HOWLING COMMANDOS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. No. 3, February 2016 |
Argued to be “by far the best book being published right
now” by at least one of its 18,002 strong audience in December 2015, Issue
Three of “Howling Commandos Of S.H.I.E.L.D." certainly contains the sort of
storyline that illustrates just how much of a “blast” Frank J. Barbiere was having
whilst “telling the story of our motley band of monsters.” Indeed right from
the ‘get-go’, as an exasperated “Dum Dum” Duggan hurls a zombified Jasper
Sitwell out a low-flying aeroplane in an effort to try and reawaken the former
agent’s consciousness, it’s clear that “job
number one” for the New Jersey-born writer was to pen a narrative which would
“make our readers smile.”; “Sigh. C’mon soldier. You’ve gotta be in that bag of
bones somewhere… Just don’t forget to pull your ‘chute!”
Admittedly, not everything within this twenty-page
periodical appears to have been scripted by the Rutgers University graduate purely
to induce a (cheap) laugh. Nadeen Hassan’s angry angst at suddenly manifesting both
“ghost powers” and “super-strength”, coupled with her subsequent incarceration
by the “special division for Supernatural Threat Analysis for Known
Extranormalities” on account of being “some kind of a monster”, proves to be
serious emotional stuff. Whilst Navid’s heartless manipulation of his sister
as a ‘weapon’ to be used in the service of the Sphinx is as clinically callous
and it is effective in momentarily distracting Doctor Kraye, Teen Abomination,
Orrgo and Vampire By Night from the deadly plight of their fellow Howling Commandos
at the Museum of Egyptian Culture in San Francisco.
Overall however, the former English teacher has definitely
produced a quite delightfully humorous “monster team book” and it is hard to
imagine that many “Howlers” didn’t at least grin as Duggan’s “creepy pet
zombie” Sitwell, much to Warwolf’s evident exasperation, crash-lands on top of
a tree from free fall, or smirk when the “overgrown pile of dinosaur skin" called Orrgo
ineffectively flails his gigantic arms at some Egyptian apparitions breaching
the S.T.A.K.E. bunker whilst informing them that “Orrgo does not believe in
ghosts! They defy all logic!”
Somewhat disappointing though, considering the promise shown by this comic book’s enticing cover illustration of a battered, clearly robotic “Dum Dum” leading his “rag-tag group of monsters” in the defence of a Museum of Antiquities, is Brent Schoonover’s drawing. The Minnesota-based artist’s
breakdowns for this amalgamation of “horror, comedy and adventure” aren’t terribly consistent at all, with his pencilling for the
Hassan twins proving especially erratic and crudely drawn.
Writer: Frank J. Barbiere, Art: Brent Schoonover, and Color Art: Nick Filardi |
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