(Trying out a looser, economic, less tight review style)
“No Hero” has been an infuriatingly inconsistent series. The first two issues seemed to be leading into a cliched “rookie-sees-that-his-idol-is-actually-an-immoral-cunt” story, and the other two issues fortunately started going on a new direction, even if they featured a protagonist who could talk perfectly well without any lips and didn’t seem to have a personality. In fact, a lot of the characters didn’t either.
And then, on issue #05, the plot just went bananas. Turns out Carrick Masterson IS an immoral cunt, which I wasn’t sure of since he oscillated so much between “sweet-talking, wry-smiling bastard” to “concerned, responsible leader”. And Josh Carver trying to save a falling plane was just a disastrous scene since it went completely against the realism the series has fought so hard for: what kind of even-barely-sane person tries to stop a plane by ramming HEADFIRST into it at full speed? What part of “planes have weak, fragile, vulnerable-to-inertia people in them” is hard to understand?
On that same scene, Digikore Studios fucked up the coloring by forgetting that Josh’s hands bleed while he tries to save the plane — another inconsistency in the writing (or Ryp’s artwork, I dunno whose idea it was), since pulling on a beam makes Josh’s hands bleed, but ramming them onto the front of a falling plane apparently causes no harm at all (except on the plane) — and when he’s back on the ground, his hands seem fine. Of course, they could regenerate quickly, but where did all the blood get to? And if they can regenerate quickly, why wasn’t that mentioned? In fact, why do we learn Josh can fly only when he’s about to go save the plane? Is it his first time flying? Don’t we get to see him training this skill first? And wasn’t he completely insane on issue four? What, he’s perfectly fine now?
Nitpicks like this haunt “No Hero” and, added up, become one big glaring flaw. And now, on the sixth issue, Warren Ellis goes for two of the most obvious twists he could have chosen and Juan Jose Ryp forgets how to draw faces. The latter can be painfully verified on the last panel of the first page. Which is a shame, since Ryp’s art was starting to become narratively better and more consistent, and here it suffers again from a lack of clarity and some poor facial anatomy. But otherwise, the level of detail is staggering, and some pages look simply amazing (and the colouring by Digikore Studios does not have any problems this time, being efficient).
The writing inconsistencies also plague this issue — Josh Carver says that the FX7 shows you who you think you should be. Wait a second — he knew this, Carrick didn’t? Carrick MADE the fucking drug. He watched several people being transformed by it. And yet Carver figured it out? The same guy who tried to stop a plane by ramming into it HEADFIRST?
And is Carver crazy or not? After spending two issues talking like a mongoloid (but intelligibly, despite having no goddamn lips) or not at all, on the fifth he seemed perfectly articulate all of a sudden. In fact, on this issue, he even grew lips — something he didn’t have on the last panel of the previous issue, so he basically grew lips while going back to Carrick’s mansion. And now, he’s part of a twist that I expected but hoped wouldn’t come because it was just the most obvious path to take. In fact, I’m surprised Carrick himself didn’t see it coming, something that is made even more hilarious by the page where he asks himself WHAT WENT WRONG.
Excuse me, are you retarded? What’s the new factor? When did things start going wrong? What did Mandy AND Marsh warn you against, one right after the other? Are you really a genius scientist?
To make things worse, it seems Carrick is not only just another immoral cunt, he’s a typical comic book villain who controls the world and wants to keep hold of it. To see him make a speech about how the world is his was just painful to read. Especially because a lot of the things he describes, like Bin Laden being dead or there having been an institution of black states, were not established on any of the previous issues and for that reason, feel like cheap shots at impressing the reader with a parallel world.
To make things EVEN worse, a recurring problem in Ellis’ writing — expositional dialogue — is back. The moment Josh explains why he thinks his penis fell off during the transformation, it becomes clear, judging by the way he says it and the way the other person is not exactly in a state to pay any attention, that Josh is explaining it to the reader, not to the person. And it’s just there for Ellis to shock most readers with “wound fucking”.
Speaking of fucking, we get to the last page, which…
…
… is so ridiculously over-the-top that I pretty much gave up expecting any further realism, or sense, from this comic. The plot might even MAKE sense, something that’ll be established on the next and final issue, but it’s poorly-structured and poorly-told. None of the characters have actual personalities, the dialogue is either expositional or exaggerated in its attempts to sound clever (“Well, I’ll take my silver linings wherever I can find them. Even if they look a little bit like duct tape gleaming from the wrists of a forcibly restrained patient”) and there’s far too many nitpicks and inconsistencies that add up to problematic story-telling. After issue five, “No Hero” could either blow my mind or shoot its own foot. It shot its own foot. With a rocket launcher.
On the other hand, “The Punisher” has been a nice surprise. After Garth Ennis left the series with sixty magnificent issues under his belt (not to mention the amazing specials), I really couldn’t think of anyone who could keep up that standard, so I hoped the next writer would understand that he shouldn’t try to top Ennis’ work, just do his own job as best as possible. I was prepared to accept someone else’s Punisher as long as it was, you know, The Punisher.
What I got, at first, were five horrendous issues. Not only Gregg Hurwitz tried to bring Jigsaw into the Max series (c’mon, everyone’s tired of that prick), he explored every cliche in the book regarding The Punisher and the final issue was just FUNNY, with Frank Castle actually managing to throw an object across the air and hit a switch with it that made a crane drop a container on a bunch of bad guys. Yes, he’s a natural born killer. No, he’s not Bullseye.
And that artwork by Laurence Campbell was just a fucking joke.
The next five issues, however, were surprising, since writer Duane Swierczinsky wasn’t afraid to try a different tone while doing the most important — staying true to the main character. “Six Hours To Kill” was an enjoyable (and darkly funny) arc with exceptional artwork by Michel Lacombe. I thought it would be a quick highlight on a series that would resume inevitable mediocrity.
Fortunately, writer Victor Gischler has proved me wrong so far. “Welcome To The Bayou” shows Frank Castle in new territory — dealing with redneck white trash. While this isn’t much of a plot, Gischler writes it with such charm and wit that it’s surprisingly interesting, and manages to add his own style. His Frank Castle has a sense of humour that, fortunately, never goes overboard and is never gratuitous, something writers like Matt Fraction got horribly wrong on “Punisher War Journal”.
And it’s great to see Goran Parlov back, aided by the ever-efficient colourist Lee Loughridge. I consider Parlov’s sketchy, but narratively perfect artwork to be superior to Sean Phillips’, which is saying a lot. In this comic, he continues not to disappoint, drawing clear action scenes and never making me stare in doubt at what I am seeing (something Juan Jose Ryp isn’t very good at, although, let’s be fair, I really DID NOT expect the last page of “No Hero #06″).
Gischler stays true to Castle’s careful methods and strategies, especially during a well-written brawl. This is not the Garth Ennis Punisher and I’m okay with that, as long as it continues to be this entertaining (and well drawn) and maintaining a level of coherence.
Finally, “Prototype #04″.
“You’ve all read the brief”, a soldier explains to his team in an elevator. And then, he proceeds to repeat the brief he just said everyone in that elevator ALREADY KNOWS. This is textbook expositional dialogue, and man can it turn me off. Witty dialogue during action scenes also annoy me — when your life is at risk, your priority is not thinking of clever things to say. And yet, we have a guy running from a monster in this comic who claims he’d love to be saved by “half-naked roman gladiators at this point”.
I have to confess I gradually lost interest in this book written by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray. But despite the dialogue, the action scenes are well-written, dynamic and especially, well-drawn by Darick Robertson and Matt Jacobs. Wes Hartman’s colours also deserve special mention in their good detail and lighting. It’s an eye-candy, entertaining book, but whatever interest I truly had in the plot has vanished. It lost momentum. Also, it doesn’t help to see a character who, as far as I know, is a phisically normal human dragging a DEAD LION with ONE HAND across SNOW.
Fun book, very pretty, above-average for a videogame-inspired comic. Some thought went into this, and some of the dialogue is interesting and well-researched — but it just overall lost momentum.
