Talon #0 – Review

By: James Tynion IV & Scott Snyder (story), Guillem March (art), Tomev Morey (colors)

The Story: The Court of Owls should consider putting this runaway’s face on a milk carton.

The Review: I must say, it surprises me Snyder has promoted his former pupil as obviously as he has this past year.  To me, this reeks of a kind of cronyism, and it just doesn’t seem like the best way to let someone stand on their own merits if you’re constantly hovering over their shoulder, even as a name on a co-credit.  It also doesn’t help if your mentee doesn’t demonstrate outstanding talent; Tynion didn’t make the best first impression on me with Batman Annual #1.

Still, getting such lavish support of Snyder is no easy feat, I assume, so let’s sit ourselves down and try to figure out how Tynion earned it.  From the first page, you notice right off both the teacher and student share a literary penchant for heavy narration.  While Snyder has an instinct for balancing showing versus telling, Tynion leans quite a bit more on the telling.  Calvin Rose’s monologues dominate the issue, suffocating whole panels with text.