Ryder on the Storm #1 – Advance Review

By: David Hine (writer), Wayne Nichols (art), Feigian Chong (colors) & Richard Starkings (letters)

The Story: What starts as a prototypical noir-themed, PI story takes a supernatural twist towards the end.

What’s Good: This comic starts out by strongly establishing its noir chops: sexy femme fatale calling in to report her lover’s dead body.  Then the stereotype continues by bringing in the main character: Mr. Ryder, the hard-boiled Private Investigator who has an antagonistic relationship with the police despite the fact that his dad was a cop.  Within the first ~10 pages, Hine has established that he gets how to lay out a noir story.

Revealing too much would be in appropriate in an advance review, but suffice it to say that this comic does not remain a stereotypical noir story.  About 2/3 of the way through there is a supernatural twist that continues to build toward the end such that the reader is left with something pretty unique.  If you enjoy supernatural-themed noir, this should be your cup of tea.

The Last Days of American Crime #3 – Advance Review

By: Rick Remender (writer), Greg Tocchini (art) & Rus Wooton (letters)

The Story: Double crosses abound as an unlikely trio tries to pull off the last crime in American history.

What’s Good: This issue kept me completely on the edge of my seat.  It has about 5 good plot twists and double crosses as the trio trying to pull off their caper switches allegiances left and right.  I often roll my eyes at these sorts of plot twists because I find that the plot twists are just gratuitous: the writer is creating a plot twist just for the sake of shaking things up.  In LDoAC, all of the plot twists happen within the normal flow of the story and you are not sure they are over until you see “The End” on the final page.  Even at that point, you feel that if Remender and Tocchini had allowed us to keep watching the characters for a few panels longer, something else would have happened.

Remender also deserves huge kudos for outstanding character work.  The bad guy is really and truly loathsome.  As a reader, you are really pulling for someone to put a bullet in this dude.  Meanwhile, I found myself really hoping that the other two members of the criminal trio would pull off the crime and somehow overcome their criminal natures to stop double crossing each other.  It’s very hard to pull off this sort of character development in a miniseries, but Remender does it very well.

Before moving on to the art, I’m going to throw one more bone to Remender by heaping some praise on this cool concept he created with the radio signal that will prevent anyone from doing any action that they know to be criminal. This is a neat enough idea, but I really appreciate that he took it to the next step by showing the mayhem this causes in the criminal community.  We’ve all heard how folks are criminals partially because they don’t know how to do anything else.  Well, imagine the mayhem you might resort to if YOUR job was about to be legislated out of existence.  These criminals literally will have nothing to do as they have no relevant job skills.

Hotwire: Requiem for the Dead #3 – Review

by Warren Ellis (creator) and Steve Pugh (writer, art, and letters)

The Story: Hotwire visits the “maximum security cemetery” in the hopes of finding some answers about the “ghost bombs” and ends up dealing with a paranormal jailbreak.

The Good: The art in this issue is inexpressibly phenomenal. This is the best looking book yet in a series that is already quite possibly the best looking series in Radical’s line-up, which is no small feat. A good chunk of this month’s eye candy comes thanks to the “ghost bombs,” which allow Pugh to go wild with his insane “creature concepts.”  His giant metal ghost spider is a sight to behold. The jailbreak only takes the art up to another level, allowing Pugh to draw cataclysmic floods and storms of biblical proportions. Art-wise, this is a big issue and it looks amazing.  Almost every large frame in this book could easily be framed and put on a wall.

Hotwire #3 is without a doubt an action issue, and Pugh handles the mayhem well. Again thanks in no small part to his spectacular visuals. That said, in the midst of all the gorgeous explosions, glowing gribblies, and high-tech gizmos, it’s remarkable how much I’ve come to like Mobey and Hotwire in only three issues. I wasn’t particularly taken with any of the characters after issue one, but I really connected with Hotwire and Mobey in issue two, and this month, I liked them even more. Hotwire is just the right combination of sassy and outright weird, managing to be likable and engaging while avoiding cliches and remaining abrasive. Once again, her dynamic with Mobey also brings much needed comic relief.

Meanwhile, Pugh continues to do a great job in balancing the main plot with the ominous surrounding events of the riots.  It’s a really cool balancing act that adds more of a flavor to the comic while also fashioning a living, active, defined world for the story to take place in– not easy to accomplish in a four-part limited series.

I also have to commend Pugh’s handle of the ghost bombs, who really come across as genuinely disturbing. His ghosts thus far have certainly been written in an unsettling style, but he sets a new standard here.

The Not-so-Good: Hotwire #3 briskly moves the plot along and does what it does well, so there’s not a lot to complain about.  I was a little underwhelmed by Hotwire’s reveal at the issue’s end of who she was covering for, but considering this is a four-part series with few characters, I can’t really think of many other possibilities.  At least this really suited Hotwire’s character.

Conclusion: Great action, unbelievable art, and increasingly likable characters come together in a fantastic comic.  If you haven’t read Hotwire, you should.  This weird and yet oddly perfect hybrid of hard science fiction, cyberpunk, noir/detective fiction, and horror continues to be a real winner.

Grade: A-

-Alex Evans

Shrapnel: Aristeia Rising #5 – Review

by Nick Sagan & Mark Long (creators), M. Zachary Sherman (writer), Bagus Hutomo (art), Leos “Okita” Ng (colors), and Sean Konot (letters)

The Story: Shrapnel’s epic conclusion sees Captain Sam Vijaya leading her Venusian militia into the final battle with the Marines led by her old nemesis, Major Bellgrave.

The Good: It’s a Radical comic, so you’d expect excellent art, but this issue is unreal.  The double page splashes are awe-inspiring and the whole book is just stunning.  It’s one of a kind, realistic, and outright gorgeous.  This book needs to be seen to be believed.  This is the best looking issue of the series.  The characters have more definition and things are still gritty, but also a bit brighter to alleviate the confusion that plagued past issues, and did I mention those splashes?  This is a great looking book that’s consistently good from cover to cover. The sheer size and scale of some of the things Hutomo draws in this issue is mind-boggling, yet he pulls it off just as well as he does the claustrophobic scenes in ship corridors.

Meanwhile, Sherman decided to go simple on the writing end, and the comic is all the better for it.  I’ve had issues with Shrapnel before in Sherman’s cramming way too many words onto single pages, even single panels.  That’s gone in this issue; it’s a stripped down depiction of the brutality, emotion, and protocol of war.  Most of the words we get here are the cries of panicked soldiers and the orders of their commanders.  It works really well.  Sherman is trying to do one thing: give an accurate portrayal of a hard SF battlefield, and he does so with flying colors as a minimalist that avoids any overwriting.

And that makes any of the dialogue that does occur all the more outstanding, all the more poignant.  It makes Vijaya’s interactions with her old mentor, Colonel Rossi, all the more impactful.  The scene where he chooses sides or the one where he and Vijaya struggle for command of the ship are brief, but Sherman’s minimalism makes what’s said feel powerful.

The battle scenes are very well done and Vijaya’s final gambit is nothing less than totally awesome.  This issue is epic, beautiful, and engaging.  You really feel the harsh realism, urgency, and chaos of the battle and again, despite the relatively little dialogue, the final double splash page surprised me with how much emotion it raised in me.  That splash perfectly sums up this issue: it had no words, just effective imagery.  Make no mistake; this is a war story without digression, tangent, or side-story.  It’s about a battle and the effects it has on one soldier’s life and spirit, and it’s great.

The Not-so-Good: Some reader’s may be a bit put-off by the minimalism and wish for more dialogue to make this a longer read or perhaps to give a greater sense of depth, complexity, and engagement.  I feel that that would dilute what the comic does, but it’s a fair point.

Also, some of the battle scenes are still a bit hard to discern.  It can get a little blurry and hence a little tough to figure out who’s who or what’s going on.  That said, even the worst frames are comprehensible with a little thought and context.  This problem has haunted the series from day one, but it’s vastly improved here and the confusion occurs far less often than it did back in the first issue.  It’s a weak-point, but it’s better than it was.

The Bottom-line: The best issue of one of the best limited series of 2009 thus far.  Epic, beautiful, and harsh, this is one to pick up.  Better still, it’s 2.99 for a 50-page issue with heavy paper and a glossy cover.  Can’t argue with that.

Grade: B+

-Alex Evans