The Massive #18 – Review

By: Brian Wood (writer), Garry Brown (art), Jordie Bellaire (colors) and Jared K. Fletcher (letters)

The Story: The feud between Callum Israel and his old enemy Bors comes to a head.

Review (with SPOILERS): I don’t review The Massive every month because I feel like I always say the same thing: In The Massive, Brian Wood has created a fascinating world, but has stuck us watching the most boring man remaining on the planet.

Unfortunately, this issue was another example of the same problem.

In this story arc, we’ve seen Callum Israel and his colleagues from Ninth Wave drive their boat to Scandinavia to hassle whalers.  Apparently, anti-whaling was a big deal for Ninth Wave pre-Crash and Callum just can’t let go.  Because of the Crash, these whalers aren’t doing any sort of “commercial” whaling anymore: they’re now going out in longboats and hand-throwing harpoons at the whales.  The meat goes to feed the people of the village.  Nothing too sinister about this anymore.  And, the whalers are lead by a former oligarch named Bors who Callum used to battle with in the pre-Crash world.  Obviously life has changed for Bors and there are no more political power-plays, no more Ferraris, etc.  Bors is now a simple man who leads a bunch of whalers.

The Massive is intensely frustrating because there isn’t enough of a consistent thread through the various stories to really make a coherent narrative.  None of the stories seems to have any closure.  I mean, if you gave someone the first trade paperback of The Massive, they might wonder if our protagonists ever found the missing ship.  They might say, “Wow.  That was great.  They’re already up to issue #18?!?  Don’t SPOIL it for me, but I’ll bet it was awesome when they found all their friends on the missing ship….”  Except that plot-line seems to have been discarded.  Not “resolved”….just discarded.  Nobody in this issue even mentions the missing ship which had previously been cause for steaming around the world on a wild goose chase.  It’s just frustrating because Brian Wood is a new writer where it would be safe to assume that he just doesn’t know what he’s doing; Wood is an experienced pro who has told excellent long-form tales before.  So, there is a part of me that still wonders if it’s just me.  Am I not getting it yet?

The Massive #13 – Review

By: Brian Wood (writer), Gerry Brown (art) & Jordie Bellaire (colors)

The Story: A glimpse of the post-Crash United States.

Review (with SPOILERS): This will be an odd review as I’m traveling and left my issue of The Massive #13 back home.  So, I’m writing purely from memory rather than my customary method where I have the issue next to me and can flip through it for reference.  As such, it’s very much a review about first and lasting impressions.  Who knows????   Maybe THAT is the way reviews should be done all the time?

This issue gave me a bit of storytelling-whiplash as we appear to have totally abandoned this “Where’s the Massive?” storyline from last issue.  Heck, I’m not even sure how they have physically relocated from one part of the world to another.  Weren’t they in the Pacific?  It really makes no sense and if you’re a big fan of the storyline where our protagonists basically steam around the world looking for a missing sister ship…then you will be disappointed with this issue.