New Comic Review: The Almighties #0

We are going to take a slight detour from the Guardians of the Galaxy this week and look at a new comic from Actuality Press that may ring a few bells.  Next week we'll get back to our retro review of the space-travelling heroes.

                A while back, Sam Johnson, creator of The Almighties, asked me to review The Almighties#1 as well as Geek-Girl and Mr. Mash-Up #0.  He recently contacted me as The Almighties are back with a Zero Issue!  While I was not super impressed with issue #1, let’s see how issue zero shakes out.  But first, the official stuff from Sam himself:

The Almighties #0 is out now - along with a chance for newcomers to catch up on the team's debut adventure in The Almighties #1 new Limited Variant Edition – both available at www.actualitypress.com

Cover:

                Artistically, the cover is better than that of issue 1 in my opinion.  While it is still a team shot, the overall drawing is much better this time around.  Though the “team” concept seems a bit fractured as no one looks happy or very trusting of one another.  Regardless, Juan Ramirez does a decent job of drawing each character, and the inking and coloring just add to the quality of the illustration.  I really enjoy the clarity of the Almighties logo as well.  It is instantly iconic and something that should remain relatively unchanged, regardless of the media that the Almighties may inhabit in the future.

8/10

Writing:

                Despite the fact that this is a zero issue, the events actually take place after those of issue one.  The first thing we get is an abbreviated origin of Maxi-Tron (I’m sorry Sam, I can’t read that name without thinking of Maxi-Pad).  I’m not really sure where that fits in the grand scheme of things, but I am always down for a good origin story.  Johnson does a good job of managing a multitude of artists by giving each one of them a specific story to tell.  Some are more successful than others, but the fact that he splits the art duties up in this way helps to ensure that there isn’t a strange and abrupt transition between pages, it all feels more natural.  Johnson also does a good job with the issue as a whole.  By utilizing the tried and true “tell me about your teammates” way of storytelling, we are able to learn the origins of the various members of the team in a more natural manner.  While this way of doing this is far from revelatory, the fact that Johnson doesn’t take the easy way out of just telling the origins shows that he has thought about the book and how he wants it to flow. 

                Unfortunately, most of the meat and potatoes of the stories themselves aren’t great.  Nite Fang’s story (written by Mike Gagnon) doesn’t really do much besides tell us that he was a jerk that was bitten by a werewolf.  There is very little backstory contained in those two pages that would make us really care about the character.  The Ms. F story, while not really an origin, is just…odd.  The dialogue is a bit unbelievable.  It’s almost like he’s trying to make it conversational, like how real people talk, but it comes out a bit forced.  The origin of Mason is two panels and a bunch of dialogue, again, not really making me care too much about the character.  That’s the problem.  In an issue that is supposed to be a re-introduction of the characters, we don’t really wind up caring too much about any of them.

                This takes us to the new character, Wayne Winston.  The fact that his origin story takes up so much space is a blessing and a curse.  While it causes me to start to care about him as a character, it shows what Johnson could have done with the other characters.  The final story revolves around Stefanos.  After an odd introduction to his character (something tells me getting a blowjob behind the counter of your restaurant violates all sorts of health codes), President Obama comes in to offer an opportunity to Stefanos.  In issue one, Agent Coleslaw is killed in the big fight at the conclusion of the book.  Obama wants Stefanos to go back in time, using a cosmic cube with a reset button (seriously?) on it and prevent this from happening.  Stefanos accepts the mission, goes back in time, and fails miserably at his assignment. 

                At first, I thought it was silly to even have him go back in time if he was going to fail, then I thought, you know what, showing that the superhero doesn’t always save the day isn’t a terrible thing.  Then, when I saw how Johnson ended the story, I not only understood why he wrote it the way he did, but I disliked it even more.  By going back in time, Stefanos upset the timestream enough to get George W. Bush elected to a third term.  Hardy har har…  That’s some low hanging fruit you’re picking with that one.  It’s neither original or funny, unfortunately.  IN all honesty, instead of going for the easy joke, he could have spent those extra pages filling out the origin stories of the Almighties.

5/10 – While the way the story is told is good, the content, be it the actual stories themselves or the way they are written (sometimes I don’t know if Johnson is trying to write a specific dialect or if he just forgot to proofread) is not up to par.

Art:

                The only thing I can say, is that if Juan Ramirez had drawn the whole book, it may have pulled everything together and made up for some of the glaring weaknesses in the script.  Unfortunately, while the art is not terrible, it is not inspiring at all.  While I do like the cartoonier art of Graham Pearce’s contribution, that is unfortunately the highlight of a lengthy book.  Pearce does a decent job in his storytelling as well.  In fact, most of the storytelling is good throughout the book, it’s just the general artwork itself that doesn’t hold a lot of appeal for me.  Could it be a matter of taste?  Sure.  I will say though, the lettering is dicey throughout.  There are many times I had to read things multiple times as they were unclear the first time around (something you never want to have to do). 

                I will say this though, the drawing of Bush at the end of the issue is pretty spot on.

5/10 – No one is winning any awards here, but they put a lot of work into the book and it shows.  They should be commended for their efforts even if the results weren’t perfect.

Overall:  5/10 – Even if I saw this book on the shelf in a comic shop and picked it up, I probably wouldn’t have bought it based on the art.  After reading it, there are some good things here, there’s the seed of competent storytelling and a couple funny moments.  But it was mightily inconsistent.  I am looking forward to the further adventures of Geek-Girl though, as I enjoyed that book.