Undying Love #3 – Review

By: Tomm Coker & Daniel Freedman (script), Coker (art), Freedman (colors), Michael David Thomas (letters)

The Story: So, how did our protagonist meet this vampire who he has been protecting?

What’s Good: If you were curious about how the two main characters got hooked up, this is the story for you.  To recap, the first two issues of this modern day vampire story set in Hong Kong introduced us to a mercenary (of the honorable stripe) who was trying to protect a young-appearing (because you can never tell age with vampires) vampire and free her from her “maker”.  Originally, we were just tossed into the middle of the story and given no background on how these two ended up together.  So, if that was bugging you….this issue will resolve some things.

The origin of the mercenary (his name isn’t really very important) is pretty expected: he was a “contractor” during one of the current conflicts throughout the Middle East and central Asia.  But, I did find the vampire’s origin to be a little surprising as [SPOILER] she was apparently a sex-slave for humans.  I read a decent amount of vampire fiction, and I don’t know that I’ve ever seen that origin for a vampire.  They’re usually too powerful to be used in that way by mere humans.

Undying Love #2 – Review

By: Tomm Coker & Daniel Freedman (writers), Coker (art), Freedman (colors) & Michael David Thomas (letters)

The Story: An ex-soldier battles vampires in Hong Kong to free his vampiric girlfriend’s soul.

What’s Good: Hey!  Nice fight scene!  Well-done fight scenes have become a rarity in modern comics.  Too many fights just show random assemblages of dramatic poses from the fight instead of the actual flow of what happened.  Maybe I’m weird, but sometimes I read fights in other comics and flip back and forth a few times because I can’t figure out how Daredevil ended up in a position to choke some guy or what Batman could have jumped off of to be in a position to kick some guy in the head.  Usually, the answers just aren’t there because the creators must not have enjoyed kung fu movies when they were young….  All of that brings me to a really nice scene in this issue where the protagonist busts into a nightclub office to kill some vampires and gives us a nicely choreographed fight scene with an actual flow to the action.  It always makes sense which arm the characters are using to perform actions, all the inanimate objects stay in position; blood splatters are on the correct wall in the next panel, etc.  It’s just really nicely done.

Undying Love has a dark sense of humor too.  In the aforementioned scene in the nightclub office, when the protagonist busts in, these three vampires are entertaining themselves by singing karaoke, playing dominos and looking at Playboy centerfolds while two dead strippers are flopped on the couches with twisty party straws (like we all drank out of when we were kids) sticking out of their chests so the vampires could drink their blood.

As for the main story, I think anyone who enjoys modern vampires stories will get a kick out of this as it plays with lots of standard vampire tropes such as the power a vampire has over its “offspring”, warring sects of vampires, a “kid”-vampire who is actually incredibly old and powerful, etc.

Undying Love #1 – Review

By: Tomm Coker & Daniel Freedman (writers), Coker (art), Freedman (color), Michael David Thomas (letters)

The Story: A modern day vampire story in which a soldier falls in love with a vampire and attempts to free her soul.

What’s Good: Well, this is a very stylish looking book.  Although Coker is using a lot of photo-reference, this falls more onto the Alex Maleev side of the equation where they make photo-reference look good (as compared to the tracers out there).  If I had to speculate, it looks like Coker is starting with a photo for the general outline of the character or face and then inking digitally over the top of it, so while the faces certainly have the photo-outline look, they also have a very rough and chunky inked shading that keeps it looking good.  This is important because a lot of photo-ref artists focus so much on the outline of the character that they forget that shading within the character is what gives it vitality and emotion.  I really don’t mind photo-reference as long as the artist does something cool with it and these guys do just that.

The story is entertaining and pretty straightforward, going right into the action as we see a Caucasian man and Chinese woman who are on the run.  They’re clearly in love, but something is chasing them.  Then they are confronted at a shrine by a talking fox and all these ancient Chinese soldiers with swords and armor and a fight ensues.  The man pulls out his gun and starts mowing them down.  The fight progressed and then WOW .the Chinese woman nails one of the soldiers and she has fangs an glowing red eyes: She’s a vampire!  That’s why they’re on the run!

I have taken to really avoiding preview promotional material and didn’t see this twist coming at all, and my initial reaction was “Cool! She’s a vampire!” so the creators are not guilty of creating, “yet another vampire book.”

Shang-Chi: Master of Kung Fu Black & White One Shot – Review

By Jonathan Hickman (writer), Kody Chamberlin (artist), Mike Benson (writer), Tomm Coker & C.P. Smith (artists), Charlie Huston (writer), Enrique Romero (artist), Robin Furth (writer), Paul Gulacy (artist)

The Story: The good ol’ days of Marvel’s mighty, black and white grindhouse megazines are given a loving homage in this anthology starring the Master of Kung-Fu.

The Good: Being a shameless fan of grindhouse, kung-fu, and nostalgia, I found it hard not to enjoy this comic.  The design of everything from the expertly lettered cover, black and white pages, and hilarious faux advertisement on the back cover were all wonderful choices that really gave this the look and feel of those oversized magazines Marvel used to publish in the 70s. It’s also very refreshing to come across a comic that is so shamelessly committed to having a good time. Of the four stories comprising this retro-themed anthology, Hickman’s story “The Annual Race to Benefit Various And Sundry Evil Organizations And Also The Homeless. Now With Beer And Hot Dogs” (and yes, I swear to God that is the name of the story) is by far the most ridiculously entertaining one.  Granted, Shang-Chi plays second fiddle to none other than Deadpool, but what the hell, when Hickman includes a fully functional gameboard within his plot I’m willing to overlook paltry details like the absence of the main freaking character.  The other stories here were much more conventional, but every bit as satisfying.  Of those, I thought the story by Huston and Romero best captured the look and feel of the old Gulacy Shang-Chi stories, and the prose story by Furth and Gulacy was an unexpected delight.  This was a vastly different book than anything Marvel’s currently doing, and I was very pleased with the finished product.

The Not So Good: Although I quite enjoyed the retro design of this book, I can’t say that it’s going to appeal to everyone.  This comic utterly lacks the melodrama, spandex, and face-punching antics of the typical superhero comic, and that alone is bound to drive away tons of readers.  Benson’s story was an admirable effort, but didn’t quite resonate with me in the way I wanted it to.  The use of Chinese(?) characters in the dialogue balloons become quickly tiresome, and for me anyway didn’t add anything to the overall reading experience.  However, that being said, if Marvel should ever choose to do more Shang-Chi stories, I hope they’ll bring Tomm Coker on board, as his gritty, Sienkiewicz-styled art perfectly complimented this kind of story.

Conclusion: I was honestly surprised with how much I liked this book, and would love to see Marvel use this format more often to dust off some of their forgotten heroes.  Can’t go wrong with 48 pages of kung-fu goodness.

Grade:  B

-Tony Rakittke

Daredevil Noir #1 – Review

Alexander Irvine (writer), Tomm Coker (artist), Daniel Freedman (colors)

Before the Review:
I like Daredevil.  A lot.  I’m not a long-time fan, but I hold the “Born Again” storyline to be some of the finest work of any comics professional.  I dig the Brubaker stuff, and  love the character dearly.

As soon as I heard Marvel was doing a Noir take on it, I immediately put it on my pull list. But unfortunately, I was disappointed come release day.

The Story:
Matt Murdock, a blind ex-vaudeville performer, works as an errand-runner for a local private investigator , Foggy Nelson.  But when he’s not tracking down a lead, he’s punishing the vast criminal element of the 1930’s Hell’s Kitchen.

The Good:
The art.  Tomm Coker goes to town on this, making it depressing, pulpy, and gritty at the same time.  Freedman’s colors heighten the dark moods and run-down attitude that the comic has.  As it stands, Daredevil : Noir is a prime example of how a comic can be artistically fantastic, and prosaically flawed.

The bad:
The writing.  Nothing can be done to cover up the fact that this comic has little going for it to save the art; the writing strives too hard to be noir-styled, mistaking abbreviation and clipped speech for actual storytelling.  What’s worse, the dialogue lacks the characteristic punch of crime novels, and doesn’t even aspire as high as duplicating Frank Miller-esque diatribes.

But nothing, nothing is a worse indication of a bad noir story than unintentional laughter.  And when the line, “Home is a prison I carry in my head” – which, for all intents and purposes, should be striking and poignant – instead brings derisive chuckles, the author’s missed the point, and the editors should’ve known better than to let this out the door.

Also, I’d like to know what “IRT” feels like under my feet, especially when it feels “like a monster clawing its way up my shinbones.” I know it should be “DIRT”, but considering that “IRT” is what made it to print, I feel like I’m missing out on an essential life experience.

Grade : C-. Good art only gets you so far, and IRT won’t get you the rest of the way.

-Brian Lynch