the ending of the first volume is one that really grabs the reader, and you end up desperately wanting to know the answers that Lucy has. And whilst we get to jump back into that story straight away, it’s not a quick reveal. Instead, Lemire manages to craft another mystery story, another story that has more twists and turns than your average superhero tale.

Much like with the first volume, Lemire is drawing from things that long-time readers of comics, and those with extensive comic knowledge, will pick up on. Characters are all nods to existing characters that you can find in both Marvel and DC. Black Hammer is a bit of Thor mixed with the New Gods, Golden Gail is Captain Marvel (Shazam), and Colonel Weird is Adam Strange. The love that Lemire had for the genre is so easy to see here, as genre conventions are woven into the narrative, but never mocked nor made nasty. This isn’t a book like The Boys, where it almost seems to hate the genre that it’s sending up and always acts mean-spirited. Instead, this is a love letter to the comics it’s imitating, all whilst crafting a story engaging enough to be considered not only a worthy addition to the genre, but a stand-out example of it.

The second omnibus carries across the same artistic team as the first book, with Dean Ormston and Dave Stewart providing most of the art on the book. The style works well for the story, and it manages to feel both modern and gritty, and also classic old comics. It marries the two feels of the narrative well. There are a couple of issues part way through the series that follow Colonel Weird off on his own very meta adventure that change artist to Richard Tommaso, and the style change is very Jarring. I personally really didn’t like the art on these two issues, and the story does get very weird here too; this is definitely Lemire going a bit Grant Morrison on us. The last two issues included in the collection feature a whole host of artists, as one of them is a guide to the characters of the Black Hammer universe, with character art provided by more than a dozen artists.

Black Hammer has very quickly become a series that has grabbed my attention. As someone who loves comics, and really appreciates the quirky and cheesy nature of classic comics, this book is right up my alley. It feels modern and old at the same time. It’s doing its own thing and making nods to what’s come before. It’s filled with new and exciting characters and stories, but also feels like it could easily slip into the comic worlds we know. Lemire has done a fantastic job at crafting something that’s so enjoyable to read, and this new collection is the perfect way to experience the series for the first time.

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Lost Boy - Graphic Novel Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

Lost Boy tells the story of a young teen travelling home from a skiing trip with his father, passing along a remote road in they Wyoming mountains. Jack, the boy, didn’t want to go skiing, just wants to be back home in Los Angeles, and doesn’t seem to enjoy spending time with his father. The atmosphere between the two of them on the drive back is colder than the snow-covered mountains outside. When a deer steps out onto the road, Jack’s father swerves in an attempt to avoid it, and crashes through the safety barrier, plunging the car off a cliff into the forest below.

When Jack comes to, the sun has fallen, and he’s been thrown through the car’s windshield. Finding the wrecked car, his father sits inside, dead. At first just curling up with his deceased father, hoping that he might wake up and be fine, Jack begins to drift asleep. It’s then that a voice in his head tells him that he has to move, that if he falls asleep he’ll die too. So, grabbing what supplies he can from the ruined car, he starts to try and make his way back to the road. But, with the cliff seemingly un-climbable, and a pack of wolves closing in on him, Jack sets off down the mountain. Along the way he finds an injured fawn, and the two of them work together to survive.

Lost Boy is a grim story. It begins with one off the worst things that can happen, a young boy losing his father to tragedy, but it also ramps things up by having the last moments they had together be one where they’re arguing and upset with each other. However, rather than wallow in the guilt that Jack must be feeling, the book instead chooses to put his journey to safety at the forefront. And all things considered, Jack is a pretty smart teen. He knows enough not to just wait by the car, he grabs useful stuff from the wreck before setting off, and he has something of a plan in mind. However, he is still just a kid, so ends up doing some pretty bad things along the way.

The main cause of Jack’s strife are the wolves that are following him, and the fawn that he befriends. There’s not much that can be done about the wolves, but there are a couple of times when Jack ends up putting himself in danger and makes things worse for himself to save the fawn. But I also know I’m the kind of person who’d act the same so can’t hold it against him. These moments help to humanise Jack, however, and it gives him something to focus on, and something to talk to. Jack ends up needing that baby deer to survive, because it keeps him sane, and it keeps him fighting.

The book is both written and drawn by Jay Martin, who does a really good job at bringing the story to life. The Wyoming wilderness looks absolutely fantastic throughout, and Martin makes it feel cold and remote. From the moment the car goes over the edge you’re worrying for Jack, because the place he’s in is not one humans are built for. One of the ways the book conveys this is through colour, with the night scenes in particular looking fantastic thanks to the use of darker tones, and lighting effects.

Lost Boy isn’t a long read, and you’ll get through it pretty quickly, but it’s an enjoyable journey. It’s the story about the fight to survive in a terrible situation and against awful odds, and the fact that it’s been crafted by the same writer and artist makes it stand out as a labour of love.

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It’s Only Teenage Wasteland - Graphic Novel Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

It’s the end of the world in It’s Only Teenage Wasteland, and a group of four misfit friends have to try to find a way to survive in the ruins of the old world in this new book from Curt Pires and Jacoby Salcedo.

Beginning after the end of the world, where our lead character Javi is hiding beneath a gas station counter from roaming bandits, the first issue of the four part book quickly jumps backwards in time to the 2020s, showing life before the end.

Javi is a typical teen in America. He’s a bit of an outsider, but not outright hated and bullied like some kids, and he’s managed to make himself a decent group of friends, including Scott, who’s popular enough to hang with the actual popular kids, Gort who’s somewhat quiet, Sione who’s the tougher guy of the group, and occasionally Fogelman, a kid who actually does get picked on because he’s autistic. When Javi’s parents go away he manages to convince his older sister to let them throw a party.

The party goes well, until a bunch of racist bullies from the school arrive on the scene and start harassing Fogelman. Scott gets involved to help, and gets knocked around. Then things go white, and Javi wakes up in the ruins of their home town, giant white crystal-like structures growing from the ground and impaled through buildings. Setting out to try and find his friends, Javi tries to learn what happened to the world, all whilst dodging dangerous raiders who’ve made the ruins of the world home.

It’s Only Teenage Wasteland begins pretty strong, and much of the first issue you begin to forget that this is supposed to be a post-apocalypse story, and you end up enjoying reading about this group of friends just trying to have a fun party, and trying to get laid. Pires does a good job at writing teenage drama, and it feels like it might be the strongest part of the book. This is chiefly down to the fact that once the main focus of the book turns to the post-apocalypse segments things kind of get a bit boring. There’s a mysterious figure following Javi, and you can pretty much guess who it is before the reveal. And the bandits that are out to get the teens are treated like a joke half the time, and it ends up taking away a lot of the edge they have.

The art, by Jacoby Salecedo and Mark Dale, is decent, and the bright, colourful nature of the art keeps things looking visually interesting throughout. A lot of the humour in the book is conveyed through the art, particularly in the variety of ridiculous ways that the raiders and bandits are dressed. It feels like the art team were having some fun coming up with all of the costumes and looks that the villains would be wearing, and it’s fun to see what they come up with.

The book ends with something really wild happening, and I hope that it indicates that this is simply the first volume of a larger story. If it is, then that’s fine, and there are still tons of unanswered questions and things to clear up. However, if the story doesn’t continue on from here it’s a terrible end to the book, one that will leave the reader feeling like there’s been zero resolution.

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Star Wars: Hyperspace Stories #8 – Comic Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

The focus on the villains continues in the latest issue of Star Wars: Hyperspace Stories as we jump forward in time to the Rise of the First Order, to events that lead into the sequel trilogy. Last couple of issues we got to see the seedy underbelly of the galaxy, following bounty hunters and pirates; this time we’re focusing on a force for order in the galaxy, though a fascist one.

The First Order, in their mission to slowly take control over the galaxy and impose their will onto others, have come to the planet Karaxia, where they wish to force the population to serve them, supplying them with anything they want. The presence of Storm Troopers and Star Destroyers has failed to bring the population to heel, however, and as such Supreme Leader Snoke has summoned General Hux and Kylo Ren, tasking them with bringing the planet firmly under the control of the First Order.

Anyone who’s seen the films knows that these two characters do not see eye to on most things, and that difficulty and refusal to work together plays out here in this story too, showing that they’ve been long time enemies. Hux believes that his way is the best, and demands Kylo follow his lead, whilst Kylo is trying to make himself into a big scary Force user, trying to capture some of the fear and respect that his grandfather carried. Over the course of the book we’ll see how the two of them end up doing their own things, and how their plans don’t work out on their own. But this isn’t a ‘you should have learned to work together’ type story, and neither villain learns a valuable lesson come the end.

The book gives us a little insight into how the First Order became the power that it was in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and how so many worlds fell to them. Thanks to their massive fleet and their troops they’re able to force their way onto worlds and basically act like thugs to get what they want. The pretence of making the galaxy a better place through unity that the Empire had isn’t even here for the First Order, and they’re little more than bullies. This plays into the lore of them being built from the remnant of the Empire, and of wanting to punish the galaxy for having pushed them out in the first place.

The continuous plot thread that has been present in all of these issues, the Wookie doll, pops up here, just for a panel or two, but this time feels like the first time we’ve been offered any kind of insight into what it is. Kylo, still mostly untrained in the Force, senses some kind of Force presence near the doll. We knew in issue #1 that something important was placed inside it, but now we know that it has some kind of power to it too. Hopefully, this will be explained in future issues, and it being connected to the Force is certainly a good way to justify it keeping appearing in these stories, getting close to important and powerful players in the Star Wars saga.

The art on this issue is provided by Andy Duggan, with Dan Jackson on colours, and it looks decent enough. The established characters look enough like their on screen counterparts to be easily identifiable, though Hux is the weakest of these as he has less to distinguish him. There are some moments of action in the issue, but none of them have anything truly exciting or special about them, and even the inclusion of a giant monster does little to make it really stand out.

Overall this was a perfectly serviceable entry in the series, though one that seems to be playing it safe. It doesn’t really add much to the narrative, nor does it reveal anything new or interesting about the characters features. Compared to the last issue, it feels like a big step backwards in terms of care and desire to tell an engaging story. It’s Star Wars, but it’s forgettable Star Wars.

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Savage Squad 6 #2 – Comic Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

Dark Horse‘s grim post-apocalypse action series Savage Squad 6 returns for its second issue, taking the series in a different direction than expected as things get very weird in the irradiated Pripyat, as our all-female team of soldiers try to steal fuel rods from the ruins of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor.

The opening issue of the series spent some time getting readers caught up on the world of Savage Squad 6, a future less than 15 years from now, but one where the world has fallen into ruin and darkness at the hands of an evil regime that slaughters anyone different for their own amusement. It’s here that we meet the titular Savage Squad, a group of young women who’ve had to step up and become warriors in order to protect the remnants of their home. Their newest member, medic Nat, has joined the team on their latest mission, preparing them to head into one of the most dangerous places on the planet.

Unfortunately, the group came under attack last issue, and a member of the team, Shells, was lost. The group are left thinking that it was the mutant bear that attacked camp, or that perhaps it’s a member of the evil Scourge who might have taken her. But as we saw at the end of the last issue, there are even more monsters out there waiting for them. Unable to stop and mourn for their friend, or try to find her body, the team continue on with their mission to the reactor. As the others head deeper into the irradiated zone, team sniper Mags take up position high in the famous Pripyat Ferris wheel. But as the team head into danger Mags is hunted by something much worse than the Scourge.

So, the first issue of the series kept things relatively grounded to a degree. Yes, it’s a futuristic setting with one foot in science fiction, but it still kept things fairly realistic. This issue, however, seems to fully embrace the more over-the-top elements to the point where it is actually quite surprising how wild things get here.

There is also what feels like a slight inconsistency with the first book. The final page reveal of the first issue showed readers that the Savage Squad were being hunted by a large mutant wolf. With glowing veins, two heads, and multiple eyes, the creature stood atop two ruined cars. The wolf is large, and looks to be maybe 15-20 feet in length. In the second issue, however, one of these wolves is shown standing up against the Ferris wheel, coming up to half the height. This is a lot bigger than the previous issue made out. The Pripyat Ferris wheel is 85ft tall and the wolf is at least half that (maybe a bit more), so this animal is at least 40ft long. It’s not just a large monster, it’s now in Kaiju territory. I’m not against giant monsters by any means, but the reveal of its true height was so surprising that it did kind of jolt me out of the book for a moment.

If the first issue was establishing the team that we’re following, this one is setting up the threat that they have to face. There’s a moment when the Scourge make an appearance, only to be shown as less scary, and less threatening than the monstrous mega-wolves that have made Pripyat their home. This sets the stall nicely for the book, and establishes a threat that is going to test the team to breaking point (they’ve already experienced losses), but we’re now at the half way point in the story and it feels like quite a lot of time has been spent on the set-up. With the team being up against such overwhelming odds perhaps the series is going to use the short length to further emphasise how deadly the wolves are; perhaps they don’t need more than an issue to kill off most of the team. The next two issues definitely feel like the ones that will make or break the story, and now that the shit has hit the fan and everything’s gone to hell it’s going to be how it all wraps up from here that matters.

The art team do a decent job here, with the same creators as on issue one. There are some times where, thanks to the roughness of the art and the somewhat messy quality, a panel or two feel like they’re a bit rushed in places, which is the biggest downside of this style of art. When it looks good it’s great, but when it’s not firing on all cylinders it can feel like perhaps some corners were cut in order to meet deadlines. There are some really solid moments though, such as the big reveal of the mega-wolf standing up against the Ferris wheel, howling up at its prey. It’s likely to be the one image from the series that people will remember the most, and it absolutely stands out for how well executed and cool the moment is. Though the preview for the cover image for the third issue is ridiculously impressive too.

This very much felt like a mixed issue, one where the more realistic and ridiculous tones came together in such a way that the shift into the wilder stuff felt a little more jarring than was probably intended. That being said, it was still a decent and enjoyable read. It’s likely that things from here are going to move a lot faster, and will be going a bit more over-the-top, and I’m interested to see how it all turns out.

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Star Wars: Hyperspace Stories #7 – Comic Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

In the previous issue of Star Wars: Hyperspace Stories everyone’s least favourite Rodian, Greedo, spent the issue trying to get his foot in the door with Jabba the Hutt, bumbling from one mishap to another before finally managing to save his neck by accidentally kidnapping a Wookiee toy maker. It gave us a fun insight into just how bad of a bounty hunter Greedo is (and we got to see Rotta the Hutt for the first time in 13 years!), but this issue we get to see what a real bounty hunter can do as we watch Boba Fett be a complete bad-ass.

The story for this issue is pretty simple: we find Boba on a remote planet where a young Wookiee woman named Viiveenn is trying to hire him to track down a missing item, but they then both become targets for a group of Trandoshan hunters. And the simple plot really works for this story, as the overly complex narratives and masses of characters that feature in something like Star Wars: Bounty Hunters comics makes that series something of a hit or miss at times. Here, however, things are kept neat, simple, and violent.

For those that have been following the Star Wars: Hyperspace Stories reviews since issue one, the name Viiveenn might be familiar. That’s because the Wookiee teen trying to hire Fett’s services is none other than the little girl from the first issue, the daughter of the Wookiee senator. And, the item that she’s trying to track down is the Wookiee doll that’s been appearing in all of the issues in one form or another; the Wookiee doll that had something important and mysterious hidden inside it. At this point it’s almost become something of a game to try and guess how each issue is going to tie into this doll narrative, but I think that this is the one that I actually like the most.

Having the doll, or other versions of the doll (as in the previous issue) just suddenly showing up, being picked up by the main characters who decide they want to have this Wookiee doll for some reason, sometimes feels a little forced, or at least obviously done. The doll doesn’t appear in this story, Viiveenn doesn’t almost get her hands on it or anything like that, instead, the entire plot is driven by it. Viiveenn is desperate to get her lost doll because it was the last thing that her father gave her before he died, and this story connects with Boba and his own experiences, and is why he keeps her safe whilst the Trandoshans are hunting her.

The action spread across the book is pretty good, and it works well to make Boba Fett look competent and dangerous. He doesn’t come across as overpowered and amazing as his on screen return in season two of The Mandalorian, but it’s still really entertaining, with some great scenes that almost make him boogeyman-like in how he’s taking down enemies from the shadows. This is helped a lot by the art team, Andrea Mutti, and Vallerio Alloro, who do a wonderful job in making the book look dynamic and interesting. Considering that this is a comic that doesn’t have any human faces in it (Boba is the only human and wears his helmet the entire time) they still manage to make all of the characters engaging and emotive; an impressive thing considering they’re lizards or furry folks.

The villains arc in Star Wars: Hyperspace Stories is starting to become more entertaining than the issues that focused on the heroes. Villains can be more fun, they can go to extreme places and do very arch things, and this issue really shows that off well. Hopefully the next will continue that on.

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Savage Squad 6 #1 – Comic Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

Savage Squad 6 is the latest comic release from Dark Horse that takes readers to a dark future following a new world war. Set in the year 2037, the world is recovering from World War Three, which has ground society to a halt. A brutal army known as The Scourge rules what’s left of the world, and hunts down the small pockets of civilisation left behind. Every man of fighting age found by The Scourge has been killed, leaving what remains as little threat – or so The Scourge believes.

The Savage Squad are a group of six young women trained to be soldiers sent out to extremely dangerous locations to try to help bring down The Scourge in any way possible. Their latest mission takes them deep into the irradiated countryside around Pripyat, the location of the Chernobyl reactor meltdown some fifty years before. Tasked with finding a special weapon that could help turn the tide against The Scourge, the Savage Squad are ready for anything. Or so they think. Something sinister awaits them in the darkness of Pripyat, something that will push the team to their limits.

The first issue of Savage Squad 6 opens with a group of soldiers in Pripyat being picked off by unseen foes, ripped apart and torn to pieces by something lurking in the shadows. From here we join our central group of characters, six young soldiers unaware that they’re heading into the nightmare that us the reader has just been shown. It’s hard to gauge the age of the group, and the book’s cover makes them look to be in their early twenties, but the interior art has them much more in the mid teens range. With the book’s introduction informing the reader that all men of fighting age have been killed it does raise the question of if the Savage Squad are supposed to be teen soldiers, or if it’s just the artist’s style that makes them look younger.

Speaking of the Squad, we spend much of this first issue getting to know them and seeing bits of their personalities. Nat is the team’s new medic, and is our stand in. She doesn’t know the team, she doesn’t have a handle on their personalities yet, and we get to learn this alongside her as she goes. Cap is the leader of the group, and seems to be the most level headed and reasonable one of them. She seems to have a hard job of keeping some of the extreme personalities in the team working together, but seems to know how to keep things running as smooth as possible.

Shells is the team’s sniper and the one most openly kind towards Nat. She takes the time to bond with her, teaches her a few things about the team, and seems to be one of the first to try to get the others to go easier on Nat. Rosie is the demolitions expert, and fits into the big, muscly, and a bit dumb stereotype that comes with the tank character. She loves to blow things up, and brings it up as much as she can. Hauser is the dick of the team. She’s confrontational towards Nat, acts like a bit of a jerk, but is also one of the toughest of the group being the first to leap into action. Mags seems to be the techy of the team, equipped with some fancy holographic gear, but seems to be the least defined when it comes to personality.

Much of this first issue feels like groundwork, setting up the world and the characters. Because of that, and because the book is trying to set up six main characters, there are some parts that feel light on solid details, and left to fill in the blanks on your own. This isn’t a terrible idea. The is clearly a world with a history, and one that’s directly informing the events of this story. But rather than giving huge infodumps to lay out every single detail and piece of lore, the writers, Robert Venditti, and Brockton McKinney, give you the bullet points and allow you to imagine the rest. It means that the story can still progress at a decent rate, and the reader is somewhat included in the process, with their own imagination doing things like picturing what The Scourge is like.

The art, by newcomer Dalts Dalton, is pretty solid, and has a rough quality to it that works well for the setting. Things have a tough, almost jagged edge to them that fits the scourged planet and the rough and ready soldier women. Each of the women has their own distinct look and design that makes them stand out on the page straight away, which certainly helps the reader to remember who’s who and what their jobs are. Dalton also gets to expand beyond the expected towards the end of the issue when some unusual stuff happens, and the small hints that we see here make you excited to see what kind of art Dalton is going to treat us to in future issues.

Savage Squad 6 has been billed as wanting to bring ‘all the fun and abandon of ’80s-’90s action films to comics’, and this first issue seems to be on its way to doing so. It has a group of rough and tough soldiers for us to follow, and something sinister for them to fight in a remote and hostile environment. With the creator’s quote in mind it’s easy to begin to see where they might have drawn some inspiration from and what they’re giving little winks to, but time will tell if it’s able to fully capture that feeling.

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Hailstone by Rafael Scavone - Graphic Novel Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

Hailstone, written by Rafael Scavone, with art by Rafael de Latorre and Wesllei Manoel, takes readers back in time to a small Montana town in the 1860s, where a long winter has set in, making life hard for the residents. Not only do the people of Hailstone have to deal with a lack of food, they also have to look on as the soldiers in the nearby munitions and equipment factory set up just outside town are well taken care of. Added to this, a rash of disappearances has begun. Some in the town suspect that the nearby Niitsitapi people (members of the Blackfoot Nation) are responsible for the lost townsfolk, and tensions are mounting.

When a young woman vanishes when out foraging for food, the sheriff, Denton Ross, and his half Niitsitapi deputy Tobias head out into the frozen woods to try to find signs of the missing girl. However, when something mysterious appears and saves them from a pack of wolves attacking the search party, Denton begins to suspect that something unusual is going on around Hailstone. Haunted by the disappearance of his own son, Denton is determined to seek out the truth, no matter what.

As soon as you pick it up it’s clear that Hailstone is a book wreathed in atmosphere. The eerie yet beautiful cover image of Denton Ross on horseback in the desolate, snow covered forest, his face obscured in shadow as his breath fogs in front of him, is stunning, and beautifully establishes the look and feel of the book. This is a book that’s dark in tone, yet bright in how it looks. The pages are filled with the snow covered Montana backdrop, and white is used frequently throughout; yet despite this the book feels oppressive and tense the entire time.

Rafael Scavone sets this tone well early on, with the opening scene of the book depicting a young woman, barely more than a girl, out in the frozen forest searching for anything that can provide enough sustenance to keep her and her family alive during the cold months. The sense of isolation, the desperation of having to scavenge for pine cones because there’s nothing else left to eat, makes the scene feel dour despite the smiles on the character’s faces. This is the only real moment of joy in the book, and from here on out the sense of despair and tension will only mount as Denton and Tobias search for answers. The fact that the soldiers just outside of town refuse to help, and their commanding officer doesn’t even seem to care, adds to this feeling of hopelessness, like Denton is raging against the inevitable.

This is where the horror of the book comes in, the feeling of being unable to do anything. It’s clear that Denton and Tobias are men used to helping their community, who try to do the best they can for the people they’re sworn to protect, and that being unable to solve this issue causes them deep distress. It’s a feeling that I think most readers will be familiar with, that sense that no matter what you do you can’t win, and seeing it here, worming its way through this mystery, makes this an uneasy read at times.

Hailstone also does a decent job at subverting expectations. The book felt like it was telling me a story I’d seen before, and I started to anticipate the eventual conclusion and revelations. But I think it knew that it was hitting a lot of horror conventions, and did so as a way of surprising me when the story went off in an unexpected direction. It’s not impossible to figure out the answers before they’re revealed, but Hailstone at least tries to get you to guess wrong a time or two, and it makes the eventual conclusion that much more surprising and satisfying.

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Dead Mall by Adam Cesare - Graphic Novel Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

Dead Mall, written by Adam Cesare, feels like the kind of story that a group of friends would tell each other whilst gathered around a fire at night in a place that they shouldn’t be in – out in a creepy woods, or exploring some long abandoned building. It’s the kind of twisted tale made to get you looking over your shoulder to make sure that there’s nothing creeping up behind you.

Our story begins as a group of teenage friends break their way into the Penn Mills Galleria, an old shopping mall that’s been left abandoned and alone. Once a thriving heart of the community, it stands quiet and empty – or at least it appears to. As the group of five teens make their way into the old building and begin their night of drinking and fun, an invisible narrator follows their actions, providing a commentary and trying to gain insight onto their personalities. At first you think that it’s someone inside the building watching them, that it’s one of the shadowy figures lurking in the backgrounds of panels, but after a while it becomes clear that the narrator is the mall itself.

It turns out that Dead Mall isn’t a story about something or someone awful lurking inside an old building, but of a building come to life, twisted by bizarre, cosmic powers into a nightmare location. And the teens soon learn this themselves as the building shifts around them, trying to separate them, trying to herd them where it wants. Unfortunately for the teens, the mall is also home to twisted, monstrous creatures that were once lured in like them, now hunting them through the halls and abandoned stores. Now the group will have to try to find a way out before they’re killed, or before they become more of the mall’s residents.

One of the best ways that I can perhaps describe Dead Mall would be the sifting changing reality of a nightmare, mixed with Hellraiser. Instead of a puzzle box, however, the mall itself is the conduit, the thing that summons nightmarish beings, and transforms those it captures. The creatures that inhabit Penn Mills Galleria are very twisted, and some of them could easily be lifted from the page and dropped into a Hellraiser movie with little to no changes to their designs and fit right in. And these similarities mean that the weirdness of the story is easy to digest, because it’s a concept that’s familiar. Getting on board with the concept is done quickly, and you’re then able to delve into the details that make the story its own unique entity.

David Stoll’s artwork for Dead Mall is really superb stuff. For the most part the book feels very normal. The characters have nice clear styles and personalities presented through their looks, the environments feel familiar to anyone who’s ever been to a shopping mall, and everything is neat and tidy. It’s when the building begins to shift and change, moving through the decades, that things begin to feel unsettling, and the first time you see one of the twisted creatures that lives there is a truly shocking moment. The creature designs are a stand out part of the book, with some of them having a very twisted kind of beauty to them.

Dead Mall was a surprisingly fun and twisted read, with a story that wasn’t afraid to take a familiar concept and take it in some interesting new directions and just have a blast doing it. If you’re a fan of bizarre, almost disturbing cosmic style horror there’s going to be a lot to this book that will appeal to you.

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Minor Threats by Patton Oswalt & Jordan Blum – Graphic Novel Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

The comic medium has been around for centuries, with stories of heroes and monsters recorded in artwork to tell sequential stories in cultures across the world. But when people say the word comics it often conjures to mind very specific images of modern day superheroes.

Whilst the medium itself is as versatile as any other, able to be as varied in genre and style as any film or novel, people tend to have very specific views on the kinds of stories that comics tell;, and as such, the superhero genre has become big business in comics. Outside of the ‘big two’ (Marvel and DC) you tend to not get as many large universes inhabited by hundreds of costumed characters, and instead get more self contained and specific deconstructions of the genre. Minor Threats from Dark Horse comics and writers Patton Oswalt and Jordan Blum fits nicely into this style, as it takes a fun, interesting look at superheroes and their villains.

Minor Threats drops readers into the middle of its own bustling superhero universe, in Twilight City, where costumed heroes and villains are a common occurrence. We meet Frankie, a down on her luck former villain fresh out of prison. Having been raised by her super villain mother, Toy Queen, Frankie grew up using her powers to create any kind of complex machinery she wants to fulfil the role of her mother’s side-kick as Playtime. However, having spent the last few years in prison she’s trying to go straight, to find solid work, and prove to her ex that she can be a decent mother to her young daughter. But, not many places will hire a meta-human former con, so Frankie ends up serving drinks in a dive bar frequented by the crappiest D-list villains around.

Her life is disrupted, however, when a villain comes into the bar cradling the body of his lover, who’s been beaten near to death by the costumed vigilante known as The Insomniac. As the assembled villains ponder why this expert vigilante would turn so violent, news reports come in that the villain Stickman has murdered The Insomniac’s kid side-kick. With The Insomniac on the warpath, killing any villain between him and Stickman, the assembled heroes are trying to find the killer first, leading to a super villain crackdown. Knowing that their lives might be at risk, and their very futures as villains could be over, Frankie dons her former costume and gathers together the loser villains of the city for a mission to take down Stickman themselves.

The concept for Minor Threats is a wonderful twist on the superhero tale that is kind of familiar in a lot of ways. One of the biggest ‘oh my god could you imagine!?’ twists on the superhero formula is turning heroes into monsters. We’ve seen it happen numerous times with figures like Superman, and when done with existing heroes it gets stale quickly, feeling like a bastardisation of their entire identity. Even when people create their own worlds to tell these kinds of stories, such as in Invincible or Irredeemable, the focus tends to either be on the hero turned villain, or the former hero’s friends and colleagues tasked with stopping them. Minor Threats does things different by focusing on not just the villains, but the bottom of the barrel villains.

The main cast of characters, Playtime, the medic Scalpel, the hulking Snakebite, the elderly Pigeon Pete, and the delusional puzzler Brain Tease, feel like throwback characters to the golden age of comics. They’re not interested in taking over the world, they’re not cosmic level threats, and none of them really have any powers that make this flashy or deadly. They’re barely above hired goons in the hierarchy, and are either hanging on to their lost glory days, or simply tying to move on. In a lot of ways they reminded me of the Flash’s Rogues, a group of bad guys out to make money, with their own codes, and lines that they won’t cross; and that makes them the perfect kind of group to follow in a more brutal comic world.

There’s even a part at the start of the book that talks about ‘the alien invasions, the time travelling despots, and the secret multiversal wars’, poking fun at several stories from the big two publishers, as well as the evolution of superhero stories in general. Minor Threats feels like a celebration of older style comics, ones without end of the world stakes, without the big events and massive cross-overs, where you’ve got two people in brightly coloured costumes facing off against each other, both knowing that neither is going to try to kill the other. And it does this wrapped in a modern package of brutality, gore, and violence. This is a very difficult thing to manage, yet the writing team manage to walk this line perfectly, and strike the tone needed not just to make the story work, but to make it truly delightful.

Speaking of the writing team, Jordan Blum is no stranger to writing in the superhero world, having written for characters such as Venom, Spider-Man, the X-Men, and MODOK. And, speaking of MODOK, his MODOK Head Games co-writer (and MODOK voice actor) Patton Oswalt is also working on the book. Oswalt is no stranger to comics, having worked behind the pages of several books over the last twenty years, as well as appearing in comic projects like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., The Sandman, and Big Hero 6: The Series. It’s clear that both writers know the genre well, and hold a lot of reverence for it, and much of that love comes through in the writing.

The book’s art, by Scott Hepburn and Ian Herding, looks fantastic, and wonderfully merges the bright flashy costumes and gadgets of the superhero genre with the grimy gritty realism of everyday life that perfectly sells how crappy these characters and their lives are. One of the best parts of the book is looking at the wonderful details that are put onto the page that help to bring more life to the world and add context, such as characters like Brain Tease having clear straps and clasps on his helmet, and a suit that looks worn and stretched in places like something you could make at home, whilst the bigger heroes and villains look flashier and sleeker. The moments with action also work fantastically well, and there’s one delightfully strange scene where the art team get to try different looks and styles that feels truly special.

Minor Threats is a book about superhero comics, by people who love superhero comics, for people who love superhero comics. It’s got plenty of nods and winks to the characters and worlds of places like Marvel and DC, yet never feels like it’s poking fun at it or making it out to be silly. And even more surprising, it ends up being a world that you want more of come the end, and could easily see becoming its own universe if the creators wanted to, thanks to how well crafted and realised everything is. This is not one to miss out on.

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