How do I always forget how badly Abnett and Lanning write? I steel myself for a lousy issue of Resurrection Man and they somehow make it even worse.

And it isn’t even their terrible female characters, it’s Resurrection Man talking to this cloud demon in limbo. It’s so, so bad….

It’s painfully obvious Abnett and Lanning don’t even know when they’re working. They don’t recognize good ideas or writing (which explains the lack of pop culture rip-offs, even bad ones). They take their funny old supervillain and put him out of the issue. It’s idiotic. He’s the only good thing in the book.

As Dagnino… wow. His art is just falling apart left and right this time. He’s the Rob Liefeld of hands too. Resurrection Man’s thumb is longer than his other fingers. He also forgets, from panel to panel, how he’s drawing characters.

It’s misery-inducing horse manure.

CREDITS

One Side or the Other; writers, Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning; artist, Fernando Dagnino; colorist, Santi Arcas; letterer, Rob Leigh; editors, Rex Ogle and Eddie Berganza; publisher, DC Comics.

And I thought Abnett and Lanning did a bad job the first issue….

The second issue does feature one amusing, if derivative, element. Resurrection Man gets a sidekick in a senile old man who might have been a supervillain. It could work out to be funny. But not with these writers.

This issue features Abnett and Lanning writing female characters. I think DC must have an edict its new line only has terrible writing of women.

The story itself, some of it, isn’t particularly bad. Resurrection Man goes to find his dad, finds a mystery (a tepid one, but still) instead. Then the supervillain girls show up and it gets really stupid.

Worse, artist Dagnino has a lot of failings in terms of faces this issue. The comic, at brief glance, appears to have good superhero art. But on actual reading, it’s clear Dagnino has problems with detail.

Terrible stuff.

CREDITS

And Gone; writers, Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning; artist, Fernando Dagnino; colorist, Santi Arcas; letterer, Rob Leigh; editors, Rex Ogle and Eddie Berganza; publisher, DC Comics.

It feels like artist Fernando Dagnino is trying. He’s working on his backgrounds, maybe working too much on his figures. But Resurrection Man reminds of an eighties DC comic, in the pre-Vertigo days; maybe a little glossy.

Oh, and terribly written.

Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning have been writing comics for more than a decade (I think) and they apparently can’t construct a grammatically correct sentence between the two of them.

It’s not just the terrible first person narration or the weak dialogue, the plotting is bad too. It’s a first issue and I have no idea the origin of the protagonist. He resurrects and he has electrical powers. With the white hair, he’s DC’s white male version of Storm. Who cares?

Speaking of indifference, Abnett and Lanning try hard to make the reader care—they kill off a baby to show the bad guys are serious.

It’s dumb.

CREDITS

Pronounced Dead; writers, Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning; artist, Fernando Dagnino; colorist, Santi Arcas; letterer, Rob Leigh; editors, Rex Ogle and Eddie Berganza; publisher, DC Comics.