Project Superpowers from Dynamite Entertainment is a new series out, with covers and plotting by comics superstar Alex Ross, scripted by Jim Krueger and interior art by Carlos Paul.
The basic idea as seen in the link above is that shortly after the second world war, all the superheroes mysteriously disappeared, and were, for the most part, written off to live on only in history books. The truth is more sinister than that, with ghosts and myth and betrayal all mixed in.
The Alex Ross covers are nice, if not a little static and cluttered, but his plotting gets me down a little bit. The first two issues really seem to tell you that this is basically Ross' attempt to play with DC's "All-Star Squadron" and making his copies to work the book over at Dynamite. The characters all feel familiar, but in this case, I found that to be detrimental to the storytelling.
Krueger does what he can with the scripts, but the star player here has to be Carlos Paul. I tried to do some research into him, but the web doesn't offer me much more than his work on this book. He's new, he's good, and he'll be big once all is said and done. His art looks like a mix of Neal Adams, Cary Nord, and is obviously influenced by Ross' character designs for the book.
So far, I've dug the first two issues, but I'm worried that Dynamite made a mistake with the release of a #0, as the exposition and the setup all happens there, and without it, #1 would have been hard to understand. But, as you may have noticed, I really dig WWII comics, so this one will be on my pull list for a while.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Kick-Ass
I really have been a fan of John Romita jr. since his work back in the early 80's on Uncanny X-Men. Mark Millar hasn't ever really bombed either. Kick-Ass, from Marvel's Icon imprint should have been a slam dunk as far as I was concerned, but after reading issue #1, I'm feeling it was more of an air-ball.
I feel for Romita, who is a brilliant artist, and has always been one of my favorites, because the story really doesn't give him much to play with. His angles, "cinematography", and dynamic action are all spot-on, and if this was just a book of pretty pictures, I'd have gotten my money's worth.
But the plot was so...leaden. Millar doesn't take the reader anywhere, and for a first issue of a series, he really fell flat. Page after page of exposition, introduction, and pop-references meant that by the time the action did happen, I was already bored. Sadly, #1 did not kick-ass.
I feel for Romita, who is a brilliant artist, and has always been one of my favorites, because the story really doesn't give him much to play with. His angles, "cinematography", and dynamic action are all spot-on, and if this was just a book of pretty pictures, I'd have gotten my money's worth.
But the plot was so...leaden. Millar doesn't take the reader anywhere, and for a first issue of a series, he really fell flat. Page after page of exposition, introduction, and pop-references meant that by the time the action did happen, I was already bored. Sadly, #1 did not kick-ass.
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