Wednesday 10 September 2008

A brief and frankly not very well written review of a bad comic

Oh man I'm tired. Really, really fucking tired. It's not a state that makes for easy reading and consequently my "to read" pile is getting perilously close to ceiling height. Gaaah! Curse you real life, how dare you interfere with my comic habit!

I can just about stave off sleep long enough to concentrate on one comic a day at the moment, which makes it vital that I pick a good one. Imagine my pain then when I pulled DC's Last Will and Testament from the stack last night. Groan.

Allegedly a Final Crisis tie-in, this one shot follows several heroes as they contemplate their last night before earth is destroyed. It's a comic that reads like the first draft for a 1980s made for TV melodrama...only worse. In amidst the angst you get to follow Brion Markov as he tracks down Deathstroke and attempts to take revenge for the death of Tara (Terra) Markov back in the 80s.

It's a slow and tedious ride. BUT it does have several pages of fantastic Joe Kubert art that make me wish he was still drawing comics on a regular basis. He packs a lot of weary resignation into the faces of his characters and almost saves what is essentially a pretty bad comic. Almost.

So there you go, I'll try and pick a better comic off the pile tonight. For now I need to get shifting to work. I leave you with a nice link to near-miss heroes and villains.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

What were the first American comics you bought?

Anonymous said...

I can't remember exactly. Either House of Mystery or X-Men I think.

I bought them from the newsagent and it was always completely random as to which comics they'd have. Didn't particularly bother me though as I'd buy whatever I could, they were all very exciting and exotic whatever the title.

It wasn't until I was 12 or 13 that I realised there was such a thing as a specialist comic shop.

Dom

Anonymous said...

Do you still have any of them? I can't believe I've been carrying my early comics from place to place for about 20 years. I sold a bunch at the height of the boom and I wish I hadn't, I'd be a wealthier man!

Mr A. P. Salmond, esq. said...

Was it the weary resignation of a man reading Brad Meltzer comics?

I must admit, he really does grate on me. The awful, interminable monologues read like a 16 year old trying to write something deep.

As much as I sometimes rag on Geoff Johns for over-egging the mature superhero pudding, at least he can have a bit of fun!

Anonymous said...

Bruce, a couple not many. Most of them got used as wallpaper, see here: http://londonlovescomics.blogspot.com/2008/05/hellblazer.html


Mr Salmond, I know, I know. But the need to own everything associated with Final Crisis has become shamefully strong in me.

Dom