Comics I Bought This Week: September 15, 2012
I’m back from the comic shop this week and I got six new comics plus a trade paperback:
And now for a review of something I’ve read recently.
”The Massive” issues 1-3 by Brian Wood and Kristian Donaldson
The first three issues of this comic make up the story arc which is titled “Landfall”. It’s published by Dark Horse Comics. I’ve liked some of Wood’s writing in the past but some of it has also left me cold. His “Northlanders” from Vertigo has been good so I decided to give this one a try. I think this is my first exposure to Donaldson’s art.
“The Massive” is not only the name of the comic but it’s also the name of a missing ship in the story. “The Massive” (the comic) takes place in the near future after an environmental tipping point has been tipped. Our world has taken a turn for the worse. All the things that environmentalists have been warning us about have happened. So what’s an environmentalist to do then? That’s the question this story asks. Unfortunately I don’t think it give us much of an answer.
With “The Massive” (the ship) missing we get the story of it’s smaller sister ship and its crew cruising around the ocean looking for it. The crew is a group of environmentalists who banded together to protect the world’s oceans. Now, post-crash, they find themselves a bit aimless except for looking for the missing ship. We even get flashbacks to about a year ago story time after the crash first happens. This seems to me to just increase the story’s lack of focus. The flashbacks never seem to make things clearer to me.
Donaldson’s artwork is solidly drawn in a variation of the thin line style that’s been around for a decade now. I call it a variation because he spots blacks in the figures sometimes but almost never in the backgrounds. All in all I find the art lacks mood and expression. It’s solid but something seems to be missing. That’s how I’d describe this comic in general. Solid but lacking. I should be more emotionally involved in the story but I’m not.
I’m going to keep buying this comic though. I’ve been looking for new comics to buy and this one might not be the best right now but I still like it in general. I find the premise interesting and I’m willing to be patient with the aimlessness of the story. After all the characters are in a rather aimless situation. And it takes place on ships out at sea. In how many comics does that happen? So I can’t quite recommend “The Massive” just yet but I’d still rather read it than the latest big name super-hero epic.
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