Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews

Highlander #11
Dynamite Comics
Jerwa, Rafael, Lopez & Bowland

Issue 11 is the middle part of this arc. Duncan is imprisoned along with many other immortals as they are forced to fight each other to the death in an underground arena. The twist is that Duncan has planted himself there to disrupt this little game put on by a secret Watcher called “The Eye” also known as Idima, basically an old bat, along with her bald, bad-ass, sidekick chick with a metal collar encasing her neck, Nibila.

The story picks up with Duncan fighting his friend Methos in the arena. While battling, they devise a plan to escape. Unbeknownst to Duncan his back-up, located outside of the arena, has been slaughtered. Eventually Methos is dragged away and a new, shaggy looking fellow jumps into the arena to battle Duncan. Now this is annoying. We get no introduction of this character when it is clear that he and Duncan have a past together. Since no name is given in this story I will name him: Mystery Immortal.

While Duncan battles the Mystery Immortal, Methos begins to fight his guards down below the arena eventually freeing the other immortals and creating some havoc.

Duncan gets the best of Mystery Immortal, but opts not to take his head as that is what “The Eye” wants. Duncan has some honor. Nibila jumps into the arena and hacks up Duncan a little bit.

While in his state of healing, Duncan is visited by the ghost of Connor a la Obi-Wan. Connor gets Duncan’s spirits up and when Duncan comes to he sees two familiar immortals – Ceirdwyn and Amanda to help out the cause. Methos and Mystery Immortal join up with them to round out the gang as they bust out of the prison as a five-some.

Duncan confronts Nibila while the others pursue “The Eye”. Duncan breaks the metal collar and upon taking her head he seems to trigger a nuclear bomb off in the distance. It’s a shame cause I thought Duncan and this chick would end up hooking up. Oh well. Off with her head.

I liked the action in this issue. It’s non-stop. I like the inclusion of so many other immortals. I don’t like the non-introductions though. It would be virtually impossible to pick up this issue cold and understand it. Characters are coming in every other page with zero background on them. There is barely even an explanation of what it means to be immortal and how they can actually be killed. You have to know your Highlander universe pretty well to know all that you need for this issue and really enjoy it.

I am a Highlander geek. I have watched the movies, I watched the show and I am reading this series. I want to love this series. I am not sure I do though. Each issue we don’t see very much character development and even in a nice battle issue like this one we don’t even get a good understanding of who the players are in the battle. I expect more from this title. When you consider sales are in the 10k range – basically in the company of Grimm Fairy Tales and the Simpson titles when you step away from the big two – I may be talking to a small set of you, but still I can barely recommend this to anyone who even likes Highlander.

Dynamite has some great series from The Boys to the Lone Ranger. This one should be up there and it isn’t.

I liked the art and I liked the battles. That’s all that saves this one from the dreaded geek goggle void.

2 out of 5 geek goggles.

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