Elephantmen #35 – Review

By: Richard Starkings (writer & lettering), Boo Cook & Axel Medellin (art), Gregory Wright, Cook & Medellin (colors)

The Story: Untold tales of the circa 2239 war in Eurasia between the Elephantmen and the human survivors of the viral apocalypse.

What’s good: There’s a lot of flexibility to add material to a back-story when the whole story is only 30-40 issues old.  Usually the term “retcon” has a dirty connotation in comics and I think we’re all sick of seeing new layers added to the origin of a character like Batman.  How many dear childhood friends did Bruce Wayne have that he’s never mentioned again in the 1000+ comics since Batman first showed up???  But, with a young story like Elephantmen, there is all kinds of white space left to be explored in the timeline that Starkings has created over the past ~5 years.  Sure, it’s a little odd that we never heard about these Chinese Tigermen before now…..but who cares since they don’t really contradict anything either.   The Tigermen are cool and add a neat new wrinkle to the struggle between Africa and Chine in post-virus Eurasia AND they and another chapter to the Yvette character.  In some ways, reading stories like this makes me jealous of folks who got to read a series like the X-Men or Avengers when those series were still fresh and there was still so much unknown about the main characters.

So, to wrap up: Chinese Tigermen are very cool and Yvette is bad-ass.

Elephantmen #34 – Review

War Toys II by: Richard Starkings (writer & letterer), Boo Cook (art), Gregory Wright, Cook & Axel Medellin (colors)

Panya back-up by: Monifa Aldridge (writer) & Axel Medellin (art & colors)

The Story: In the main story, we revisit the Elephantmen war in virus-ravaged Europe while in the back-up we learn more about the origin of Panya (Sahara’s body-double).

What’s Good: As I’ve noted in a few recent reviews, for the last few months, Richard Starkings has made a concerted effort to make Elephantmen “new reader friendly” by revisiting some of the classic themes of the series.  But, he keeps giving new wrinkles to established readers so that we don’t get bored along the way.  Cool!

So, I was reading the main story and thinking, “This is all retread material from the War Toys story.  Oh, and here is Yvette from War Toys: Yvette.  I’ve seen all this before.” I understood that we’re getting this story because it’s important that new readers know about this Elephantmen back-story and I was okay with that because the series probably needs a few new readers to keep going.  And….I was very happy looking at the great Boo Cook artwork (more on that below).  Then I turned the page and there is a person in a spacesuit (“Whoa! That’s new!”) and he/she gets into a rocket and jets to Earth (“Definitely haven’t seen this before!”).  I won’t spoil the ending, but Starkings has done it again: He managed to bring new readers up to speed while also giving the existing readers something to chew on.  I am very intrigued by this new revelation.

The Panya back-up story was also a gem because she is shaping up to be a very important player in the future stories of the Elephantmen and she’ll be more interesting with a developed background story.

From an appearance standpoint, I say it every month: Elephantmen is one of the best-looking comics on the stands.  Not only is the interior art GREAT, but the whole package just looks awesome.  Again this month, we get two stunning covers with wonderful design.  Compare this to your typical Big 2 comic where they pay some artist to produce “20 dramatic covers featuring Batman” and then they just slap them on the comics without a lot of care as to whether the cover fits the story.  Elephantmen is the opposite of that: it looks like it is produced by people who give a crap about the comic!

Elephantman #34 – PREVIEW

Elephantman #34 PREVIEW

story RICHARD STARKINGS
art/cover BOO COOK

Part One: GENERAL STONE TIGER The first of the two-part sequel to WAR TOYS: Yvette is alive, and artist BOO COOK (Judge Dredd, X-Factor) pits her against a new foe… with Hip Flask, Ebony Hide and Obadiah Horn caught in the middle!

 

 

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Elephantmen #25 – Review

By: Richard Starkings (writer), art by various

The Story: In a recap of sorts, we follow the inner monologue of one of Hip and Ebony’s fellow agents at the Information Agency, as he reflects on the history of the Elephantmen.

What’s Good: I love Elephantmen, but this is the first really good “jumping on point” issue that has come out since the series started.  It gives a nice recap of the series to date, complete with lots of footnotes to previous issues if you want to know more.  Of course, you’d be better off buying the trades or tracking down the back issues, but if you refuse to do that, this issue will get you pretty well caught up before spending the last 2 pages introducing the ominous new story arc that will carry this series for the near future (which looks like a lot of fun, btw).

The other hook on this anniversary issue is that it is drawn with 25 splash pages, each by a different artist.  In some ways, this issue is a little like having an Elephantmen themed sketch-book.  Not surprisingly, my favorite page was by Ladronn who is probably most responsible for the look of the series.