If so inclined, one could admire Foreman’s commitment with the second issue. He takes everything bad about the first issue and enhances it. Except maybe the bad narrator.
Instead, he has a bunch of villainous military industrial guys who talk a lot. No pop culture reference, which is both a surprise and maybe Foreman’s best move as a writer, but their dialogue is awful. And there’s lots of it.
There’s also a strange sequence where Black Orchid’s working girl friend is identified on the street as a working girl by some toughs. Only she’s not wearing anything provocative; it’s like Thompson refused to play into Foreman’s weak plot choice.
Black Orchid’s presence brings the comic’s only pulse. Thompson and Woch draw her better than anyone else and the mystical realism aspect is neat. Foreman doesn’t go for that angle, however; he’s committed to doing a realistic superhero comic.
He’s not.
CREDITS
Black Orchid; writer, Dick Foreman; penciller, Jill Thompson; inker, Stan Woch; colorist, Digital Chameleon; letterer, Clem Robins; editors, Julie Rottenberg, Tom Peyer and Lou Stathis; publisher, Vertigo.
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