NewUniversal: Shockfront #2 – Review

By Warren Ellis (writer), Steve Kurth (penciler), and Andrew Hennessy (inker)

Okay, I have officially lost patience with this book. I mean, is it too much to ask that the so-called protagonists of a book actually do something? In eight issues (counting the previous mini-series), this is what has happened: Spitfire has gotten drunk; Starbrand has whined like a six-year-old girl; Nightmask has spoken to the mothership from Close Encounters and teleported to California. Whoopee. Justice, at least, has killed some people, but what’s he going to do next? Kill more people? Not exactly a masterpiece of suspense.

At this point I should summarize the plot of this issue, but honestly, nothing happens. A bunch of people talk to each other. And they’re not talking about their secret pasts or arguing competing points of view, either. No, they’re summarizing all the stuff we already know! Granted, something finally happens in the last few pages, but I’m not going to spoil the only bit of drama in the whole book.

The biggest problem with the “New” Universe (other than the mediocre art) is there’s nothing really “new” about anything in it. Parallel universe? Seen that. A government that hates and fears its heroes? Seen that, too. Murderous vigilante? Ditto. A reluctant hero that never asked for his powers in the first place? If I tried to list every time we’ve seen that cliché, I’d crash the weeklycomicbookreview server.

The only original bit in the whole storyline is the White Event, but the TV series Heroes did it first and did it better. Now, I know that’s not really fair, since the original “New” Universe predates Heroes by a long time, but the reason the first season of Heroes worked so well (and the second season didn’t) is that there was a clearly defined problem (the impending destruction of New York) that all the characters were trying actively to solve. In New Universal, though, I swear I haven’t seen a group this passive since the Enron oversight committee.

Come on, Ellis. You can do better than this. (Grade: C)

– Andrew C. Murphy