Sticking with original ideas and concepts

The Twilight Experiment tpb
DC Comics
Creators: Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, Juan Santacruz, Jose Luis Roger, Carrie Strachan and Phil Balsman
Release date: 2005

I got this book from a seller on eBay almost three years ago. When I buy out-of-continuity books like this one, especially trades, they often get tossed on a stack to be read when I have a chance. I didn't know anything about this title going in, so I imagine I purchased it because of the writers, Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray.

I don't always like comics written by this frequent writing duo when they tackle established characters. I guess sometimes their idea of what company-owned characters like the Teen Titans members would do or how they'd act in given situations don't always line up with mine. But I have liked a lot of stories this pair has written using their own, original characters. Don't believe me? Check out these previous posts on Hype, Book Smart and Time Bomb, all penned by Palmiotti and Gray.

This collected six-issue miniseries is no exception. It was printed by DC Comics, but takes place in its own universe, not the DCU proper. In this world, there were only a handful of super-powered beings, and when they all destroyed each other, they took a good chunk of Denver, Colo., with them. This story focuses on Rene Doyle, a troubled paramedic who lost most of her family in the Denver battle when she was just a child, and Michael, the super-powered son of one of the heroes who gave her life trying to stop the violence that day. The two meet by chance, but soon find out that not only do they have a lot in common, they may be the world's only hope of preventing another, even greater tragedy.

Another great story by a simply terrific writing duo — at least when they are writing their own, original characters. And there's nothing wrong with that!

Thank You, Sirs, May I Have Another

Hype

PaperFilms and Adaptive Comics
Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray, writers
Javier Pina, artist
Alessia Nocera, colorist

 I don’t like everything I’ve read by writing partners Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti — at least not everything they write with someone else’s characters. But I have read a few of their original creations — titles like Time Bomb, for instance — that I did enjoy quite a bit. So their names draw my attention when I’m placing my monthly comics order or shopping around for occasional extras.

Several months ago, I came across a Kickstarter promo ad for another original creation of theirs, Hype. Apparently, the duo has released several projects via Kickstarter in the past. Anyway, the promo caught my eye, and their names piqued my interest. I found a support level I agreed with and funded the project. And a few short months later, I had not only Hype but a couple other standalone original graphic novels by the pair to look forward to.

I confess I haven’t yet had a chance to read the other titles I received with Hype — Abbadon and Denver — I’m not even quite sure what they are about. But I have read Hype. And I loved it! The promo art had me expecting a pretty straight-forward superhero title with a little time twist: the main hero, Hype, can only experience life for 45 minutes a day. The rest of the time he’s asleep, recharging. But the actual story is so much more.

The pacing of the story, for example, seemed a bit jarring at first. Transitions were almost nonexistent. The story is told in brief glimpses of the various players. Each snippet of story gives you information about the central characters and advances the plot, but it is clear there is more going on that we readers aren’t privy to. By the third such break, I came to realize that this was a neat bit of writing that allows the reader to experience things in much the way Hype does. It’s a way for us to connect with the character beyond the norm. And it works very well.

I will also reveal that the story in this OGN has a bit of an open ending. There is very much the promise of more action to come, and I hope this creative team can reunite to produce future volumes of Hype’s story, either through another Kickstarter or their own PaperFilms or by being picked up by another publisher. But sometimes, such a story can seem incomplete. Readers are left feeling like they only got half a story for their money, just the set-up and no payoff. That isn’t the case with Hype. This is a complete story, beginning to end, and feels like a satisfying read despite being only 52 pages long. Yet it is also very clear that there is more story to tell with these characters, more questions to be answered, more adventure to be had.

As usual, I'm more of a story person and tend to focus mostly on that aspect of books. But the art is always an important component of the comics medium. Great art can enhance a good story, while art that is not to a specific reader's taste can ruin an otherwise good tale. Javier Pina's art is crisp and clean, not gritty like the covers on the other downloads I scored at the same time as Hype. Pina's art, along with Alessia Nocera's bright vibrant colors, add to the superhero feel of this story despite its departure from the usual story conventions of the genre. They help make this story feel familiar while the writing direction takes readers in an unexpected direction. And the union of all these efforts is something truly worth a look.

Kind Of A Mismatch, Don'tcha Think?

Nightcrawler 1-12 (2004-2005)
Marvel Comics
Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, writer
Darick Robertson, Wayne Faucher, Jimmy Palmiotti and Rodney Ramos, artists

I was excited to learn in 2004 that Nightcrawler was going to be getting his own solo series.

I've always been drawn to the more monstrous of the Marvel heroes for some reason. The Fantastic Four's Benjamin J. Grimm, popularly known as the Thing; the tragic alter-ego of scientist Bruce Banner, the incredible Hulk; and the X-Men's own Beast and Nightcrawler are easily among my favorites. Don't ask me why. It is simply a fact.

So I was excited by the prospect of one of my favorites getting his own series. Not a miniseries, mind you. Nightcrawler got one of those in 1985 and another in 2002. The former was a fun-filled romp through a number of different dimensions playing up the character's swashbuckler nature. It was also written and drawn by the incomparable Dave Cockrum, the character's co-creator. The 2002 mini was somewhat less impressive, at least going by the knowledge that I know I bought and read it at the time but can't remember what it was about now.

But this was to be an ongoing series. Yay!

I should have been wary about the announced writer of this ongoing series, however. That is not to imply that Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa is a bad writer. I've rather liked some of his other comics work. But if memory serves, he has something of a reputation for being a horror writer. That certainly fits what he did with the short-lived Nightcrawler series. And I'm afraid that is at least partly what led to the poor sales that most likely killed the series so soon.

These stories aren't bad. In fact, I like the first story arc a great deal. Storm, then the current leader of the X-Men asks Nightcrawler to investigate a locked-room mystery with a very dark twist: the locked room is a youth ward in a mental institution and only one child is left alive when 13 others are torn apart mysteriously. If the lone survivor is not responsible for what happened, an unlikely possibility, then he must have at least seen what happened. But he is so scared, he is not speaking to anyone.

Even Nightcrawler himself points out that this isn't really a mystery that seems to suit either his personality or power set, but he still tries to get to the bottom of the mystery and help the young boy who survived the first incident despite the misgivings of the institution's head physician, a man who has no fondness for costumed heroes. Once that arc is concluded, the next poses another mystery for Nightcrawler to crack, this one involving some souls not yet at rest. Next the X-Men's fuzzy elf must confront some demons from his own past and gets a visit from Mephisto. Along the way, several other X-Men make appearances.

But again, the horror genre doesn't quite seem to fit the mutants' most benevolent soul. I think that might just be what killed off this series before its time. Having said that, these aren't bad stories, just a little mismatched.

The Gamble Pays Off A Second Time

Book Smart
Kickstart Comics
Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray, writers
Juan Santacruz, artist

My first exposure to Kickstart Comics was with The Book of Lilah. I enjoyed that stand-alone, digest-sized graphic novel so much, I wanted to try some of the company's other offerings. And that has paid off nicely with this book, another stand-alone, digest-sized tome.

I'm already familiar with the writers of Book Smart; the writing team of Palmiotti and Gray is not a sure-thing for my tastes, but when I like a tale they've created, I tend to REALLY like it. And their writing is usually solid, no matter how much interest I end up having in the finished product.

For as much as I enjoyed this book, though, I was unsure about it until about halfway through. It starts off with a young woman in the Himalayas with two native guides. They stumble across a hidden temple, and the two natives attack and rob the young woman, stealing her possessions and leaving her to die in the cold. She doesn't die, however, instead wandering until she is found by a mountain villager who takes her to a hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal. When she wakes up after three days, the young woman does not know who she is or how she came to be in Nepal. Her doctor offers some suggestions for trying to piece together who she is and sends her out into the foreign city where she is immediately attacked by more thugs. Only, this time, she sees the attack coming and single-handedly fights off all of the attackers.

At this point, the book was seeming a little clichéd to me. I already knew the basics of the plot from the description before I bought the book: She's likely a spy or other covert agent, and while she doesn't remember who she is, she can fight quite well. Adding to my dislike were the series' art miscues. The woman on the cover of the book is standing in a typical spy pose, complete with high-tech pistol and is very obviously a dark-haired woman. But the heroine of the story has no gun, doesn't even bother to pick up a gun from one of her dispatched assailants and has brownish, sometimes almost dark blonde hair. It would still be a bad continuity error to confuse the color of the heroine's hair between the cover and interior if there were different artists involved, but when the same artist and colorist work on both the cover and interior, such an error is just sloppy.

The young woman tracks down the hotel she was staying at and learns she checked in under the name Samantha Rayne. Along the way, she picks up a few allies and several more factions wishing her harm. And then, about two-thirds of the way through the book, Palmiotti and Gray throw a twist into the action that not only takes the story in a unique and unexpected direction, but one that makes all previous complaints I had fade away. With one small plot twist, they managed to catch me off-guard, explain the significance of the book's title, renew my faith in the ability of the artists and capture my interest completely. Kudos all around, gentlemen; well done!

That's What I'm Talking About!

Time Bomb tpb
Radical Comics
Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray, writers
Paul Gulacy, artist
***mature content warning***

Happy New Year, everyone!

This is an incredible done-in-one trade telling a very cinematic action movie type of tale that gets the blood pumping and makes you want to finish the book in one sitting.

A civil works project in modern-day Berlin accidentally uncovers a massive underground facility, almost the size of an entire city. Agents from several governments are quickly dispatched to determine the purpose and origin of this astounding find. But they unwittingly trigger what is believed to be a Nazi doomsday device left over from World War II.

A missile launches only to explode after climbing about a mile into the atmosphere. That explosion releases an airborne virus that is killing the entire population of Berlin, and spreading outward from there. It is quickly estimated that the human race has about 60 hours of existence left on this planet.

Fortunately for the world, a little-known U.S. government project has proven that time travel is possible. Unfortunately, the process isn't exactly perfected.

A team of four adventurers is chosen and assembled to be sent back in time, but as it is explained to them, the scientists in charge have very little control about destination time. The formulas involved are little more than guesswork. The quartet is being sent back sometime before the doomsday device was triggered, armed with government contact names and numbers for several decades and video proof of what has happened. The hope is that they can convince the powers that be whenever they materialize to find the device and disable it in the past before its destruction can be unleashed. And they have just 24 hours to complete that mission before the time travel is reversed and they are yanked back into the present.

Oh, and there's the unsettling fact that the time travel device is called a "time bomb." Not the most comforting of names.

If only things had gone according to plan.

If you like action/adventure and/or science fiction, check out this book. You'll be glad you did!