Category: Camelot 3000
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So, I’ll just spoil a little of Camelot 3000‘s finish, not all the details, though there are a lot and all of them are dumb. Anyway, the comic ends with a somewhat cute alien pulling Excalibur from a stone in the far flung future. It’s kind of like the end of 2010. It’s an amusing…
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Why would Morgan LeFay resurrect Isolde and let her work against Morgan’s evil plans? It makes absolutely no sense, but I guess it doesn’t matter because the Earth events this issue have no bearing on the actual story. Barr’s just filling space. The adventures on the mysterious tenth planet aren’t bad though. I mean, they…
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I get Barr’s dramatic thrust now–Merlin’s been kidnapped, Modred has the Grail, but I can’t remember what the series’s initial dramatic thrust. What was Arthur back to fix? Was it the unhappiness of human race or was it to drive the aliens off the planet? He failed the second in the comic and I assume…
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Barr really doesn’t know what to do with a big cast, does he? I keep forgetting about the Japanese Knight of the Round Table and the black one. The Japanese guy is actually Lancelot’s son, but Barr hasn’t explored the subplot, which is too bad. The art, from Bolland and Austin again, is great. Too…
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The art this issue, with the Austin inks, reaches an outstanding level. It makes the comic worthwhile, which is good, since Barr’s plotting is a disaster. He continues the betrayal subplot, then decides to force an entire issue out of it by contriving a complication. Worse, he keeps complicating the situation to contrive more pages.…
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Terry Austin takes over inks and immediately the art starts looking great again. Bolland (or Austin) even manages some backgrounds. Too bad the comic’s really, really dumb. First off, the battle scene. Maybe Merlin magicked the Knights to survive in space without protection, but he didn’t magic all the supporting cast they meet to survive.…
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Dick Giordano pitches in to help ink (or finish) and it’s a small disaster. This issue takes a completely different tone thanks to the art change. It’s the faces, really. The detail is gone from them. After what’s so far the series peak last issue, Barr returns the comic to a middling affair. Arthur and…
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Well, it’s only taken Barr to the fifth issue but he’s finally made Camelot 3000 a compelling read. He opens with Morgan LeFay’s story and it’s a good one. The finish is ludicrously contrived–without any acknowledgment of the contrivance–but the idea of a medieval witch who goes off to space and revolutionizes an alien race…
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Bolland’s art gets downright lazy quite a few times this issue and not with his white backgrounds either. He’s losing control of faces here; no matter how many iconic double-page spreads he does, he’s not going to make up for lazy faces. The issue’s weak overall. Barr’s vision of future governments is incredibly similar to…
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What a goofy ending. Barr’s going for fifties sci-fi, which doesn’t seem appropriate, especially since he doesn’t have any humor about the book. Camelot 3000 is all very straight-faced, even Queen Guinevere’s futuristic battle garb being comic book female hero trampy. Meanwhile, Lancelot gets a bitching set of space armor. Barr handles the love triangle…
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This issue’s goofiness isn’t all Barr’s fault. For instance, Bolland’s the one who reduces a riot scene to three people against a white backdrop. Guess he didn’t want to take the time on backgrounds. But amidst the combined, considerable goofiness, there are a couple good things coming through. First is the love triangle between Arthur,…
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Besides the beautiful, precise art from Brian Bolland and Bruce Patterson, it’s hard to determine exactly what Camelot 3000 has going for it from the first issue. Mike W. Barr writes the human protagonist pretty well; his emotional turmoil is believable, for example. But a lot of the comic features a larger than life King…
The Stop Button 