Sci-Spy (2002) #3

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Interesting. Moench pulls out some surprises this issue—not simple ones either. The issue opens with something like a Raiders of the Lost Ark homage and it works. The dialogue’s still kind of weak, leftovers from last issue, but Gulacy and Palmiotti make the action pretty.

Then we get romance and humor. Moench comes up with some funny stuff too and the romance angle—between the protagonists—changes the book enough it starts to really work. it’s different… sci-fi action as a first date and so on.

The names, I need to take a moment on the names. The guy—Sebastian Starchild—gets the regular comics alliteration. But the girl? Isis Nile. Maybe Moench just liked that name and didn’t want to make it rhyme with anything.

Oh, and the finish—the soft cliffhanger? Absolutely fantastic. Might even go a level deeper and get really funky.

It’s getting good.

Sci-Spy (2002) #2

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This issue initially brings out more of the espionage angle. The protagonists—Starchild and Nile—team up (forced into the situation by their boss) and head off into what sounds like a spy mission. They have to impersonate terrorists and discover what’s going on with these robotic monsters eating the good planets piece by piece.

Two things stand out in this issue. First, the writing is lame. I can’t tell if Moench is padding out the story because he doesn’t have enough or if he’s intentionally writing lame, declarative one-liners. He also changes the issue’s pacing—going from espionage to action at the drop of a hat, like he’s modeling the issue on a James Bond movie (not really, because Bond didn’t have partners) and not the series overall.

Still, the art’s a delight. Gulacy knows how to compose action sci-fi and Palmiotti continues to ink him well.

Sci-Spy (2002) #1

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Sci-Spy is kind of confusing. Moench and Gulacy have done sci-fi before, but here they’re sort of suffocating the reader with all the ground situation information. The protagonist has two sidekicks. One is his supervisor, a computer named Motherbank. In addition to being his boss, the computer is also his mother as it found him in space as a frozen embryo. All those details come out in the first three pages. I admire Moench’s brevity, but the expository dialogue exchange is painful.

The second sidekick is an orb following him around; it shoots lasers, it has cameras, it drives the space cars. The orb is slightly less confusing, but only because we never see Motherbank.

Moench comes up with some nice twists towards the end and the art’s good. Palmiotti is a fine inker for Gulacy; Sci-Spy looks lively.

After the wobbly open, it finds its feet.

Time Bomb (2010) #3

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Well, if anything, this issue of Time Bomb does feature Gulacy’s best two panels in the last… five years? I’m trying to remember the last time anything he did wowed me. It’s been a long time, but there are a couple close-ups here… it’s just beautiful art. It got me looking at the rest of his design and his panel layouts still have some imagination. They just don’t have finishing.

Otherwise, it’s a pretty uneventful final issue. It’s an all action issue. The series started out high concept but it’s not anymore. Palmiotti and Gray are so low on ideas, they spend most of their dialogue making fun of Germans. None of it’s funny or even imaginative. It’s like they Googled German jokes and inserted them into the script. The Leni Riefenstahl reference is particularly bad.

Oh, and they resurrect Hitler for some reason.

Still, it could’ve been worse.

Time Bomb 3 (December 2010)

Oh, and they resurrect Hitler for some reason.

Still, it could’ve been worse.

CREDITS

Writers, Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray; artist, Paul Gulacy; colorist, Rain Beredo; letterer, John J. Hill; editor, Rob Levin; publisher, Radical Comics.

Time Bomb (2010) #2

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Unfortunately for the reader, Palmiotti and Gray do something incredibly strange here–they make the issue nearly unapproachable to someone who hasn’t just read the previous issue. I guess there are a couple paragraphs recapping the first issue, but who reads those? I certainly can’t be expecting to hunt it down on the back of the cover either.

Some of the problem is the indistinguishable Gulacy faces. Everyone looks the same, especially in their Nazi outfits. Even the black guy’s often indistinguishable, due to the issue’s the coloring scheme–it’s easier to tell him from the others based on his goatee.

Otherwise, the comic’s pretty fun. It’s a bunch of time traveling Nazi hunters–Palmiotti and Gray don’t do the usual and make the sole sympathetic German–all of them are evil here–and it’s decently plotted. As well as an okay television mini-series anyway.

Some awful dialogue though.

Time Bomb 2 (September 2010)

Some awful dialogue though.

CREDITS

p style=”font-size:11px;”>Writers, Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray; artist, Paul Gulacy; colorist, Rain Beredo; letterer, John J. Hill; editor, Rob Levin; publisher, Radical Comics.

Time Bomb (2010) #1

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Holy cow, what a fun comic book. I think I might like this one more than any other Gray and Palmiotti book I’ve ever read. It plays like a big budget TV miniseries from the eighties or something–time travel to stop the Nazis from destroying the world in the present (a rough description, but accurate).

Gray and Palmiotti fill it with a bunch of fake, but sort of convincing sounding, science (think Michael Crichton without the research) and they sell the whole thing.

There’s some stupid stuff–like the N.W.O. (the New World Order) being the SHIELD of the comic–when did N.W.O. stop wrestling, anyway? And the introductory character stuff doesn’t matter, because they’re spending the rest of the series in the past, fighting Nazis… so who cares?

Gulacy’s art is… well, it’s modern Gulacy and he’s almost sixty and it shows.

But it’s damned entertaining comic book.

Time Bomb 1 (July 2010)

Gray and Palmiotti fill it with a bunch of fake, but sort of convincing sounding, science (think Michael Crichton without the research) and they sell the whole thing.

Gulacy’s art is… well, it’s modern Gulacy and he’s almost sixty and it shows.

But it’s damned entertaining comic book.

CREDITS

Writers, Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray; penciller, Paul Gulacy; inkers, Gulacy and Charles Yoakum; colorist, Rain Beredo; letterer, John J. Hill; editor, Rob Levin; publisher, Radical Comics.

Jonah Hex (2006) #50

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I hate Palmiotti and Gray’s writing. I mock them every time I look through Previews. So damned if I know what I’ll do now one of their comics has made me tear up, has ruined my day, effectively kicked me in the stomach to the point I want to crawl up in the fetal position.

Clearly, the reason this issue of Jonah Hex succeeds is Darwyn Cooke’s artwork. No way anyone else could have made this story so affecting.

I should want to read more of their issues, just in case I’m missing something, but I don’t think anything can really top this issue. In just one issue, they fit in about as much tragedy as occurs in Hamlet.

It’s not particularly thoughtful tragedy, or brilliantly plotted tragedy, but it’s real effective and all because of Cooke. It’s haunting, in fact.

Though the cover doesn’t do the interior content justice.