Action Man #1 - IDW Publishing

ACTION MAN No. 1, June 2016

Based upon a late Sixties “twelve-inch doll for boys to play with in various different army outfits”, this bitterly disappointing twenty-six page modern-day reinvention of “the United Kingdom’s one-man answer to G.I. Joe” into an almost omnipotent MI5 operative appears to have been a major miscalculation by “IDW Publishing” and their supposed ‘God of Continuity’, writer John Barber. Indeed, if it wasn’t for the fact that the super-talented spy depicted within Issue One of “Action Man” wasn’t persistently referred to as “A.M.”, then one could quite easily be forgiven for believing the former senior editor’s narrative is actually portraying Ian Fleming’s internationally famous fictional British secret serviceman, rather than being based upon the accessory-laden figure produced by “Palitoy”.

Disconcertingly however, this shock that the “master of all forms of fighting, communication, and disguise” is also “a tenth-level judo black belt, member of Mensa, and a three-star Michelin chef”, as opposed to a veteran military operative deployed to the toughest known warzones in the world, is as nothing compared to the astonishment caused by the freelance comic book writer’s decision to kill the titular character off at the conclusion of the prologue, and replace him with the immeasurably immature and juvenile Agent Ian Noble; “one of A.M.’s support crew”, who, whilst “capable enough”, has so many “ideas beyond his station” as to be entirely unlikeable and, perhaps more importantly, utterly unbelievable as the “muppet” who won the top prize...   

Admittedly, not everything within Barber’s re-imagining is entirely without merit. The ‘new’ Action Man’s incompetent attempt to thwart a group of terrorists planning to detonate a dirty bomb outside Shepreth Wildlife Park certainly proves pulse-pounding enough, as the youngster guns down a train-full of hijackers and derails the locomotive straight into the middle of a “tiger enrichment programme.” But such scintillating sequences are few and far between within a narrative seemingly far more interested in undermining the abilities of its disagreeable and somewhat foul-mouthed lead protagonist.

Paolo Villanelli’s decidedly Manga-influenced breakdowns don’t help the accessibility of this publication either. Though rather better than Chris Evenhuis’ soulless sketchings for the comic’s six-page prologue, the penciller’s inability to draw Noble consistently, especially during the more sedentary scenes, quickly irks, as does his propensity for incorporating numerous ‘speed lines’ whenever anything, even Ian's 'eagle eyes', move fast.

The regular cover art of "ACTION MAN" No. 1 by Chris Evenhuis

Jackboot & Ironheel #2 - IDW Publishing

JACKBOOT & IRONHEEL No. 2, September 2016

Featuring a slavering green-eyed killer hound, some terrifying multi-tentacled creature at the bottom of a lake, and the putrefying living corpse of Muggenthaler, Issue Two” of “Jackboot & Ironheel” genuinely seems to live up to its creator’s aspiration as being a fantasy title packed full of “unearthly horrors”. However, in order to reach such scintillating supernatural shenanigans this twenty-two page periodical’s audience must first sadly, endure an incredibly ponderous start which follows both the “sinister” ‘SS’ officer Kommandant Von-Kleist as he bemoans the “decommissioning” of “this damned prison” and Gunter's illogical determination to allow Eddie Neale to try and play football with Sister Evangeline inside the prisoner of war’s cramped cell.

This tedious opening third really must have tested the patience of any causal bibliophile who picked the ‘creator-driven comic’ up from the magazine spinner rack, and arguably contains some truly disinteresting and unconvincing dialogue as the captive West Ham striker somehow persuades his German guard that instead of fighting one another their two countries should actually “sort out their differences on the football field… Just eleven men playing against eleven… fair and square!” It’s certainly hard to believe this thirty second conversation would not only convince Gunter that the Englishman isn’t his enemy, but subsequently influence the church’s Mother Superior to help the “number nine” escape over her chapel’s roof after she had previously warned her nuns not to get “too involved with the prisoners.”

Luckily, once doomed sentries Muller and Wilhelm decide the ‘best time’ to go looking for their superior officer’s hound in the nearby woodland is at night, the freelance illustrator’s script transforms itself into a thoroughly enjoyable, if not slightly clichéd, read. Indeed, the dog’s savaging of his would-be-rescuer’s intestines is just the start of a ghastly gore-fest which sees the tail-gunner swimming for his life away from buoyant zombies and a crewman aboard a Nazi gunboat being dragged down into the cold murky depths by a multi-limbed monstrosity; “I have you, Joachim, fear not! You’re safe… with meee!”

Perhaps the most disconcerting element of this comic though, is Millgate’s highly stylized, yet amateurish-looking, breakdowns. Often wooden and featuring the most rudimentary of details, the World War Two buff’s overly angular figures consistently ‘break’ any sort of spell which his narrative was trying to weave, and it truly appears to be a shame that none of the “amazing artists” lined up “to do all of the variant covers” ultimately materialised so as to reduce the burden of Max “writing, pencilling, inking and colouring the whole thing myself.”

The variant 'subscription' cover art of "JACKBOOT & IRONHEEL" No. 2 by Max Millgate

Predator Vs. Judge Dredd Vs. Aliens #3 - Dark Horse Comics

PREDATOR VS. JUDGE DREDD VS. ALIENS No. 3, December 2016

Having spent so much time and patience in the previous two instalments contrivingly conspiring to ensure that all three of this mini-series’ titular characters are thrown together for “the biggest brawl in the history of the universe”, it is doubtful many of readers enjoyed John Layman’s resoundingly swift, and arguably unbelievable resolutions within Issue Three of “Predator Vs Judge Dredd Vs Aliens”. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine more of a ‘cop-out’ than the Eisner Award-winner’s belief that the Justice Department would actually befriend “the universe’s deadliest killers” rather than ‘sentence them to death’; especially when Chris Mooneyham so graphically illustrates one of the extra-terrestrial hunter’s spearing Judge Gilligan whilst the injured man is being carried to safety by Mega-City One’s toughest lawman; “You just made a big mistake scum.”

Disconcertingly however, that is precisely what the American author would have his “IDW and 2000 A.D.” co-publication's audience believe, and later even goes so far as to portray Joe begrudgingly praising the Yautja for murdering his colleague by declaring that he won’t be “charging him for what he did to Judge Gilligan.” Maybe the sentient, humanoid alien was “right” and the lawman “was already doomed as soon as the implanted xenomorph started to grow within him.” But Dredd doesn’t usually wait around to see whether or not someone who has killed a judge is justified or not? And this attitude certainly fails to explain why, despite one of them having been levelled by a blow from Fargo’s clone, the three predators decide to team-up with Judge Anderson when they are only facing two of their endoparasitoid extra-terrestrial prey.  

Just as preposterous is Layman’s bizarre plot-twist that depicts Cassandra somehow managing to take over the mind of Judge McCrary, in order for her to manipulate the alien DNA-fused lawman into both attacking a Predator-Xenomorph XX121 hybrid and releasing a seemingly securely incarcerated Dredd. This psychic power is admittedly not completely out of the realms of plausibility considering the Psi Judge’s documented abilities are chiefly telepathy and precognition. Yet it, along with her sudden aptitude to mentally communicate with the Yautja, still seems a little too convenient considering at the time Anderson was in the hands of the mad genetic scientist Dr. Reinstöt…

Script: John Layman, Artist: Chris Mooneyham, and Colors: Michael Atiyeh

Star Trek: Boldly Go #2 - IDW Publishing

STAR TREK: BOLDLY GO No. 2, November 2016

The potential for permanently disillusioning this “blockbuster” series’ dedicated 9,012 readers must have played merry upon the mind of Mike Johnson when he penned the script for Issue Two of “Star Trek: Boldly Go”. For although the “IDW Publishing” author’s narrative is not the only piece of published fiction to feature James Kirk and Mister Spock encountering the collective species known as the Borg, this twenty-page periodical is the first time that the U.S.S. Enterprise’s “brash” captain from the Kelvin Timeline does so.

Indeed, much of this comic’s captivating charm stems from the somewhat unusual situation that the vast majority of the book’s audience almost certainly knew far more about the Federation’s ‘newest’ adversary than the Starfleet officers themselves, and it definitely wouldn’t have come as a shock to many bibliophiles that the “entire saucer section” of the significantly underpowered U.S.S. Concord is literally ‘carved up’ by the cybernetic organism’s craft just as soon as the Freedom-class starship encounters it; “They called themselves the Borg. They locked us in a tractor beam immediately.”

Fortunately however, despite a sense of familiarity with a storyline that harks back to that of the 1990 “Star Trek: The Next Generation” two-part television serial “The Best Of Both Worlds”, Johnson still manages to include the odd agreeable surprise within this Trekkie tome by having Kirk’s latest command, the U.S.S. Endeavour, face a Borg sphere rather than one of the “recurring antagonists” cubes. This long-range tactical scout ship is no-where near as formidable a threat as the Collective’s much larger primary vessel, and makes for a far more ‘believable match’ when James Tiberius interferes with the aliens’ assimilation of the outpost Armstrong courtesy of a “full torpedo spread on my mark”.

Equally as enjoyable is Clark Terrell’s materialisation on board the Endeavour’s bridge after the Concord’s captain has apparently had his “biological distinctiveness” added to the extra-terrestrial hive mind. This alternative version of the character from the 1982 America science fiction film “Star Trek: The Wrath Of Khan” is wonderfully rendered by artist Tony Shasteen and embodies all of the cybernetic species’ arrogant apathy towards the outpost survivor’s would-be rescuers.  In fact, the graphic illustrator’s pencilling throughout the comic, with the notable exception of the sedentary scenes set on New Vulcan, genuinely imbue the plot’s proceedings with a scintillating sense of speed and palatable tension.

The variant cover art of "STAR TREK: BOLDLY GO" No. 2 by Marc Laming

Uber: Invasion #1 - Avatar Press

UBER: INVASION No. 1, November 2016

Reading like some sort of degenerate history book, Issue One of “Uber: Invasion” is undoubtedly “one of the most horrible things” which Kieron Gillen has written. In fact, considering that this twenty-two page periodical depicts both the treacherous destruction of Bethlehem Hingham Shipyard and the cowardly obliteration of Boston, as well as battleship Siegfried’s harrowing mutilation of President Truman in his official residence, it is hard to imagine a more upsetting title with which “Avatar Press” could try and sell to its fellow Americans. It’s certainly clear why the publishing house successfully sought $51,083 funding via “Kickstarter” in order to bring such a contentious series “to life.”

Fortunately, such “grim and gritty work” by the Third Reich’s ‘alternative Second World War’ invasion force is seemingly kept to something of a minimum within this Teutonic tome courtesy of the Stafford-born writer’s script heavily focusing upon Britain’s unsurprising capitulation to Germany following the defeat of H.M.H. Churchill in Calais and the Soviet’s apparent disinterest in taking the fight to the Fatherland. Indeed, setting aside this comic’s propensity for profanity-laden violence, much of it actually reads like a frightful re-imagining of a legitimate, factually-accurate chronicle, and even goes so far as to enthrallingly incorporate the hand-written scribblings of General Sankt’s last journal and plenty of sombre, black and white film footage…

Perhaps this magazine’s most enthralling asset however, is Gillen’s ability to persistently erode the American Government’s confident comprehension of the war’s current situation, by regularly undermining statesman Franklin Stimson’s assumptions as to both his country’s perceived parity with the German’s enhanced human programme, and his security department’s intelligence as to the whereabouts of the “unstoppable monsters” Siegfried, Sieglinde and Siegmund; “At this moment, [the] Allies were unaware of the German ruse.” Such a deluge of disinformation could admittedly make for a truly depressing and ominous experience, but somehow the Kerrang! Award-winner’s narrative about the United States “struggling to make up lost ground in the Enhanced Soldier development” race, coupled with Daniel Gete’s pencilling of the President’s gory demise and the reformation of the White House into a giant metal swastika, genuinely proves a terrifyingly captivating read.

The regular cover art of "UBER: INVASION" No. 1 by Daniel Gete

Star Wars: The Force Awakens #1 - Marvel Comics

STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS No. 1, August 2016

Surprisingly published some six months after the $780 million profit-earning theatrical release of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”, this opening issue of the “Marvel Worldwide” movie adaption mini-series really does suggest Editor-in-Chief Axel Alonso was in a desperate hurry to get the comic out and into the hands of its 79,626 strong audience. For whilst the thick thirty-page long periodical starts with Kylo Ren’s cold-blooded destruction of the Tuanul Village on the planet of Jakku, it portrays this event some way into the film’s actual beginning and almost irreverently ‘skips’ over both “old ally” Lor San Tekka’s role in giving Poe Dameron “a map to the last Jedi, Luke Skywalker”, and the resistance pilot’s subsequent battle with a small number of stormtroopers.

This ‘summarisation’ of events might be forgivable if it were simply utilised in order to draw the reader straight into the sinister First Order’s conflict. But unfortunately, Chuck Wendig’s narrative actually uses the action-abbreviating technique throughout the entirety of the book, and resultantly omits several arguably key events in the creation of both Rey and Finn’s character development...

The most obvious of these absences is the screenwriter's disconcerting omission of FN-2003’s bloody death during the Tuanul villager’s massacre. An emotionally defining moment during the motion picture, the entire ‘episode’ isn’t even referred to by way of a flashback and instead, almost casually just ‘crops up’ in a text box which explains why FN-2187 has some sort of dirty hand-print caked over one side of his helmet. There’s certainly no explanation given as to the fact that his friend’s death has shaken the assault trooper’s faith in the First Order’s mission, or that this is the reason behind why he later goes on to thwart their plans to destroy General Leia Organa’s “brave” Resistance.

Equally as unsatisfactorily ‘rushed’ as the writing, would appear to be the inconsistent artwork of Luke Ross. Undoubtedly able to pencil Tie-fighters, Star Destroyers and the Millennium Falcon, the former “Jonah Hex” illustrator only sporadically manages to capture a passing likeness of actors Oscar Isaac or John Boyega, and definitely struggles to acquire any of Daisy Ridley’s melancholic wistfulness at Rey being orphaned outside Niima Outpost to a dangerously harsh life of scavenging.

The variant cover art of "STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS" No. 1 by Phil Noto

Daredevil [2016] #7 - Marvel Comics

DAREDEVIL No. 7, July 2016

It is highly unlikely that many of the 43,704 strong audience for Issue Seven of “Daredevil” found Charles Soule’s narrative an especially satisfying conclusion to “Elektric Connection”. Indeed, it is hard to imagine that many of this twenty-page periodical's readers could actually make sense of the Brooklyn-born writer’s plot concerning Matt Murdock’s “past paramour” being tricked into believing she had a daughter and that the costumed crime-fighter was responsible for the child being taken away; especially when this ‘mind control’ actually makes the deadly assassin believe that video footage documenting Iona’s abduction exists on an empty cell phone..?

Just why the Milwaukee-born writer believes such inexplicable, illogical nonsense would make for a good read is far from obvious, and disappointingly, seems to have been crow-barred together simply to provide an extremely contrived motivation for Elektra to savagely attack the comic’s titular character. It’s certainly hard to ‘buy into’ a narrative which depicts Natchios not only immediately locating the culprits behind her delusion within “the most populous city in the United States”, but also having her mind conveniently “unlocked” so as to realise everything which she believed “was all a lie” when one of the villains uses the expression “the tangled web we weave.”

This woefully ludicrous and opportunely organised resolution is arguably then made all the worse by Soule portraying Frank Miller’s creation as being positively delighted that she didn’t have a child and actually informs Daredevil that it's “a happy ending.” In fact, the Kingpin’s former employee even goes so far as to start crying in relief, despite her never thinking she could feel such pain; “They did that to me… Gave me a child… And made me think I’d lost her.”

Perhaps far from enthused by such an artificial adventure, Matteo Buffagni’s artwork lacks any semblance of life or energy, despite a fair portion of the publication detailing the lead protagonist’s confrontations with both the ‘Man without Fear’ and subsequently, one of the men who gave her the blank phone in the first place. This absence of any atmosphere in the breakdowns is perhaps best seen early on when a particularly wooden-looking Elektra repeatedly threatens to stab a transfixed Hornhead with one of her trademark bladed Sais over the course of a number of frames; all of which lack any sense of the overly-emotional assassin’s inner turmoil and restrained need for violence.

The variant cover art of "DAREDEVIL" No. 7 by Khoi Pham