Dark Horse Presents! My favorite time of the month. Those of you who read these comic reviews regularly, already know that, though. We’ve got lots of returning stories, two new “Chapter 1’s” and two one shots. As always with Dark Horse Presents, we’ve got a lot to cover so let’s get going.
Chapter 1 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Love vs. Life is a continuation from the season 9 story arc regarding a fairly new slayer named Billy, which our writer Mischlings covered a while back. It’s a strange story because while it continues the ‘zompires’ story from season 9, the zompires are really just a backdrop for the romance story between Billy and Devon. There is no need for it to be in the Buffyverse, and honestly it sort of detracts from the romance storyline which is clearly the real focus for comic, not the zompires.
The Time Ben Fell in Love is a one shot by Matt Fraction and acts as a cautionary tale against time traveling to talk to yourself. It’s a deep work, metaphoric and philosophical. For a one shot, I think this is the way to do it; with a message, not a story (especially in 8 pages). The art is beautiful, it’s just so smooth and flowing, very much like watercolors in a lot of places, but bolder than watercolors usually are.
Chapter 1 of Underground doesn’t leave a lot to be said. A story is being told by a man who we know little about in a setting we know less about. The story told is the actual meat of the comic’s plot, but mostly in this chapter we get the set up: people living underground in some kind of organized gang system based on common interests like videogames, potion making and so on. I don’t really know what’s going on. I’m going to reserve my opinion on this series until Chapter 2.
Chapter 3 of Brain Boy is the conclusion to Fred Van Lente‘s series. But it’s not the end. In the last chapter, Brain Boy learned he’s not the only super powered person in Albright’s employ, while trying to hunt down a special ops team that attacked the president. This is a good solid conclusion to the story and even an announcement to return in the Fall with issue #1! Very pleased with this series as a whole and cannot wait for it’s return.
Chapter 2 of Trekker: Train to Avalon Bay is a little disappointing to be honest. I was quite impressed with the first chapter in last month’s Dark Horse Presents, but this one took an interesting character and sort of turned her into a Mary Sue. Problem arises, problem solved by the end of the page. Boring. I don’t know if Ron Randall was just trying to fit a bunch into the middle to get to the conclusion faster or what, but it’s not his usual work.
Chapter 3 of King’s Road: The Long Way Home is probably the best chapter I’ve seen in this series. The first chapter piqued my interest, the second was a little too backstory heavy and slow. This chapter gives a good balance of action, plot and setting development. Hopefully it was just a little introduction/settling in that is out of Peter Hogan‘s system now.
Chapter 5 of Crime Does Not Pay: City of Roses is… well, I didn’t understand the last one, but I guess at least this one had a plot? Honestly, I’m already tired of this series. This time it was a little romantic tryst, presumably in the same town, but it might as well be a whole different story. I don’t feel any connection to the characters (admittedly, I missed the first 3 chapters) and while there was a plot this time, still very little happens.
Chapter 3 of Nexus: Into the Past sees our hero Nexus working with Sherlock Holmes to track down the murderer who stole H. G. Well’s time machine. And that’s before the events of this episode. Nexus is a little bit of a Gary Sue (male Mary Sue, see above), but unlike in Trekker, he really only has one moment of “well that was far too easy”. And honestly, he has superpowers. Superman could have done it, and he’s not overpowered at all. (In fairness, Superman isn’t always a god. It depends on the writer.)
The Chapel Chronicles is not only a one shot, but a one page comic. It’s not that impressive, to be honest. Very amusing, just not long enough to really make anything exceptional of itself. The author/artist is, however, pretty impressive. Emma T. Capps is only 15 years old, and this comic is from the style of her webcomic of the same name. So yeah, it’s not a Spawn or a Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it’s still a heck of a lot more than you probably had published when you were 15!
Chapter 3 of Boodhound: Plain Sight completes the story as Clev and Agent Bell set a trap for their invisible killer. It’s great end to the story, and gets to show Clev in “fight mode” which was less prominent in the last chapter. There is also a collection of other Bloodhound stories out this week, if you like comics if you like action films, check it out. If I have the time, I may be reviewing that too? There will be a link right here, if I do, how about that?
Chapter 2 of Blackout is a bit of a let down, just because the action sequence is over, the novelty of his weird portals has started to wear off and the main focus is on the chapter is saving a woman who has information about this suit he’s using, but they don’t really give enough of a teaser to really get you excited about what she has to say. But there is a promise of a fight scene in the next chapter, and if we’re lucky we might get some real information too. This chapter wasn’t great, but if it were the middle third of a 25 page comic, with what happened in the first chapter and what they’ve set up for the third, I think it would come together quite nice.
As always, the good definitely outweighs the bad this month and I would definitely say this is worth the $7.99. But seriously, I don’t get City of Roses. If someone understands what’s going on, please comment below and fill me (and other readers) in. I’m just so bored of it.
Matthew Bryant, aka Baker Street Holmes, is an editor for the Red Shirt Crew and if he could be any fictitious character he’d be his inner self. His inner self is a wizard-ninja, with his own pirate ship and a brand of timepiece named after him. You can follow him on Twitter at @BStreetHolmes or you can e-mail him at HMCrazySS@gmail.com.
The Red Shirt Crew Blog and Podcast Network 