Most often, the world of comics is known for fantastically original ideas. Vivid art of worlds that couldn’t possibly be imagined. Heroic people with terrific abilities battling villains of unknown evil and power. Stories of horror and violence, of love and passion, of absurdity, vitality, or pure childlike wonder. Other times, you get product tie-ins. Gross.
This week there are two cross-media promotional #1’s in the shelves. Dark Horse Comics brings us Django Unchained #1, based on the original screenplay of the upcoming Quentin Tarantino film. With a forward written by the director, the comic purports to be the adaptation of the full screenplay, before editing limited the film to its 2 and a half hour running time. Tarantino promises loads of additional scenes and backstory over the course of the 5 issue run, things that will not appear in the film. Sadly, this means everything that does appear in the film is here in the comic, making it the spoiler of all spoilers. Beyond that, this is a story that doesn’t lend itself particularly well to the comic medium. Any fan of Tarantino knows that man is a master of dialogue first and foremost, and while comics contain dialogue to push the story forward, they also need free-flowing action, at least in the case of Western adventure tales. Here, there’s a lot of talking without much happening, and you begin to see why the director cut some of this stuff out of the movie. More than anything, this felt like a tedious movie preview, being only the first part of five, and I wouldn’t recommend it.
Another cross-media disaster this week comes from Marvel with Castle#1: Richard Castle’s “A Calm Before Storm: A Derrick Storm Mystery.” This is a comic adaptation of one of the novels written by Richard Castle, the titular character of the popular ABC television series. While Castle is played by geek fan favorite Nathan Fillion with exceeding wit, this book tries but fails to deliver. The attempt to follow a fictional detective, created by a fictional writer on a TV show, is so convoluted that after the first few page I had to drink a lot of whiskey and go to Wikipedia to figure out what’s happening on the show itself. By the end of it, I still didn’t know who was coming or going in this poorly plotted spin-off/con job, and I honestly wished I hadn’t bothered spending my money on it. This might make sense to fans of the show, but otherwise I’d avoid this book.
The third tie-in this week is billed as the first ever MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) comic. It’s Joe Palooka #1, from IDW Comics. Joe Palooka was originally a newspaper comic strip about the adventures of a professional boxer that ran from the 1920’s until as recently as the 1980’s. The rights were recently acquired by long time pro boxing and MMA announcer Joe Antonacci, who put together a creative team and recreated the comic hero as a modern day fighter. After attempting to foil a bank holdup but being accidentally implicated in it and the death of a security guard, Nick Davis assumes the pseudonym of Joe Palooka and goes on the run in Central America. He ends up fighting in underground mixed martial arts arenas to send money home to his kid sister, who’s working her way though college. The story itself does have a good bit of action adventure, and isn’t particularly hard to follow. The representations of Mexican and Central American characters are rather unoriginal, but I would rate them more as simplistic plot devices rather than racial stereotypes. That said, this still has the feel of an egregious MMA or UFC plug, more like something they would give away free to kids at actual MMA events. (Which, quite frankly, you should never take children to.) Still, it’s not the worst of the thee tie-in comics this week, so that’s something.
There were a couple of original stories out there this week, thankfully. Dark Horse Presents recently wrapped a serial on the origins of the boy called Number 13, and he gets his own ongoing series with Number 13 #1. Set in a post-apocalyptic future, sixty years after a terrible virus mutated half the population, Number 13 has the appearance of a little boy lost in a burnt out wilderness. Discovered by several mutated youngsters, known as “Fecteds”, Number 13 is still mentally unaware of who or what he is, but only knows to keep searching for “his father.” The fact is that he’s a killing machine cyborg designed expressly to kill mutants, his father is the mad scientist who started all this in the first place, and his fellow sibling Cyborgs are out to use him for their own nefarious purposes. That’s a lot to squeeze into a first issue, but the creators Robert Love and David Walker do an excellent job of presenting this complicated story in a campy, almost childlike visual style. We are made to feel empathy for a young, innocent killing machine who has simply lost his way, and there are a few chuckles, even as the madcap group of mutants, cyborgs and villains is out to destroy him. This has the fun, lighthearted feel of Saturday morning cartoons, albeit with a violently dark bent, and it’s a welcome change of pace this week. Thankfully, for those who missed the original chapters in the ongoing Dark Horse Presents anthology series, there’s a Number 13 #0 available that collects them all together.
DC also gives us an unusual new story with The Whistling Skull #1. Purportedly from the “JSA Liberty Files”, The Whistling Skull was a pre-WWII masked adventurer, romping around Europe and solving crimes with his sidekick known as Knuckles. The story jumps from an opening scene with the two heroes and other masked allies fighting a giant robot in Japan in 1940, presumably as part of WWII, then backtracks to the earliest adventures of The Whistling Skull and his companion Nigel, known as Knuckles. As to WHY this Gentleman adventurer wears what appears to be a grotesque rotting corpse mask with a stovepipe coming out of his head is unexplained, perhaps left for another issue. The adventure is rollicking for certain, but one mostly feels badly for the simple-minded Nigel, and the parallels to Lenny from Of Mice and Men don’t bode well for the young sidekick. The visual style by Tony Harris is original and fun, with an unusual Edwardian bent that places the period adventure well. This is likely the book I’m most drawn to return to in weeks to come.
All in all, a disappointing week. Perhaps the New Year will fare better. In the meantime, come back soon for a special look at the best new series of the year in comics, as we go a bit beyond the #1’s of the year to see which series carried on with their early promise, and which let us down.
