Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews
The Massive #1
Dark Horse Comics
Wood, Donaldson & Stewart
Brian Wood's highly marketed debut issue of The Massive hit this week with significantly less bang than some of his other first issues, such as DMZ. Comic books are all about expectations and this book simply didn't meet mine and I based them on his work on Conan, DMZ and Northlanders. This book is a definite shift in terms of subject matter but many of the themes are still there. However, the book missed with me because I couldn't get myself invested in the characters and couldn't wrap my head around the nature of the world's multiple levels of disasters. Perhaps the scope of the book is simply too big for me.
I had read some of this book's prequels in Dark Horse Presents and having read many of the interviews with Wood I kind of had an idea about the book coming into this issue. Basically, every conceivable disaster hits the Earth all over the place. A lone ship is out on the open sea and is basically trying to piece together what has happened, survive, help others and evade their potential pursuers. The book has some elements that I liked a lot.
First of all, I liked the premise behind the book. I think tossing in all kinds of disasters rather than just one brings more adventure to the table. The downside is I found myself constantly asking, "how do they know that?" or "if X happened then wouldn't Y also happen?" There were too many nagging questions with this setup.
I also liked the character work to a degree. There are a few characters on the boat, but the female lead stands out high above the others. Wood has a knack for writing female characters very well (as with Zee in DMZ) and this book is no different. I couldn't find myself all that invested in the others though. They felt too thin to me.
The aspect of the book I didn't like was the ending. I felt it lacked the punch I thought we were building towards and it was kind of a letdown. I also didn't like the pirate attack because we saw three boats, but somehow one was taken out but never shown or accounted for. I really couldn't make heads or tails of what happened in that scene. Considering it was the only action in the book I took this as a red flag.
The artwork is good. We have a vast sea and a lot of destruction and the art pushes that across well. The coloring is exceptional. The way the reds pop off the page is really quite stunning. I think the aspect of the art I liked the best is the fog and the deception used during the pirate attack. Ironically, this same scene was also the downside to the art. One boat appears to be rammed but two are spoken about as being taken out. I didn't see it occur though.
The Massive is an epic book. Wood has stated that the arcs will be three issues so there is room for this pick up and solidify quickly. However, this first book effort was not to my liking. The environmental portion wasn't nearly as heavy handed as I was expecting but the story presented here was just too macro in scope I felt. If you are a fan of Wood you can't afford to pass this one up but I am not sure this is going to have the wide range appeal. We'll see.
2.5 out of 5 Geek Goggles
