Shrapnel: Aristeia Rising #1

Boy, I've been looking forward to Shrapnel since Radical Comics released that cool, intriguing trailer a few months back. Okay, it looked a bit like a video game, but heavy metal mecha warfare, who can't get into that? In the intervening time, Radical has been promoting the heck out of it, sitting down for interviews with any site that'll have 'em. Hand it to these guys, they know how to market. Then you see the issue in question, a nice hefty size at 48 glossy pages for a stunning $1.99 cover price. How can you go wrong?

Well the short answer is: by having an uninspiring story and lousy art.

The issue opens with a military action that is depicted with such dark and murky art that it's hard to tell what the hell is going on. I certainly can't make out who is fighting whom, or who's winning. It's just flashes of armored soldiers, mechas and big guns and a lot of swirling flame. After 10 pages of this chaos, we find out that it isn't even a real battle we've been watching, but a virtual reality training exercise! Ultimately, we will realize that the marines training here aren't even the main characters of the story. In fact, they are invading world after world and crushing local resistance; in essence these are the bad guys. Why we want to watch generic hostile grunts practice fighting is beyond me.

Let me say up front, Bagus Homoto's paintwork is not to my taste at all. Pretty much the entire book is as dark and impenetrable as the opening. Even for scenes taking place in broad daylight, everyone is clouded in shadows and murk. Considering that faces don't look so swift even when we get a good look, maybe that's on purpose. Sometimes you have to take a hint from where the word balloons are pointing to figure out who's even speaking. It's a shame, the art has been so strong on previous Radical books that this is a huge letdown for me.

A quarter of the way into the book we are finally introduced to the protagonists, a trio of Venusian miners called Sam, Stap and Jammer. It's a somewhat trite scene in which the volatile Stap gets into a barroom brawl with a group of artificially-enhanced "Genotypes," as they argue back and forth whether naturally-born "helots" like Stap deserve equal treatment. It's exposition by insult, with lines like: "I'll break it down pre-school so you can understand-- we're smarter than you and that's why we run the system" or "Helots are just as good a human as any splicer. So I can't figure out pi to the last digit in my head, or run as fast as you, but at least I have some fricking manners!" Not sure I buy that anyone ever talks like that, but as least writer M. Zachary Sherman was able to set up the Genotype/Helot dichotomy for us.

By the end of the issue, I'm not sure how this class warfare even fits in. The main plot concerns the approaching invasion force of the Alliance, who have demanded the surrender of the local government of Venus. World by world, the Alliance has been assimilating the free colonies through brute force, and now have given the President of Venus 24 hours to surrender. Although the planet has no standing army, local genotypes and helots have just as much to lose if they don't volunteer to join the local militia to take a stand against the overwhelming numbers of space marines. Stap and Jammer answer the call, but Sam tries to talk some sense into them, failing to persuade them that they are going to die for a lost cause.

Sam is the female character depicted on the various covers for this series (don't ask me who or what "Aristeia" is; unless I missed a reference, the word isn't even mentioned), and really the only character who is given much depth in issue one. She's quiet, reflective and no-nonsense, and obviously there are some important events in her past which define who she is now. There's certainly some reason why she spends her off hours arguing with a psychological AI program versed in post-traumatic stress disorder, which she has elected to manifest as a hologram of her deceased little sister. When Stap accidentally begins floating off into space during a mining mishap, she reacts with much more command and unconscious training than a simple miner would be expected to have. The issue ends with her planning to flee in the face of the coming storm, but considering that she's wielding weaponry on the battlefield on most of the covers, one would assume that a change of heart is coming up.

Mark Long and Nick Sagan are credited as the co-creators of this book, but I'm not sure what that really means since neither of them wrote or drew it. Sherman uses some weird pacing and clunky dialogue, requiring characters to regurgitate information that the listener would already know, in order to explain the scenario to the reader. The characters other than Sam are pretty thin, and don't ask me why we spend so much time with the Alliance marines, unless the intention is to make some of them sympathetic in future issues, and not the steel-booted thugs everyone believes them to be. The art is just a mess, way too impressionistic and unappealing through most of the book. Honestly, any one of the many cover artists working on this series would be a better choice for the interiors. Radical, I still love you guys, but I think I'm gonna give this series a pass.

Rating: 6.5/10

Get Your Game On!

Somebody at Wildstorm apparently thinks that comic tie-ins of video games are the next big thing; in the past few weeks they have released two different books based on Gears of War and Mirror's Edge. I don't really play video games but both books had a science fictional slant to their descriptions, so I decided to give them a shot, figuring a good SF comic is a good SF comic regardless of its source material. Based on what I've seen, I'm not confident that video game comics are the answer to Wildstorm's currently identity problems and floundering sales.

When I cracked open these books I made a point of not reading up about the games beforehand. I figured if the creators were successful, I would find out everything I needed to know from the pages of the comic itself. This seemed like a perfectly reasonable expectation to me, but possibly I was expecting too much.

Gears of War is apparently a shooting game where you are an armored-up soldier fighting alien warriors among urban ruins. I can't tell if this is Earth or some other planet, near or far future. Nothing is explained about the aliens or what they want, other than they like to kill. For all intents and purposes, the Boomers (I think that's what they're called) resemble Klingons who have been left out in the sun too long and have started to melt.

Obviously you expect some good gun-blazin' action from a book like this, which it definitely provides, but there's not really much else to it. Soldiers fight aliens, then they come across a lone survivor of a different unit. Then they travel back to base through the ruins, and they get into another fight. Little or nothing is learned about these men other than they fight aliens, and most of their conversation revolves around previous fights they've been in. One campfire discussion could just as easily be between gamers reminiscing about a particularly tough level.

This book (and probably the game as well) doesn't stray very far from the venerable soldiers vs. aliens paradigm popularized by Jim Cameron in Aliens 20 years ago. That in itself doesn't bother me too much, by this point the idea has been recycled hundreds of different ways in all different types of media. But writer Joshua Ortega takes it a step further when he lifts Newt's entire "My mommy always said there were no monsters" bit for the opening of this comic. Shameless.

Artistically speaking, this book reminds me a lot of those mediocre Marvel UK books that were briefly glutting the shelves in the mid-90s. To be fair, Liam Sharp is technically much more proficient at his craft than he was 12-15 years ago, but in terms of designs, these soldiers with their oversized guns battling ugly creeps in ornate armor wouldn't be out of place in a lost issue of Warheads or Death's Head II.

Again, I didn't look online to verify, but based on the comic version in Mirror's Edge you apparently play a courier carrying mysterious packages across cities, occasionally bumping into other couriers and getting involved in legally questionable shenanigans. Instead of zipping around on bicycles, however, these "runners" practice parkour, taking to the rooftops and hopping their way to their destination. I'm pretty sure the solicitation for this comic described a science fictional setting (which is why I preordered it for review) but if so Ortega fails to explain the world in the opening issue. Nothing about this society or technology we see couldn't exist in the here and now. If this is meant to be the future, or another planet, the first issue fails to explain this.

What Mirror's Edge #1 gives us that Gears of War does not, is a sympathetic character worth caring about. Faith is a young orphan who was caught trying to burglarize the home of a man named Drake, who does not turn her in but rather takes her under his wing and trains her to be a runner. During a training exercise she can't resist aiding a fellow runner who's being held at gunpoint, and she ultimately finds out that this other runner's mission ties into her own past in a very specific and personal way.

Beyond establishing Faith's character, there not too much going on in this first issue. Half of the book is spent showing Faith bouncing across town like a jackrabbit, in and out of people's private property. I would expect that using parkour at the basis for a video game is probably good fun, but is doesn't really translate that well to the comics page. For one thing, parkour is kind of old hat in comics; guys like Spider-Man and Daredevil have been doing it for 40 years. Matthew Dow Smith's pencils are competent but I don't see him winning any Eisners anytime soon, either. (For some reason, the interior art also leaves out Faith's most appealing feature from the cover: that jagged eye tattoo). You'll get far more excitement out of the opening action sequence of Casino Royale than anything you'll see here.

Mirror's Edge is a six-issue limited series, which makes sense to me as I can't see the premise having enough potential to sustain an ongoing title. On the other hand, the first issue of Gears of War actually has a subscription page, which seems incredibly optimistic to me given how DC is mowing down B-list monthly titles left and right these days (RIP Nightwing, Catwoman, Birds of Prey, Blue Beetle, etc...)

But wait! Before we lose all hope that a video game can ever be successfully translated into another medium, here comes Dead Space: Downfall, the new direct-to-DVD animated tie-in to the Electronic Arts sci-fi horror game. This movie is a sequel to a comic miniseries that I haven't read and a prequel to a game I probably won't play, and yet I completely enjoyed it as a standalone tale of dread, paranoia, and copious gore.

As the movie opens, something horrible has occurred on the mining planet Aegis 7, and contact had been lost with a colony on its surface. (Presumably this refers to events of the comic, which won't be arriving in my mailbox for a few weeks yet.) The mining vessel Ishimura removes a massive, rune-covered Artifact from the surface, which causes problems on two fronts. For starters, miners of the Unitologist faith believe it to be a religious icon, and secondly it has some mysterious connection to the plague of alien monsters that gain access to the vessel, killing crewmembers and transforming their corpses into a bizarre variety of zombie monsters known as Necromorphs. For the majority of the film, we follow the travails of security chief Alissa Vincent as she struggles uphill to try and contain the danger before the entire ship is lost.

Soon the ever-dwindling crew of the Ishimura is knee-deep, then waist-deep, then neck-deep in alien monsters, mutated zombified victims, and just plain crazed crewmates. While the situation is worsening by the minute, the captain of the vessel completely flips his lid, becoming a foaming-mouthed paranoiac determined to safeguard the artifact at all costs. Given that this is all prologue to a video game, the bleak ending is even more inevitable than your usual horror flick, but the journey is an adrenline-soaked ride of wicked shocks and surprises.

I'm not sure what the budget was for this, but for a direct-to-DVD release the production values are pretty good. All the ships and backgrounds are well-rendered in CGI, but the actual character work is done in a rather bland and generic American art style reminiscent of 80's cartoon shows like G.I. Joe or Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. In terms of voice work, I have to give special props to Nika Futterman, who does a great job enacting Vincent's strength, determination and desperation as her world goes from bad to worse. She sincerely sounds like she's trapped amidst the slaughter, and not just standing in a studio somewhere in front of a microphone.

One thing I noticed about the film is that it might actually give away too much information about the setting of the game. Since Dead Space is of the horror genre, presumably it relies in part on the fear of the unknown to create the proper atmosphere of dread for the player. By the time the film is done, you pretty much know what you will and won't find on the Ishimura when you come aboard, the nature and characteristics of the Necromorphs (what they look like, how they reproduce, how they kill), and even that guns aren't as effective against them as a nice plasma cutter (which is essentially a cross between a chainsaw and a lightsaber), which cuts up them alien critters reeeeaalll goooood.

Some of my fellow Netflix customers have left some pretty negative reviews of Downfall on the website. Many take Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray to task for what the perceive as bad dialogue, as if only David Mamet is qualified to pen animated horror movies. Personally I have enjoyed Palmiotti and Gray's various comics project over the past few years and felt their style translated well to the screen. Other viewers are griping that there's too much swearing, as if since it's a cartoon it should only have language suitable to a 10-year-old viewer. I guess all the dismemberments, disembowlings and decapitations are a-okay, but watch out for those nasty f-bombs!

I found Dead Space: Downfall to be dark, creepy, suspenseful and , in its own sick way, a fun bit of nihilism. I'm not sure if I'll ever play the game, but this release stands on its own, as it should.

Gears of War Rating: 5/10
Mirror's Edge Rating: 6/10
Dead Space: Downfall Rating: 7/10

Update 11/19/08: Well shut my mouth. According to Rich Johnston Gears of War is the bestselling comic this year, with nearly half a million copies in print! Guess those folks over at Wildstorm know what they're doing after all. Whether any gamers who came to the book out of curiousity because they like the game stick around remains to be seen. The comic really is pretty blah.

Doomsday

Critics were not kind to Doomsday when it came out in March and it didn't spend much time in theaters. The main rap against the flick was that it was too derivative, blatantly lifting elements from previous successful genre films. This accusation, by the way, is entirely true. But while originality of concept is always appreciated and to be commended, the lack therefore does not automatically guarantee that the work in question is valueless. I don't care if you string together elements from a thousand previous sources if the result is at least entertaining, and I'm here to say I was entertained as hell by Doomsday.

Count the precedents as I discuss the plot. A horrific virus breaks out in the UK, threatening to destroy humanity's very way of life (28 Days Later). The location of the Hot Zone-- Scotland-- is quarantined behind massive walls and becomes a lawless place where the imprisoned fend for themselves any way they can (Escape from New York). 30 years later, there's another outbreak in London and now the government has reason to believe the key to its cure is among the survivors up north. So a rescue team has to go behind the walls on an extraction mission (that would be Escape from New York again). An overconfident team of soldiers in armored transports are overmatched and trapped in enemy territory (Aliens). The sexy female lead (in this case, Rhona Mitra) must kick major ass and fight against all odds to complete her mission (Ultraviolet, Aeon Flux). The main obstacle is a legion of leather-and-chained punks who ride around on tricked out vehicles (the Road Warrior). At a critical juncture, she is forced to step into a deathmatch arena, and battle to the death with a larger and better armed and armored foe before a stadium of foaming-mouthed spectators (pretty much every movie ever, seems like).

The script is so stupid, it's brilliant. After martial law is declared, a clearly diseased man is discovered among the panicked throngs who are attempting to evacuate. How does the soldier who makes discovery act to maintain law and order? He whips out his machine gun and blasts the poor bastard to mush, spraying everyone in a 20 yard radius with infected blood and guts! When the powers that be decide that the whole crisis is FUBAR, they order the gates on the quarantine zone permanently sealed. One hapless sucker on the wrong side apparently thinks the gates will just spring back open like elevator doors if he just sticks his hand between them before they close, and he promptly loses his arm in gory fashion. One distraught mother convinces some soldiers to take her little daughter away with them in their helicopter-- um, how do they know the little girl isn't a carrier? Especially since she is bleeding from her eye when they take her away with them?

I’m not sure what the theatrical version was like, but the unrated DVD is as violent and gory as it is dopey, with a gleeful level of flowing blood, hacked limbs and decapitations usually reserved for hardcore horror flicks. Not only does a little girl lose her eye, people get cooked and eaten, bunnies explode. Yes, that’s right-- bunnies explode!

Director Neil Marshall keeps the action moving along at all times, which is a big key to its success. If the story makes little to no sense, don’t give the audience time to think about it, just throw another obstacle in our heroes’ path. In lesser hands, this could have been no better than a low-budget straight-to-cable schlockfest. Instead, it’s a slick, fast-moving, great looking, decently acted schlockfest. Mitra makes a great heroine, and Marshall even got Malcolm McDowell and Bob Hoskins to appear in this thing. Also, it’s nice to see the Gimp from Pulp Fiction get some work.

It’s funny, usually the story is the main thing that will make or break a movie for me. I can put up with a lot if there’s a good script at the heart of it and usually the most beautiful film in the world can end up being a dud in my eyes if the story stinks. But in the case of Doomsday, it’s all so over-the-top crazy fun, I just checked my brain at the door and enjoyed the ride. Today, I might just be a little bit dumber person than I was yesterday, but I give Doomsday a 7.

Hyperkinetic #1

It must be hellish for an independent comics publisher to get potential readers interested in a new project. I mean, the way the system works now, you really need customers to commit to buying your product 2 months before it will actually be released, based sometimes on nothing more than a short teaser blurb buried somewhere in middle of Previews. If you are one of the Big Two companies, and your comic has an "X" or "Bat" in the title, then you have a chance. If you are publishing through Image with a brand new concept, you had better make that teaser as tantalizing as possible.

Well, here's what Image solicited for the first issue of their four-part Hyperkinetic miniseries:
"Four intergalactic highly skilled female bounty hunters pursue an elusive prey. They end up going through a wormhole and crashing on a weird alien planet. They now have bigger concerns such as giant killer robots and crazy aliens."

Talk about hitting a home run! Give that solicit writer a raise. "Female bounty hunters"? "Weird alien planet"? "Giant killer robots"? Exactly how fast can someone get a copy of this bad boy into my sweaty little appendages? I preordered the thing with no hesitations.

Two months later, I've read Hyperkinetic #1 and come to a sobering realization: the solicitation wasn't a short teaser suggesting the skiffy delights within, but rather a detailed, thorough plot synopsis of everything that happens in the issue!

Seriously, next to nothing happens in this comic. The four leads chase a fleeing fuzzball in their spaceship, while cracking wise to each other. Their ships crash; they make more snarky commments. Their pursuit is briefly interrupted by a jungle cat attack, then they catch up to the perp at his safehouse, where he sics some giant robots on them. The end.

Almost nothing is explained. We don't know what this bad guy, Renpy, is wanted for, who sicced the bounty hunters on him, or why normal law enforcement couldn't handle it. We don't know where Renpy is running to, or who he is supposed to be meeting that will be angry that he is running late. All we're given is "there's these girls chasing this alien".

Usually I'm all for some witty one-liners slipped into a fun romp of a story. The problem here is that it's nothing but snarky comments, and really the level of humor is pretty sophomoric. Of course, humor is subjective, so let me give a few examples of the hilarity which ensues. Be prepared to play back the snickerings of Beavis and Butthead in your mind as you read the following:

Robot pilot, after the ship crashes:
"I think my lug nuts are loose"
"Ewwww. Keep that to yourself, perv."
(Get it? 'Cause he said "nuts"! Genius!)

"Oh yuck. I stepped in some kitty poo and ruined my new shoes."

"Alicia, I'm sorry I told that cute guy you liked on Zevpen 7 that you have genital fungus."
"You're the one with gential fungus!"
"Yeah, now he has it too."

Ahhh, good times. Let me pause a sec whilst I wipe the tears from my eyes. Did I mention the "heroes" track down their mark because he leaves behind a pair of dirty underwear with his name and address written on the tag?

At the very least, you would expect a comic like this to have some sexy T-and-A quotient. After all, these "highly trained" bounty hunters run around in belly shirts and pushup bras with their thong straps showing. But sadly, Matteo Scalera is no J. Scott Campbell. His wonky, cartoony style depicts these girls as gangly and angular with spastic facial expressions. And did I mention they have a genital fungus? They're about the unsexiest sexy comic characters you will ever come across. Scalera's art might be suited to, say, a Spongebob Squarepants comic, but good girl art is not his forte.

Hyperkinetic is not completely amateurish, but it is shockingly slight for the $3.50 cover price. The fact that this is a four-issue mini rather than a one-shot floors me, because really I see nothing in here that would entice anyone to spend another $10.50 for the rest of the story.

All in all, I can't give this comic anything higher than a 5 out of 10.