The Ray #2 – Review

By: Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray (writers), Jamal Igle (penciller), Rich Perrotta (inker), Guy Major (colorist)

The Story: Guess who’s coming to dinner?  The Ray!

The Review: I was thoroughly unimpressed with the debut of this mini last month, and was of a good mind to drop it immediately.  But I figured that since I already put the money in for one issue, I might as well check out the next one to see if things improve.  After all, it wasn’t so much that the writing or art of #1 was bad; they just felt commonplace and contrived, much more planned than inspired.

It’s not great that for the second time in a row, we open on a monster attack upon San Diego, with the Ray filling you in with some narrated exposition as he takes them down.  That’s par for the course, considering the six-issue constraint Palmiotti-Gray have on their story, but it still would’ve been nice to see more of the action taking place than having it told to us.  Besides, Ray always manages to defeat them so quickly, and with so little evident threat to his person, that you tend to skim past the scenes anyway.

At any rate, the meat of the story involves Lucien’s first meeting with Chanti’s culturally sensitive parents, whom he tries to please by getting into Indian costume and sucking up, big time.  At least he has the good grace to admit he was being an idiot (the title of the scene is actually “Yes…  I Am an Idiot”), because it is a monumentally idiotic move, one that would never, ever fly in real life for a second.  The idea reeks like a premise for a first/last-season episode of a WB sitcom starring Mindy Kaling and John Cho—which, sadly, I’d probably watch.

The Ray #1 – Review

By: Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray (writers), Jamal Igle (penciller), Rich Perrotta (inker), Guy Major (colorist)

The Story: Prepare to be blinded by the Ray—in more ways than one.

The Review: Here’s another beauty about the new 52: the opportunity to launch new characters or to revive old ones for a new generation.  So of all the myriad heroes of the DC canon to return to the forefront, why the Ray?  Nowhere in his history, from his origins in Quality Comics’ Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters to his brief stint as a member of Young Justice, did he ever have what you might call popular appeal.

And I’m not sure if this new version of the Ray will turn that trend around.  Truthfully, I’m not a fan of publishers artificially promoting diversity by having minority characters take up legacy brands, like Jackson Hyde and Aqualad, Jaime Reyes and Blue Beetle, Ryan Choi and the Atom, and now Lucien Gates, a Korean-American and newest incarnation of the radiant hero.

It’s also not great that Palmiotti-Gray have chosen a new person for the mantle when Ray Terrill, the previous Ray, hasn’t officially been wiped from active status, which the writers should know since they wrote his last appearance in last year’s short-lived Freedom Fighters ongoing.  As the only version of the hero who came closest to having a following (even getting a solo series back in the mid-nineties), you’d think it’d be smarter to use what was working rather than start anew.

But let’s set all that aside and take Lucien on his own merits, shall we?  As far as secret origins go, his come in one of the more traditional ways: a freak accident, in the truest sense of the word.  Sure, it doesn’t make sense how a misfired beam from the U.S. military’s experimental “sun gun” would randomly bestow powers on any organic thing it strikes.  Then again, if you can accept that a lightning bolt and a chemical cocktail can make a man super-fast, maybe you should just this “sun gun” thing go.