Quick-Hit Reviews – Week of August 31, 2011

Quick-Hits has been on “vacation” for awhile, but is back this week as there are a number of comics for which there wasn’t time to do a full review.  Most were pretty good…

Vescell #1 – I didn’t count the pages in this first issue from Image, but it felt like it was ~40 pages and took a long time to read.  And, it was a hell of a lot of fun.  The action revolves around an agent of the Vescell Corporation.  Vescell specializes if transferring the consciousness of a person into a new body, so it’s handy for wives looking to leave husbands, criminals on the run, etc., and this agent is charge of spiriting them away to Vescell’s labs unseen so they can begin their new lives.  That part was kinda cool, but also the fact that this agent has a HOT girlfriend who is stuck in some demon-realm, but can be channeled into the bodies of the living– that was neat too.  And the agent has a tinkerbell like fairy helper/partner who he shoots out of a gun at the bad guys.  Lots of R-rated sexual content too, if that’s your thing.  Very enjoyable.  Can’t wait for the next issue.  Grade: B+

Rocketeer Adventures #4 – Here’s a candidate for miniseries of the year!  This was another strong entry in this series featuring short Rockteer stories told and drawn by some of the best in the business.  This issue features (among others): Dave Gibbons, Tony Harris (wow!), John Arcudi, Brendan McCarthy & Ashley Wood.  These are great fun stories and I wish IDW would keep it rolling because I’ve loved every minute of it.  Grade: B+

The Vault #2 – I usually hate comics that read like movie pitches in comic form, but I don’t care. The Vault is fun stuff.  Even though I don’t think there is much original going on here, I really enjoyed this issue that featured a treasure hunting team that dug up something that should have been left in the ground.  Bad things are happening how!  If you’ve enjoyed Mummy movies or The Thing from Another World, you’ll probably get a kick out of this comic.  And, it’s only 3 issues, so there isn’t much to stop you.  Grade: B

Skull Kickers #10 – This series is just flat fun.  I think we might have learned the names of our dwarf and his hulking buddy, but given who gave us the names, I’m not sure they can be trusted.  The plot in this cycle has to do with our duo running afoul of a bunch of nasty pixies in the best swords and sandals fashion.  The high-point in this issue was when the dwarf got shot with an arrow and is bleeding all over the place (the sounds effects say, “Squirt, Squirt, Squirt”) and he urges his companion to plug the wound with a dead squirrel.  If that sounds like your kind of humor, you should read Skull Kickers.  I really like the art by Edwin Huang too.  Grade: B

Fear Itself: The Deep #3 – Boy have these Fear Itself tie-in series sucked!  But, The Deep has been a bright spot.  This isn’t a groundbreaking issue that changes the universe or anything, but it is well written by Cullen Bunn and nicely drawn by Lee Garbett.  It features characters who I enjoy like Lyra, the Savage She-Hulk and Loa (from the X-Men), but also manages to redeem a few characters I don’t usually like (Dr. Strange, Namor & Silver Surfer) as they battle the Fear Itselfed minions of Attuma.  As I said, most of the Fear Itself miniseries have been shit, but this is worth buying. Grade: B

Last Mortal #4 – This wasn’t bad, but it does warrant a big “meh.”  I guess the black and white art was kinda catchy, but there was never anything about the story that captured or held my interest as we came to the conclusion of this series.  The young loser who can’t die is on a mission to get answers and retribution for the death of his loser buddy.  I think I just don’t want to read stories about losers, perhaps?  Main characters need to be a little more likable than this kid because I just can’t root for a protagonist who is such a waste of skin.   Grade: C

Epoch #1 – Your enjoyment of this is going to depend largely on how much you groove on stories of Biblical angels and demons walking among us.  I really don’t care for that type of story, so it just came off as really pretentious seeing this cop who is realizing that he has powers that he wasn’t previously aware of and that his father, Gabriel (hint, hint), might not be quite the old douchebag he’d thought.  If you like angels and demons, you might like this, but I probably should have read the solicitation text more closely.  Even the art didn’t quite click with me.  It looked like it kinda wanted to be Capullo-like, and I love Capullo, but this just left me cold.  Grade: C-

– Dean Stell

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Last Mortal #4 – PREVIEW

Last Mortal #4 PREVIEW

story JOHN MAHONEY & FILIP SABLIK
art & cover THOMAS NACHLIK

‘REGICIDE,’ Part Four The finale of the hard-hitting supernatural noir series from Minotaur Press is here. Alec King, the suicidal immortal, has been beat down, stabbed, and shot so many times he’s beginning to lose count. But finally, the man responsible for his best friend’s death is in his sights. The question remains – will Alec be able to make the hard decision for the first time in his miserable life?

 

The Last Mortal #2 – Review

By John Mahoney and Filip Sablick (writers), Thomas Nachlik (art), Troy Peteri (letters)

The Story: His name is Alec King, born into a life of crime, violence and betrayal on the streets of Philadelphia, in the state of Pennsylvania. And he cannot die.

What’s Good: Thomas Nachlik’s dark, rough and sketchy art continues to be one of the highlights of this series for me. Although the story and characters are plenty engaging on their own, the book would be a lot poorer without this art to sell the gritty, noir-ish nature of the story. Not only does it look fantastic, it helps establish the dark urban environments and lends a strong sense of place and reality to what is, after all, ultimately a fantastical story. Although Image Comics uses thicker, high-quality glossy paper for many of their book, it serves this art style particularly well, as the extra glossiness emphasizes and highlights the contrast in the stark black and white images.

The story itself remains very strong, as we learn more about the (more and more tragic) figure of Alec King and his doomed friendship with Brian. The character growth feels organic and natural as the story progresses (despite the fact that it’s not told in a totally linear fashion), although now that the major ‘hook’ of Alec being immortal has been established, it will be hard for the series to top that moment of drama and revelation.

Last Mortal #2 – PREVIEW

LAST MORTAL #2 (of 4)

story JOHN MAHONEY & FILIP SABLIK
art & cover THOMAS NACHLIK

“REGICIDE,” Part Two

What would you do if you hit rock bottom and there was no way out? If you had tried to take the final escape and discovered that path was blocked? In the case of Alec King, the suicidal immortal, you pick up a gun and set out to take out the bastards responsible for your misery. A class noir revenge tale with a supernatural twist from Minotaur Press!

RETAILER WARNING: MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR ALL AGES

Last Mortal #1 – Review

By John Mahoney and Filip Sablik (writers), Thomas Nachlik (art), Troy Peteri (letters)

[Small spoiler warnings in effect–this review will give away the ‘twist’ at the end of the story, though it’s nothing that will surprise anyone even passingly familiar with the premise of the book.]

What’s Good: The idea of immortality has fascinated human beings for much of our history. It’s a gift associated with heroes and gods–either a result of divine birth or (occasionally) granted as an ultimate reward for a great deed.

But what if immortality wasn’t given to anyone godly or heroic at all? What if immortality just…happened?

That’s the situation that small-time crook Alec King finds himself in, following a disastrous attempt to help his best friend commit a far more heinous and complicated crime than either of them are used to. Interestingly, this first issue doesn’t deal with the consequences of Alec’s immortality at all yet, and instead serves as both an origin story, and as a primer to get to know our main character and what makes him tick. While I was surprised by the lack of…I guess…”immortal-ness”…in the issue, I wasn’t at all disappointed. The book sets up the characters (and Alec in particular) so well, and the action is so taught, intense and well-paced, that I was perfectly happy to let the story carry me along. When the denouement finally happens in the last two pages, it feels like a natural outgrowth of the story established to that point–and it’s impact is much stronger for it.