Reviewer: Tim Stevens
Story Title: A Study In Scarlet
Written by: Kevin Smith
Pencilled by: Terry Dodson
Inked by: Rachel Dodson
Colored by: Lee Loughridge
Lettered by: Richard Starkings and Comicraft
Editor(s): Axel Alonso
Publisher: Marvel Comics
(This review is not late because I have an ironic sense of humor, but if it will make you hold me in higher esteem if that were the case, please feel free to assume away.)
As the title page admits, it has been three years since #3 of this miniseries. Does this issue, in fact, make that wait worth waiting for?
Of course it does not! No single issue of a comic that I can think of could have been quality enough to justify a three year wait. And I’m including your Mauses, your Watchmen, and your Dark Knights. There are zero issues.
However, that’s not the point of this review. We have to review it like any other monthly released column. Is it good enough to justify you buying it. And that answer? Well… maybe? Let me explain.
When Kevin Smith first came to comics, it was good. His work on Daredevil was, in this reviewer’s opinion, suitably weighty while still retaining the writer’s trademark knack for dialogue. Many complained about it, as many are inclined to do, but being the proud owner of every Daredevil comic from about 145ish (Vol. 1) on, I thought it certainly stood out as one of the better arcs in his solo history. Miller or Bendis it was not, but I’d certainly place it on par with Kesel’s too brief run or the better Chichester stuff (you know, before Fall of the Kingpin era) and ahead of Denny O’Neill and Ann Nocenti’s efforts. Then, of course, he started this book and Daredevil: Target and the delays set in and we began to sharpen our knives. However, the first three issues of this mini and Target were still good. Again, they were weighty but still allowing for Smith’s style.
This issue, however, that is less the case. Smith’s dialogue still shines in parts, but the rest of the book feels flat, empty, and inconsequential. The art does not help either. The typically reliable Dodson duo render the figures in the book just fine but the action (centering on a DD/Spider-Man battle) is poorly choreographed and uninteresting.
Nothing is so bad here that I would say Smith should not have bothered writing it in the first place. However, it all feels so rushed (ironic, no?), as if Smith wrote it over the course of homeroom and turned it in during first period because he went out the night before rather than stay home and finish his work. Smith would have better served himself and the story with an issue that did not feel so inconsequential and dull. Oh, and perhaps Felicia should have been in it just a little more. Given that this is her book and all that.
