Comic Review - Prophet #26

I have heard a lot of good things about the Prophet series that resumed after many years away.  This was another Rob Liefeld creation back in the day that was shelved after a few issues.  Unlike the other Liefeldian comic I have previously reviewed, Youngblood, this one does not have Rob’s poorly drawn fingerprints on it.  That is already a notch in the plus category (for me at least).  The fact that this issue featured both the writing and art of Brandon Graham intrigued me as well.  It’s not very often that you get a full story and full art (including color) from one person on a book from a major publisher.  I was very interested at what Brandon Graham could do. 

Cover –

I love the detail that was put into this whole book in general, and that is exhibited by the cover.  It has a very European, Heavy Metal flair to it that I enjoy.  While the attention to detail is great, I think my favorite part is the use of the negative space on the cover.  It is very rare to see white on the cover of any comic these days (not counting variants or sketch covers) so the fact that Graham decided to use white as the clouds in the background and not some amalgamation of colors is refreshing.  The problem with a cover like this that has a lot of white and muted colors is that the logo needs to be really vibrant in order to stand out from the rest of the cover.  This logo fails at that pretty severely.  It took me a while to even find it on the shelf at my local shop.  That is not good if you want your book to sell and seems like a pretty easy fix.  Also, while the cover looks nice, and it does mind you, I do not see what it has to do with the book as neither the title character nor the main character in this issue (a robot) is on the cover.  I can see not putting Prophet on the cover as he is only vaguely mentioned in the book itself, and actually only appears in the back up story; but at least give me something that ties the cover to the contents of the book aside from visual style.

5/10 – It’s failure as a cover  on the comic shop shelf knocks it down a few pegs even though it is very well done.

Story-

Oh the story.  Now I could have just come in on the wrong issue.  Prophet was not in the initial story at all so maybe the books that actually have him in there are better.  But as far as I know they are all written by Graham, so I am not holding out much hope.  The main problem that I had with the story, besides not quite understanding what the robot had to do with Prophet himself or with any other part of the greater story, is that the whole thing was so full of exposition by the robot character that I learned nothing about him or his motivations or what the hell was happening.

Maybe I need to go back and read the other issues.  Maybe Prophet is one of those books that is better as a trade or a graphic novel but they decided to break it up to try and make the money twice.  This is apparently the deal with Saga, from last week’s review.  Nik set me straight that if I had read the first three issues I would not have as big a problem with issue four.  This is possible, but as I said to him, “If you are writing a graphic novel, then produce a graphic novel.  Don’t give me pieces of a graphic novel and tell me that they are issues of a comic book” this is demeaning to me as someone that knows the medium more than just as a collector.  Obviously this doesn’t mean much as this shit is selling like crazy.  But that is a post for another day. 

There is not much to write about the story because it doesn’t feel like much happened in the story itself.  I won’t even go into the backup story as that was an unintelligible mess.

1/10 – When I don’t understand it after five or six pages and have more questions (like why do robots need to eat) then you have lost me.

Art –

I like the details that are consistent throughout the book.  The coloring is nice too.  It is fairly monotone but that seems to fit the story.  The art can be a little confusing at times because there is just so much going on in each panel but it does work well when coupled with the text.  I would like to see the pencil/ink drawings to see just how well they hold up without the color and lettering though.

The art in the backup story was just as confusing as the actual plot itself.  It was even harder to discern what was going on because of the saturated color palette.  While Graham went with the more neutral colors and laid them all fairly flat, Emma Rios tried to do too much with the color and it did not do anything to save the poor storytelling.  I may be biased though because after trying to make heads or tails of the first story, I kind of gave up halfway through.  Even if Rios’s story and art were great I wouldn’t have gotten to them because the opening story was so poor that I would have chucked the book aside anyway.

I like this page, but I don't understand why a robot needs to eat, and the only explanation I am given is "eating fixes me".  Bad job.

Interesting panel but what the fuck is that up in the corner?  it looks like a sticker or something.  Very out of place.

Do the robots eat people?  Are they powered by people?  Nothing makes sense!

6/10 – Graham does a good job on the art.  The confusion in the art is not alleviated by the story and vice versa though.  I would definitely pick up another book that he is the artist on, just not the writer.

4/10 – I am not a fan of this particular issue.  If I was to read one that has the title character in it I may enjoy it more.  I just did not feel like I got much out of this, even with adequate art.  The backup story did not help, and while it kept the similar style of art as the opening piece, was colored (in my opinion) incorrectly for that style.