Moon Knight #13 - Marvel Comics

MOON KNIGHT No. 13, May 2015

The 22,871 purchasers of this comic must have been somewhat alarmed at the changes brought in by Editor Nick Lowe. For having replaced the title’s reasonably successful creative team of Brian Wood and Greg Smallwood with Cullen Bunn and penciller Ron Ackins, the senior editor of the “X-Men” books at “Marvel Worldwide” also employed three separate inkers to work on “Footprints” and unfortunately the consistency of this periodical’s artwork undoubtedly suffers as a result. 

Admittedly however, there are arguably a number of other reasons as to why this magazine saw “Moon Knight” fall out of Diamond Comic Distributor’s top one hundred best-selling titles in March 2015. Bunn’s somewhat nonsensical narrative being just one as the American author describes a disturbingly unsympathetic Marc  Spector rescuing a number of hapless ghosts who have been ‘waylaid’ by a group of ‘spook kidnappers’; “You put a price tag on something… brand it the right way… and people will buy it.”

The basic premise for such a single-issue long plot isn’t itself dislikeable. But the former “Deadpool Kills Deadpool” writer’s adventure concludes before resolving several questionable aspects to his storyline. For example what is causing “the trail” of bloody footprints which helps lead the cloaked superhero to the Apex Wholesale Meats Building where the phantoms’ abductions are taking place? How is a laptop, a syringe-enhanced glove and something reminiscent of a ‘Poke Ball’ capable of making “the dead dance like puppets”, and why does “residential mortal energy” draw “ghosts like flies” to the slaughterhouse? None of this ‘ectoplasm-based gobbledygook’ is ever even slightly rationalised or explained by Bunn, and seems to have been indolently ‘invented’ just so The Fist of Khonshu could battle amidst the meat factory’s hanging carcasses.

Ron Ackins’ artwork is also a rather inconsistent mess for much of this comic’s twenty-pages. Initially competent enough, as the three-piece suited vigilante confronts his home’s spiritual trespassers, the self-taught illustrator’s drawings become increasingly two-dimensional and irreconcilable to the eye the more action-packed the plot becomes. Encouragingly the Philadelphia-born graphic designer can sketch an extremely impressive-looking Moon Knight. Yet oddly seems unable to replicate the crimefighter’s dynamic energy and poise with the rest of his figures. Indeed towards the end of the comic, the Afro-American artist struggles to depict even the simplest of fight scenes, with his characters having either misshapen or elongated limbs, large bulging eyes, and disproportional awkward-looking hands.

Writer: Cullen Bunn, Artist: Ron Ackins, and Color Art: Dan Brown

Zombies Vs. Robots #7 - IDW Publishing

ZOMBIES VS. ROBOTS No. 7, July 2015

Co-creator Chris Ryall has clearly imbued Issue Seven of “Zombies Verses Robots” with a very different vibe as to what has previously been printed before. For instead of consisting of a rather mixed ‘hit but mainly miss’ anthology of short unrelated stories, the Chief Creative Officer has instead dedicated almost the entirety of this book’s twenty-two pages to “The Man On The Moon”; an “incredible science fiction” story which may well “astound you!”

Set upon the very cusp of the undead apocalypse in America, during “the early days of the Zombie/Robot War”, the Californian writer’s engaging and somewhat sentimental tale concentrates on the survival of a father and daughter housed within a “deserted and converted” missile silo sealed deep beneath “rural Kansas”. Alone, except for the company of a couple of Warbots, tiny Ava’s “Daddy” quickly succumbs to paranoia and madness, and orders his automatons to murder “the next-door neighbours”, inadvertently causing his underground shelter to be “breached by zombies”.

Unfortunately, having mesmerisingly brought the story to the point where the little girl is fatally bitten, Ryall’s creativeness arguably takes a turn towards the absurd as the distraught parent not only injects himself with “Ava’s zombie blood” but has the limb immediately clamped within a bionic device in order to “prevent the virus from spreading past your arm.” Worse the man also illogically allows his robot doctor to enclose half his head within a metallic mask which bears a striking resemblance to a medieval torture decide; “It will hurt a great deal… But not as much as this mask will.”  

Paul Davidson’s illustration work is detailed and dynamic, and really helps convey the passage of time by slowly portraying a progressively dishevelled adult and increasingly tall Ava whilst the story develops. Disappointingly though, the comic’s editor jarringly interrupts the flow of the “Judge Dredd” penciller’s panels by including three double-splashes drawn by very different, and arguably less impressive, artists.

James McDonald’s Chibi-looking montage of the weaponry of zombies and robots is attractive enough, and highly suitable considering it’s meant to represent the thoughts of a child as her father talks about what is happening on the planet’s surface. Valentin Ramon’s battle scene showing that “the zombies truly had spread to every continent on Earth, in mass numbers” is also competent enough, if not exceptionally gruesome and gory. But James Kochalka’s atrocious sketch of a warbot punching ghouls besides a river bank whilst highly stylised, is reminiscent of Matt Groenig’s early work on the 1989 American animated sitcom “The Simpsons” and really breaks the atmosphere of what had been, up until its appearance, a thoroughly compelling journey through the opening months of the planet-wide catastrophe.

Just as disheartening is the seemingly pointless inclusion of “Tales Of ZVR” by Ashley Wood at the very back of this comic book. The Australian illustrator’s ‘two-page short’, unenthusiastically coloured in a variety of muted greys, pales in comparison with Davidson’s colourful artwork, especially as it proves impossibly hard to distinguish what is actually taking place within a couple of the Spectrum Award-winner’s pictures. In addition absolutely nothing of any consequence occurs within “A Howl Of Wind!” except for the decision being made by the young boy’s female companion for them to visit “Wilma, the zombie-stomper!”

The regular cover art of "ZOMBIES VS. ROBOTS" No. 7 by Mark Torres

Where Monsters Dwell #3 - Marvel Comics

WHERE MONSTERS DWELL No. 3, September 2015

There’s a very interesting, if not disturbing, change to the tone of this third instalment of “Where Monsters Dwell”, and the comic’s cover warning proclaiming “Parental Advisory! Not For Kids!” rather succinctly spells out just how much this mini-series’ once humorously fun action-packed narrative now differs. Indeed apart from Russ Braun’s consistent and wonderful lavishly-drawn artwork, along with the occasional Karl Kaufman frustrated chauvinistic quip, it genuinely is hard to believe that Garth Ennis’ mature-orientated script is apparently a continuation of what has previously gone on before within this “dangerous region of Battleworld...”

For starters the rather jolly dinosaur-chasing capers of the title’s previous two issues have been entirely replaced with a rather tediously lack-lustre depiction of idyllic life hidden within an Amazonian jungle-based fortification. In fact it isn’t until the book’s second half, when the “flying ace” inadvertently stumbles upon the imprisoned and wizened Chief Petty Officer Harkins and the equally elderly Bill the Cabin Boy, that the story’s main protagonist suddenly finds himself in jeopardy… And that is simply because he loses his temper and demands “Single combat. Me against the best you’ve got! To the death!”

However such sedentary plot pacing is actually the least of this magazine’s problems, as for whatever reason, Ennis veers away from the family-friendly entertainment his ‘time-travelling’ tale has previously provided and instead embarks upon a twenty-page depiction of scantily-clad bikini-wearing homosexuality and eye-watering male genital abuse; “Swollen. Turned me on an’ orf like a tap, they did… pumpin’ away… treated me like a blinkin’ object…”

Admittedly the Northern Irish-born American writer handles such subjects through the use of some rather tongue-in-cheek moments and the ample use of innuendo as opposed to anything more blatantly explicit. But even so, as the Phantom Eagle is stripped naked and frogmarched to the chopping block, where a heavily-muscled long-haired executioner prepares her sharp axe in order to remove him of his ‘manhood’, it's abundantly clear that the Eisner Award-winner’s ‘Land That Time Forgot’ influenced dino-fest has suddenly become far more akin to one of its publishing company’s extremely controversial “Max Comics” imprint titles rather than something conjured up from the limitless imagination of author Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Writer: Garth Ennis, Artist: Russ Braun and Color Artist: Dono Sanchez Almara

Injection #3 - Image Comics

INJECTION No. 3, July 2015

Considering that the “Image Comics” advertising strapline for this third instalment of “Injection” concludes with the wording “Civilization is dying and only five people know”, many readers would arguably expect a good deal of action to take place within the book’s twenty-pages in order to thwart such a global predicament. Disappointingly though, besides an utterly bizarre double-splash sequence where the narrative’s ‘not cunning man’ somehow banishes a gigantic Treeman, nothing of any note actually happens at all…

Such a dissatisfying experience is undoubtedly due to the fact that Warren Ellis literally fills the entirety of the magazine’s opening half with Professor Kilbride's slightly fraught "pixies" telephone conversation with her former colleague Robin Morel. In fact this periodical contains little else but dialogue-heavy scenes, as the English author scripts Brigid Roth cursing as Simeon Winters attempts “to arrange an in-person consultation” with her, Maria ‘chit-chats’ with “the new Dispatch”, a colourfully-dressed Indian woman who needs “to pass an interim report on to Control”, and the title’s “esotericist” argues with his group’s resident secret agent during a somewhat lengthy ‘bygone scene’ back when the “weird think tank” was still in operation.

Admittedly in this title’s pre-publication press release the Eagle Award-winning writer forewarned his many fans that this comic would initially simply establish “the world and its problems” and focus upon the development of the storyline’s main protagonists. Yet in doing so it is also arguably clear that this comic’s creators are not producing a well-paced narrative which is readily followable as a regular monthly magazine series. But instead as “five planned volumes” of trade paperbacks.

Fortunately this periodical is at least pleasing to the eye with Declan Shalvey producing some quite wonderfully illustrated moments. In particular the artist’s transformation of Morel’s cheap hotel room into a dank, misty woodland, complete with shadowy observers, startled crows and abundant trees, is incredibly well rendered. The former “Thunderbolts” penciller even goes so far as to slowly represent tiny leaves working their way up Robin’s room phone cable as the duration of his call with Kilbride increases. An especially impressive demonstration of the artist's ‘attention to detail’ which seems to genuinely show just how “delighted” the Irish inker is “to be continuing the creative relationship I’ve established with Warren [Ellis] and Jordie [Bellaire]”.

Unfortunately not everything is as well drawn however, with Shalvey’s infinitely less-detailed flashbacks depicting the “five crazy people” who “poisoned the Twenty-First Century” considerably jarring with the majority of this issue’s artwork. Such a disappointing contrast is especially noticeable when these lack-lustre, blandly-hued panels are intermixed with the much more detailed ‘modern-day’ events all upon the self-same page.

The variant cover art of "INJECTION" No. 3 by Declan Shalvey

Wytches #4 - Image Comics

WYTCHES No. 4, February 2015

It’s not entirely clear what creator Scott Snyder was trying to do with this title’s main protagonist in Issue Four of “Wytches”. But if the New Yorker’s intention was to alienate the “fun lovable guy” from the majority of the book’s 41,827 buyers, then he arguably does a very good job. For not only does the American author’s narrative depict Charlie Rook demonstrating a deplorable “darkness under the surface” by drunkenly endangering the life of his teenage daughter. But it also shows this supposedly “great character” becoming so manically deranged that he actually prevaricates with his caring selfless chair-bound wife whilst holding a “sticker.”

Admittedly such deeply damaged personalities appear to be rather popular within modern-day literature, especially those who somehow manage to not only overcome their own individual demons but great adversity as well. However it is genuinely hard to either support or empathise with a father who swears, curses and threatens his child until she starts gingerly climbing to the top of a perilously derelict Ferris wheel. Indeed, the inebriated parent is so obsessed that Sailor will be brave “today” that at one point he even hurls a bottle at the petrified girl’s feet whilst she’s ascending the Rickett’s Arcade ride.

Fortunately, upon realising that his ‘family are under attack’, the head of the Rook household does appear to exhibit one saving grace and that is his compelling determination to ensure that this time “I’m not letting it happen.” Such resolve to find the wizened woman who previously assaulted him and force her “to tell us where our daughter is” makes for enthralling drama, even if Charlie’s earlier unforgivable ill-treatment of his offspring does suggest that perhaps he’s not just acting out of selfless love but also guilt for his past misdemeanours.

Sadly, equally as flawed as this comic book’s lead character, is some of the artwork created by Mark “Jock” Simpson and Matt Hollingsworth. The creative team’s pages depicting Sailor’s terrifying experiences within a hollowed-out tree are absolutely superb, as are the pair’s panels showing the young girl’s father exploring a dilapidated house on the Here Coast. But disappointingly, the Scottish sketcher’s pencilling of the sedentary scenes between husband and wife are rather shoddily drawn. Whilst the Californian colorist’s overly-heavy application of ‘paint splatter’ across every page proves so dense in places that it actually completely hides part of the illustration underneath.

The variant cover art of "WYTCHES" No. 4 by Babs Tarr

Master Of Kung Fu #3 - Marvel Comics

MASTER OF KUNG FU No. 3, September 2015

Writer Haden Blackman clearly had a lot of fun scripting this third instalment of Shang Chi’s adventures upon “Battleworld”, as within the space of its opening few pages the ex-creative director of “LucasArts” fulfils a genuine ‘love of intermixing’ by integrating “a wide range of reimagined characters” into his “Secret Wars” tie-in book… and what an incredible assortment of “Marvel’s martial artists” he has selected too, with some being “not… immediately obvious or expected.”

Indeed it is clear that the GLAAD Media Award-winner has scoured the roster of “Marvel Worldwide” characters in order to populate the kingdom of K’un Lun’s “Ritual of the Thirteen Chambers”. For not only do obvious choices such as “wise T’Challa of the Panther Clan”, “Master of the Iron Fist, Rand-K’ai” and Karnak “from the House of Terrigen Mists” appear as competitors. But so too do the likes of the “mysterious Drew, weaver of the Spider Cult”, the “noble Creed, leader of the Tooth and Claw” and “Shattered Spector, mercurial Master of the Faces of the Moon”. In fact even the “savage Lord Namor” resurfaces “from the Halls of Atlantis after years of self-imposed seclusion” in order to fight for the opportunity to be Emperor for the next thirteen years.

Equally as impressive is that despite their daunting number artist Dalibor Talajic somehow manages to redesign every one of these major “Marvel” personalities into someone who both ‘feels familiar’ but is also “wholly new”. Something ‘which is exactly what Blackman had apparently hoped for when writing the mini-series’ storyline. However due to time constraints, many of these figures are regrettably reduced to little more than fleetingly brief cameos in two double-splash illustrations which occur at the very end of the comic.

These montages, whilst dynamically drawn by the Croatian penciller, provide nothing but a tantalising glimpse of these semi-familiar faces, with supposedly formidable opponents such as the Black Panther unceremoniously being laid low by the Master of King Fu within mere moments. Only a bearded Sub-Mariner is awarded any genuine ‘screen time’ during this early phase in the martial arts tournament and rather dishearteningly, even Namor’s frantic under-water fist-fight is cut inauspiciously short by Shang-Chi somehow transforming his hands into steel blades (similar to those of the villainous Razor Fist) and rather bloodily puncturing the Atlantean’s lungs with them.

Writer: Haden Blackman, Penciler: Dalibor Talajic, and Inker: Goran Sudzuka

Will Eisner's The Spirit #1 - Dynamite Entertainment

WILL EISNER'S THE SPIRIT No. 1, July 2015

Celebrating “the Seventy Fifth anniversary of Will Eisner’s iconic and ground-breaking character” this opening instalment of “an all-new ongoing series featuring The Spirit” by “Dynamite Entertainment” will doubtless disappoint many of the masked crimefighter’s “long-time fans”, despite the publisher’s advertised assurances to the contrary. In fact it is hard to imagine this first in a twelve-issue story-arc will entice “a whole new generation of fans” either. For having established that the Central City vigilante has been missing, presumed dead, for almost two years via a wonderfully genuine sounding Forties newspaper article, Matt Wagner’s twenty-two page narrative frustratingly focus’ on a world where the famous hero is no more.

Admittedly the Pennsylvanian-born oft-times penciller does include a rather nicely scripted ‘flashback’ of the blue business-suited hero’s origin. But just as soon as the ‘dead’ Denny Colt Junior reveals his “state of suspended animation” to senior lawman Eustace Dolan and utters the ‘immortal’ words “they can’t strike back against a ghost, a phantom… a spirit” then the narrative disappointingly returns to the ‘present’ day and spends a deplorably long time simply depicting the retiring Police Commissioner conversing with his strong-headed daughter, Ellen.

Fortunately such a pace-lacking plot is eventually bolstered by the American author’s (re)introduction of Ebony White; the titular character’s “unofficial” African-American sidekick. Now consigned to a meagre existence as the partner of small-time private investigator Sammy Strunk, the youthful taxi driver at least manages to inject some much needed humour and action into the storyline by becoming involved in a back-street brawl with two 'shifty-looking' “shysters”. But regrettably even this fist-fight is almost immediately resolved thanks to the presence of Aloysius’ enormous cousin Francis and a well-pitched baseball thrown by the one-time racial stereotype’s fedora-wearing associate.

Arguably even worse than Wagner’s uninspiring writing however, has to be Dan Schkade’s unpardonable pencilling. Whilst it is clear that the Austin-born artist has clearly attempted to try and emulate the “vital and prestigious legacy of one of comicdom’s most talented and influential creators”, the final result is an inauspiciously poor imitation of Will Eisner’s “singular vision”. Indeed it is hard to believe that senior editor Joe Rybandt was particularly impressed with the American’s amateurish efforts in any way shape or form. Especially when “The Goon” creator Eric Powell does such a wonderful job of capturing The Spirit’s brutal naked aggression with his gritty main cover illustration.

The variant cover art of "WILL EISNER'S THE SPIRIT" No. 1 by Alex Ross