Title: Creatures On The Loose
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Writer: Keith Giffen
Penciler: Eduardo Francisco
Inkers: Kris Justice & Terry Pallot
Colorist: Sotocolor’s J. Tai
Letterer: Art Monkey’s Dave Panphear
Editor: Mark Paniccia
HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYBODY!
Marvel, in trying to be cute and festive is doing a month where they put out some old style classically horrific comics. I mean comics about horror, you see..
Except for Nick Fury’s Howling Commandos, which is, in fact, horrible.
I’m not 100% sure if this is a mini-series, or whether this is intended to be an ongoing, but either way, it won’t last a year – and that is a prediction that shouldn’t scare the hell out of you.
STORY!
For those who don’t know the story of the original Howling Commandos, don’t worry. None of them are here. There is no reference to the old WWII comic by the same name. There is barely a mention of why this is going on. What we do know is that Nick Fury, the head of SHIELD (NOTE: Fury was assumably fired during Secret War, which hasn’t come out yet… and re-hired in another book. Just ignore and move on.)
Anyway, Nick Fury has put together a team of supernatural creatures that are to do black-ops missions that nobody must know about. They are a wolfman, mummy, vampire, frankenstein, and zombie… and also a giant monkey, who I don’t remember from the book at all.
Now when I read a book for a review, I usually read it once initally. Then again while reviewing it so I can catch various nuances that I might have missed. This time, to even understand what was going on, I had to read the book twice at the first sitting – and then giving up on the last reading due to the fact that I wasn’t gaining anything new out of the story.
It’s just not fun. Plot-wise, it feels very uneven, with introductions happening throughout the title – and the dialogue between our two main human characters is amazingly clunky. This is by far not Giffen’s greatest work.
Nor will it win any awards in….
ART!
In a book that is supposed to be part war comic, part horror comic, and generally should ring with air of fun and high action, the art reminds me of every bad comic artist I see when I go to conventions. The art features overly dramatic proportions, so that even the human characters seem to be parodies of real humans.
The inking is heavy handed, and probably added more than I know to the problem of distinguishing various characters who should be easily identifiable. (IE: Mummy & Zombie).
The coloring though, is fine. I actually think if anything was to give me something to smile about, it was the palette choices, and the ability for whoever colored this to somehow remain in the lines.
OVERALL!
Soooo.. heh.. what else is there to say. A book that I read 2.5 times, and still really have no urge to read again. Assuming I dedicated a good 10 – 20 minutes the first time, and then 5 – 10 minutes the second, followed by a few cursory glances this time.. I have put in WAY too much time into a book that I really feel is sub-par on all counts except coloring.
