So even though this Predator takes place in New York, Verheiden thinks it’s got room to go down to the jungle from the first movie. Oddly, it does. Oh, and I think he must have referred to the general by name in the last one because it’s all over the place here.
But, yeah, the pacing. Verheiden pretty much just skips between the two partners, with the family man cop’s narration being a lot more thoughtful. The Schaefer–that’s Arnie’s character’s brother–narration is more forced. Verheiden knows he needs some kind of exposition, goes with it.
There’s some neat time lapses to make things flow better and an excellent confrontation scene between Schaefer and his boss. It’s a shame the fight between Schaefer and the Predator at the end isn’t better. The scenes just before and just after are great, which makes for it.
Besides bad action, it’s good.
CREDITS
Writer, Mark Verheiden; penciller, Chris Warner; inkers, Sam de la Rosa and Warner; colorist, Chris Chalenor; letterer, Jim Massara; editor, Randy Stradley; publisher, Dark Horse Comics.
Cops, gangs and a Predator… sounds like a movie. Oh, wait, it was a movie. Only Mark Verheiden’s Predator came before Predator 2, probably when they thought Schwarzenegger would play his own brother.
What a difference a penciller makes… Ricardo Villamonte really doesn’t cut it. Indy’s always got a befuddled look.
It’s another great plot from Michelinie. He writes some decent exposition too. His dialogue is inconsistent though. For whatever reason he can’t write Indy’s dialogue. Everyone else’s is fine though. Very strange. I think it has to do with him writing Indy as a tough guy first, smart guy second.
Apparently Lone Star Press comics need contrived Texas connections. Bill Willingham isn’t from Texas, but both his Strange Heroes stories have Texan lead characters. The first is about a wizard in training and the location doesn’t matter whatsoever. The second is about someone stuck on a lost world island; particularly doesn’t matter there.
Michelinie wraps up the story with an all action issue. He splits it, after bringing everyone together a couple times, between the Nazis and Indy and Marion. They all discover this lost tribe of evil Atlantis descendants. It would seem the only reason the tribe is evil is to give Michelinie an excuse to keep killing them whenever a scene needs to progress. They’re really tall too; apparently Marion’s just as good as hand-to-hand combat as Indy.
Michelinie definitely seems to have a formula–apparently based on Raiders–Indy starts the issue on one artifact hunt, it leads to a second hunt, which somehow has Nazis involved. It’s only the seventh issue of Further Adventures and it feels like there’s not going to be much interesting outside the little character moments.
