| |
 
| |
|
 |
|
|
Time for another comic article! Today I'll be taking a look at the darling child of comic collector's everywhere: First issues!
NYX
Year: 2003
Lasted: Currently Ongoing
To be honest, I didn't feel this series was really necessary at all. The New Mutants was just launched a few months ago, and now yet another title about a group of young mutants has sprung up. However, I can never pass up buying a big comic a week early, so I had to get this one.
I wasn't exactly bowled over by NYX #1, but I can say with confidence that it's much better than the current New Mutants title. NYX puts a different spin on the young mutant story, and while the first issue is nothing new at all, I can see where this series is heading and the potential that is has.
Instead of the normal young mutant story of Professor Xavier recruiting a group of children to train and become the next generation of X-Men, NYX details the kids who don't get rescued, the young mutants who are out on the street with no one to protect them.
NYX #1 follows Kiden, a girl who had it all but lost it in an instant, now living a troubled life with her mother and siblings. Like any cliched troubled teen, she's heavily into the drug and rave scene, popping ecstacy and then dancing around like a moron with her friend Kara.
The central problems in her life at the moment are avoiding her mother who's trying to give her "the talk" and a local street thug named Hector who has a thing for beating up on girls. As we all well know, things are about to become even more compicated for her with her forthcoming emergence of mutant powers.
I feared the writing in this title would be rather lame, kind of like a 40 year-old guy trying to write about how all the "cool kids" act, but Quesada handles it pretty well. I never found anything particularly hammy for the most part. This issue only really becomes lame when the mutant origin comes into play, and only because it's basically the same old ass teenage mutant origin that's been done for everyone from Rogue to Jubilee.
Instead of doing an action-packed first issue with guns blazzing, NYX opts for the slow burn. I normally don't have a problem with this, but every new Marvel title seems to be doing it. It gets a bit annoying at times. If you've got a problem with slowly developing stories, you might want to wait for a trade on this one.
Desire to check out Issue #2
High
Spitfire and the Troubleshooters!
Year: 1986
Lasted: 13 Issues
Current comic fans are sure to know about the Ultimate line of Marvel, however, the Ultimate line is not the first time that Marvel has tried to launch an alternate universe of Marvel titles, it's just the first one to actually be sucessful.
The 90s brought us two such spin-offs, 2099 and M2, both portraying possible futures of the current Marvel Universe. Long time comic book fans will remember an even older Marvel experiment, the New Universe, which was an even more radical concept than the other spin-offs. 2099, M2, and Ultimate all portray alternate or updated versions of current Marvel characters whom Marvel already know can bring in the cash.
The New Universe was just that- completely new. No superheroes from the regular Marvel universe were involved whatsoever. Instead, we got a New Universe full of complete crap, mostly trying to emulate the kid trends of the day.
You like Transformers? Try out Spitfire the giant robot! You like GI Joe? Check out Merc! You like Star Wars? Check out The Star Brand! Yeah, the New Universe was complete crap and only lasted a little over a year. For the sake of fairness, I'll try to put aside any biases I hold against the New Universe (and believe me, there's a million reasons to hate it) and just review Spitfire #1 as if it were any other comic.
Spitfire and the Troubleshooters follows the cliched story of a good scientist who creates a giant robot to help out mankind. As expected, the other evil scientist with whom he works sees the military potential of the robot and kills the good scientist, stealing his robot. It just so happens that the good doctor had a better robot built, but didn't tell the evil guy about it.
It's pretty much the plot of Mega Man, minus the untimely death part. The good scientist's daughter, whom the scientist nicknamed 'Spitfire' due to her red hair and attitude, suspects that bad scientist was up to no good. She recruits the help of a ragtag group of computer geeks (the troubleshooters) from the college she teaches at to help her get into the bad scientist's lab and find out just what he was up to.
Lo and behold, they discover the good robot and decide to take it, as well of the rest of the lab (which folds up into three tractor trailers. Wonder where they got that from). Naturally, the bad guy follows in pursuit with his robot design, there's a big fight, and the good guys win.
I don't think this story could be any more cliched 80's comic tripe if it tried. It's almost as bad as the promotional comics Radio Shack used to give out back in the day. It also deserves scorn for featuring a crossover, imploring readers to buy The Star Brand #2 for a guest appearance by Spitfire!
Crossovers work with characters like Wolverine and Spider-Man, they don't work with characters you just introduced THIS ISSUE and whom no one gives a rat's ass about. It's not very hard to see why the New Universe failed at this point. I think I'll pass on an issue #2. If I want a shitty version of Transformers, I'll just watch the Go-Bots.
Desire to check out Issue #2
Very Low
US 1
Year: 1983
Lasted: 12 Issues
I think the blurb on the cover for this one should just about say it all: "High Adventure TRUCKING Down the Highway!" Who the fuck was demanding a comic book depicting the high adventure life of a trucker? I don't think anyone who would care for such a comic can even read it.
I don't think I have any problem calling this one of the worst fucking comic books I have read in my entire life, and that's saying a lot (I LIKED 2099 comics). It's the inspiring story of a young boy who follows his dead father's footsteps and becomes a trucker. I think it would be better if he vowed revenge on all trucks everywhere for killing his father and systematically destroyed them, but instead we get hot trucking action.
There's just no way in hell to make trucking even halfway exciting, no matter how hard Marvel tries. Two big tractor trailers trying to push each other off a ravine is barely exciting when you're watching it on some shitty TNN movie. Now just imagine that same exciting truck battle depicted in comic panels. What little shred of suspense and action that was there on the screen just doesn't transfer to the comic page.
I'd talk some more about this comic, but the concept of it is actually so fucking stupid that I can no longer form rational thoughts about it. I need to go read some more thought provoking comics to clear my head, like Superman meets the Quik Bunny.
Desire to check out Issue #2
Very Low
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
