Friday, February 20, 2015

Justice Incorporation!


Dynamite has finally published a comic series which took more than a few minutes to read, and that's a good thing.  The downside is that the story unfortunately had a cobbled-together feel which undermined the momentum of the narrative. But I must admit it was rather neat to read a yarn which blended together for the first time all three of Street and Smith's classic pulp stars, even if it was a flawed experience.

The biggest of those flaws was the artwork by Giovanni Timpano which admittedly seemed to improve as the saga continued through its six issues, but which to my mind never got above adequate. The storytelling, with a few exceptions, was mostly legible and while I did find myself getting confused because of a lack of distinctiveness in the faces, I will also give him points on mood.

But like nearly all the artists at Dynamite, the work came across as decidedly second tier, without the posh ease one should associate with something like this. Doc Savage often looked off model and The Avenger changes throughout. The Shadow looked the best, but then his face is often hidden.

Uslan's story has a kitchen sink feel to it a bit, lacking depth but not necessarily complexity. Characters come onto the stage and leave it with little aplomb or logic in places. Pat Savage takes the place of her cousin for a few pages, then leaves without any clear reason.  Monk is on hand, but I don't recall other members of the Fab Five in evidence. But then few of the Shadow's helpers were in the story either.

We get a nice helping of villainy and I'll say little about this to avoid spoilers, but clearly Uslan knows the lore, perhaps a bit too much with lots of in jokes with characters names.

I cannot actually recommend this when it comes out in trade, but I cannot exactly not recommend it. For those interested in these characters, this series is worth taking a glance at and seeing whether it meets your pulp specifications.

The covers though by Alex Ross are, as always, excellent. 






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3 comments:

  1. Absolutely stunning Alex Ross covers, Rip. Thanks for getting them in front of us. Most grateful for your opinions on this. I won’t be picking this series up even though I am a huge fan of all 3 of these characters (as well as The Spider.) I think this is a good time to be alive if one enjoys the hero pulps in their original formats and character incarnations. I’ve been picking up the pulp reprints and enjoying them for some years now. I find them to be a much bigger bang for one’s buck and don’t disappoint or leave me with that ripped-off feeling like so many of today’s comic books do.

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    1. I have to agree with a lot of what you say. About seven or eight years ago I stepped back from getting so many monthly comics (only get a few regularly now - Popeye and Astro City) and got more heavily into pulps (Doc Savage, Shadow, etc.) and trade reprints and haven't regretted it hardly at all. I like to dabble in the Doc stuff in comics, but as you point out it mostly disappoints. This series was better than average, but the average alas is pretty low.

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  2. One other thought on the covers: If presumably all 3 of these guys are sharing the same adventure – why are only Doc’s clothes torn? He must have driven his mom crazy – no wonder she disowned him.

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