Predator (2009) #4

Oh, wow. Arcudi doesn’t even give the story an ending, he just lets it whimper off.

I mean, it’s a terrible, terrible narrative. Apparently, they didn’t realize if they’re only going to have two recognizable characters, everyone else is going to fall to the wayside.

The comic’s politics are interesting. The mercenaries are the heroes, the U.S. army is a bunch of drunken morons. I wonder if Blackwater underwrote the comic (Predator is owned by Rupert Murdoch, so who knows).

Walden Wong’s back and he’s awful. The comic’s so intolerable at that point, however, what does it matter if it looks like crap. Maybe they’re going for it just being as bad as it can be, since there’s no way this team is going to turn in anything good.

It’s so infantile, so dumb. It’s silly. It’s like a Saturday morning cartoon version of Predator, only less gritty.

Complete garbage.

Predator (2009) #3

Hard as it must be to believe, but I really don’t go looking for bad comic books to read. My Dark Horse Aliens and Predator nostalgia cost me more than twenty bucks–I could have killed brain cells and had fun doing it using that money on liquor or Elmer’s glue to sniff. Either would have been more productive than reading this issue of Predator.

Predators aren’t, apparently, rare anymore. Everyone knows someone who’s run into one, had a little encounter; not a big deal, seven foot tall space aliens. Doesn’t rearrange your world view. Getting dismembered by a Predator, in Arcudi’s world logic, is a heck of a lot less traumatizing than E.T. bringing you some Reese’s Pieces.

The only thing this comic book has going for it is it almost being over. It’s so insipid–Arcudi’s narrative logic is inane–I’m running low on negative adjectives.

It’s garbage.

Predator (2009) #2

It’s getting worse. Why does it have to be getting worse? Seriously, did anyone read Arcudi’s script here? It’s the same old rote Predator story Dark Horse has been doing for… twenty years? There’s a good Predator… gasp. I wonder how that’ll play out in the next issues.

There’s also the hint someone knows about the Predators and isn’t telling everyone else, so he’ll be prepared and blah blah blah.

The issue reads in something like four minutes–so it’s cheaper than a dollar a minute–but maybe it does take longer. When Walden Wong’s awful inks show up, it stops the book. I’m not crazy about Saltares and his Predators look stupid, not scary, which fits Arcudi’s script well (these aren’t the brightest intergalactic big game hunters–Schwarzenegger’s dog could outsmart them), but Wong’s inks turn it into a Mad magazine parody. A poorly illustrated one.

It’s intolerably banal.

Predator (2009) #1

I bought Predator ought of nostalgia. I grew up in the salad days of Dark Horse’s licensed property boom, back when there was only one Aliens vs. Predator series and it was a big deal. Returning to Predator, especially this series–updated to be hip and modern–it’s about mercenaries in Africa. They say Africa, it’s an African state, but all of the procedural aspects are lifted from movies about Iraq. But whatever, I’m trying to keep an open mind.

Except Arcudi’s handling of it is, in terms of plot, awful. The main characters are a bunch of mercenaries–these are the villains, they’re the Blackwater guys–and the Predators–there are a bunch of them, even though it’s just called Predator–are kind of cameoing.

Along with Aliens, Dark Horse is making a big deal about them, but doesn’t have a narrative approach to indicate they’re anything but trivial.