Scarlet Veronica #1 & 2 – Review

By Jason Moody & Josh Ruggles (creators), Robert Barry & Joe Shaw & Jason Moody (writers), Jason Moody (pencils and inks), and Justin Greathouse (colors)

The Story: Scarlet Veronica is about a teenage girl whom, due to a freak accident, possesses supernatural powers and a sexy alternate identity. She uses said powers to fight a variety of evil while dealing with the rigors of being the “new girl” at Romero High. The first issue of the series is an origin story of sorts, while the second explains her powers and introduces some Christmas-themed creatures and zombies to the mix.

What’s Good: The writing throughout both books is quite clever, allowing the series to overcome its generic trappings. Clever “in” jokes for horror fans and fun, familiar scenarios keep things interesting. As for the visuals, they serve the story well by being both stylish and quite pleasing to the eye. The whole thing has a smart, dark cartoon vibe that should go a long way towards hooking readers.

What’s Not So Good: This book suffers when it falls back on generic stereotypes to tell the story. The “new girl,” the “anxious geek,” and the “jock with a clueless sidekick” are no more interesting here than anywhere else. Also, I really can’t seem to pin down exactly who the target audience is for this series. It is almost as though the creators are attempting to make the series something for everyone, but as the saying goes “jack of all trades, master of none.” For example, the cartoony visuals seem to be meant for a younger or female audience, but the sexuality of the character could definitely be a turnoff to those very readers. The story, while simple and enjoyable, is filled with dialogue that would probably not be appreciated by the casual audience most likely to be drawn to the title.

Conclusion: Scarlet Veronica is off to a fun and promising start. However, the creative team really needs to figure out what type of audience it is aiming for. Casual readers may find themselves lost among all the genre jokes and scenarios, while younger or female fans may find the surprising amount of sexuality to be offensive. Definitely worth a look, just don’t expect anything particularly groundbreaking.

Grade: B-

-Kyle Posluszny

Kill the Revisionist! (Graphic Novel) – Review

By Chad Lambert (writer) and Chris Steininger (art)

You’ve seen all this before. Take the Highlander, dress him up like Devo, add bits of Wolverine and Daredevil, then have it drawn by a guy who wants to be Matt Wagner so much it hurts, and you have the Revisionist.

Fortunately, in comics originality isn’t as important as style, and Kill the Revisionist! has that in spades. The art is cool, the action fast-paced, the dialogue irreverent, and the plot twisty in several ways I didn’t see coming. It begins at the dawn of time, on a molten and lifeless Earth, to which a tattooed super-criminal has been banished for attempted genocide back in his own dimension. It then jumps to the present day, with the Revisionist stomping on a couple of would-be museum tomb raiders. You see, there’s a crime cartel known as the Cross causing mayhem throughout the city and the Revisionist is the only man standing between them and… whatever it is they’re trying to accomplish. That part’s a bit fuzzy. The Revisionist continues to cross paths with them, sometimes thwarting their evil schemes, but mostly getting his ass kicked. During the day he tries to get a date with Sara, a co-worker at his white collar day job, and making excuses for the bruises on his face. As the novel progresses, the stakes keep getting higher and — wouldn’t you know it — the leader of the Cross turns out to be that ancient, extra-dimensional, super-powered mass murderer.

The Revisionist previously appeared in Digital Webbing Presents, which I haven’t read. A recap at the beginning of the book would have been nice. As it is, the story seems to skate over more than a few details that might have given the story more depth: What exactly is the Revisionist’s day job? Why does he fight crime? And why, with three billion years to craft his revenge, couldn’t the villain come up with a master plan that was a little more sophisticated?

Despite these shortcomings, Kill the Revisionist! is a fast, fun ride. (Grade: B)

– Andrew C. Murphy

Bizarre New World: Population Explosion (Graphic Novel) – Review

By Skipper Martin (writer), Christopher Provencher (Art), Wes Dzioba (Colors)

I guess I should have read the back cover first. You see, the synopsis on the back cover states that Paul Krutcher, the world’s first flying man, is no longer alone in the sky and must negotiate the insanity of everybody suddenly gaining the ability of flight to make a mad dash from California to Arizona in response to a desperate, teary phone call from his son. Unfortunately, what I didn’t get from the story is where Paul was going in his desperation. We see him race home and we see him pack for a trip, but at no point do we get a simple “I’ve got to get to Arizona,” which would have been a big help. Maybe if you’ve read this title before you knew the details of Paul’s personal life, but a new reader wouldn’t, unless, as I said, you looked at the back cover first.

Unfortunately, Paul’s race home and his race out of town seemed quite a bit repetitive. The book has several pages of Paul flying or driving in earnest while people are flying haphazardly all around him. The sequences serve to paint the picture of chaos that ensues when all of humanity suddenly takes flight, but there was not enough variety to keep me interested and the sequence seemed overly long. Ultimately, Paul reunites with his son and the story turns into in rumination on what it means to be different.

Paul is a likable enough main character, a simple, everyday Joe trying to find his place in the world and obviously a good guy with his heart in the right place. Despite the presence of a likable main character, there is just not enough in this book to really grab me and insure that I’ll come back for more. (Grade: C)

– Arthur Cooke

A Second Opinion

Like Paul’s character, I felt cheated when it was revealed that all humans were gaining the ability of flight (Bizarre New World #2, #3). It was like everything unique and special about this book was taken away; all the long, expository conversations and visual narratives were for nothing. Unfortunately, with all the magic taken away, Population Explosion feels like a train that’s lost its steam.

The story of this graphic novel is spread out over 48 pages and is paced similarly as the previous issues. I was hoping, given the new direction of this series, that things would open up and give us a bigger picture of how the world has changed, but we only see it through the eyes of Paul, who has become a man of words and not action.

The conversations about flight and how these powers will affect the world are discussed, but they honestly just feel like any conversation you’d hear from people at a comic convention. After a while, it all becomes stale – we’ve heard these discussions before. The only real meat to this story is Paul’s race home to find his son. It’s a plot thread that works, but could have been resolved so much sooner. I wanted more from this book, but the pace of this series just hasn’t picked up for me. (Grade: C)

– J. Montes