Modern entertainment is drowning in reinterpretations, remakes, reboots, and any other word you can think of starting with “re”. That’s not inherently bad; sometimes interesting things come out of that. Case in point, Catalyst Comix #1 (written by Joe Casey, illustrated by Dan McDaid, Ulises Farinas, and Paul Maybury) is a reinterpretation of Comics’ Greatest World, a Dark Horse imprint that started in the early 1990s but was later killed by the speculator bust. This isn’t the first of those characters to be revived (X is another character from that imprint), but this is attempting to relaunch a number of those characters in one go. Don’t worry if this confuses you. I didn’t know any of this until after I’d read the comic and did some background research, and that didn’t hurt my enjoyment of the comic at all.
This issue is a little difficult to review since this is not the standard comic format I’m used to. There are three stories here: one full-length and two half-length stories. Towards that end, I’ll look at each story separately.
The first story, featuring Frank Wells aka Titan, is easily my favorite. While one of my pet peeves in comics is constant narration, this pulls it off perfectly. The story is over the top and completely ridiculous, but self-aware enough to metaphorically wink at the camera, letting you know that, yes, they get it, so just sit back and enjoy the ride.
The art is equally over the top. Frank fights Nibiru, a giant monster trying to end the world (this comic takes place on December 21, 2012 — just when you thought that was all behind us), and I love its design because of how little sense it makes. The monster makes little sense, the city around it makes little sense, and yet it somehow manages to feel campy in the fun way instead of in a stupid way. I can’t figure out how, but it finds just the right sweet spot.
The second story lost me a bit. I found myself somewhat bored while reading it. The problem is, while it’s no heavier on exposition than the first story, this doesn’t have the ridiculous atmosphere to carry you through. Here, the narration is just giving us Grace’s backstory. While the art gives some really impressive starscapes, since all this nothing happens in space, it isn’t interesting enough to carry a very lackluster infodump.
The final story introduces Wolfhunter and Elvis Warmaker, which are names I’d say you couldn’t make up, except someone did. This story has less narration, but it makes its presence memorable, including the phrase “orgy of ordinance”, which instantly made my day. Instead, most of it is dialogue between Wolfhunter and Elvis Warmaker (I will repeat those names until it stops being fun, which might be never), which is still fun despite it seeming like the writer is still trying to figure out their voices beyond broad caricatures, and a character named Bert who I really want to call Agent Coulson, trying to bring together Wolfhunter and Elvis Warmaker and get them into the superhero game. I know it sounds pretty standard, and much the same can be said about the art (the only thing that jumped out at me was the “orgy of ordinance” scene), and while not quite as over the top campy fun as the first story, this was a solid story, especially given its shorter length.
Overall, I definitely recommend this book. I had no real idea what to expect, literally only looking because I read all #1 issues, and it blew me away. I’m especially surprised that the book is only $2.99. Dark Horse has a lot of books at that price, but this one, especially given its larger size, seems like one they’d sell for more. I’d recommend it on the strength of the Frank Wells story alone, but I also loved the third story (you can’t go wrong with Wolfhunter and Elvis Warmaker), and the second story… well, I can hope they’ll do something good with the character later. This is definitely a series to keep your eye on for the future.
Zac Kandell (known mostly on the internet as Mischlings) can’t shake the fact that the title of this comic is very reminiscent of the game Comix Zone. If you find what he says interesting, follow him on Twitter at @Mischlings for more, shorter thoughts. In other news, Wolfhunter and Elvis Warmaker. It cannot be said enough.
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