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Jeff Ritter’s Reviews

Retro Rocket #1
Writer: Tony Bedard
Art: Jason Orfalas
Publisher: Image

I’m not a mech guy. I admit it. Sure, I loved Voltron (the Lions version at least) and Transformers butt I never got into the Gundam and I’m lost playing any kind of Robotech-style RPG. I also admit not not being the biggest Tony Bedard fan. It’s not that I dislike the guy, I just haven’t been excited very much by his material. Exiles, for example, bores me. Or maybe it just frustrates me, because I think that book could be so good if he’d use better characters. After Retro Rocket, I might need to re-evaluate my position on both Mech-themed material and Bedard’s work.

Tony Bedard’s approach is steeped in familiarity. Reading this is like sitting with a bunch of friends who enjoy the material but don’t take it or themselves too seriously. Which isn’t to say it’s a light Disney book, it’s just not dense with unnecessarily complicated plots and subplots or technical jargon. Those elements do exist, but they’re straightforward and accessible. Unlike this increasingly convoluted paragraph, for example, so I’ll move on after admitting to laughing out loud twice during this read, and that usually only happens when I read Peter David. How’s that for high praise?

Jason Orfalas doesn’t ring any bells for me, but I’ll certainly be on the look out for him now. His style meshes perfectly with Beard’s “keep it simple” approach. The linework is uncluttered, with a slight Manga influence, but not so much that it should turn away those who otherwise dislike Manga. It feels very much like Speed Racer, Voltron, Ultraman–the inspiration is Old School with a distinctly modern flavor.

This book comes down to one word: FUN! Claremont should be this accessible. Jim Lee should be this uncluttered (oh yeah, I totally went there). Comics should be this engaging. This is “new reader friendly” done right. Do yourselves a favor–go to your shop this week and tell your retailer to get you a copy. Tell them Jeff Ritter said to order two, because you, as a member of the comic-reading community, are going to use one of your greatest weapons to further Retro Rocket’s cause. The weapon is Word of Mouth. Better than a rail-gun, bigger than a BFG, and guaranteed to send people running in to buy that other copy. Besides, you spend at least $2.99 a week on absolute crap (see below), you owe it to yourself and your long box to have at least one copy of a quality offering like Retro Rocket in your collection.

Grade: A

Thunderbolts #100
Writer: Fabian Nicieza
Art: Tom Grummett and Gary Erksine
Publisher: Marvel

Kurt Busiek must be crying somewhere. Mark Bagley is stabbing himself in his drawing hand with a blunt Faber Castell #2 pencil. Fabian Nicieza makes Chris Claremont and John Byrne look like Brian K. Vaughn and Ed Brubaker. If Joe Quesada cares one wit for his readership, he’d send this guy packing for someplace he can’t do irreparable harm–like CrossGen.

However, I’m going to go ahead and recommend that you pick up this issue anyway. Why, you ask? After a lashing like that, why would I recommend it? Well, I assume that if you read the last 99 issues, you’re a masochist like me. I suspect that maybe you’re one of those who actually collect the worst comics possible, like Rob Liefield’s Captain America #1, Scott Lobdell’s Alpha Flight, Frank Miller’s DK2, and Bendis’ infamous Unlawful Carnal Knowledge of Primates issue of Powers. Or maybe you are hoping to get into the business as a writer, and you’re dissecting every issue you can get your hands on to see what works and what doesn’t. This is a shining example of what to avoid. This is the comics equivalent of a flaming bag of puppy pooh on your porch.

I don’t think the following, in any way, really carries the wait of a “Spoiler,” but if you’re skittish about that kind of thing, end your reading here, and jump down to the grade (as if you can’t guess what it is already).

It starts with an Epilogue. It’s mercifully short, but it’s not clever or original to put the end of your story before the beginning. It’s like being at a movie theatre that always begins the movie at the last 10 minutes and then feeds the beginning in right after “The End” floats across the screen. Nobody wants to see that. The bulk of the story–and I use that term loosely–is a fight scene between Songbird’s Thunderbolts and Zemo’s Thunderbolts. The pages are peppered with completely random dialogue. There’s no flow, it’s like The Marvel Style at it’s absolute worst. I gotta believe that’s how this albatross was hatched: Nicieza must have given Tom and Gary the plot (I can’t type that with a straight face) and then “Mad-Libbed” the bubbles in. The characterizations are wildly inconsistent as well. Songbird, as team leader, suggests on the second page that two of her teams members would serve best by getting struck by lightning. Songbird might not always like everyone on the team, but she’s level-headed enough not to throw verbal jabs at her own teammates in the heat of battle. Certainly she’s above this childish chatter.

A few pages later, Blizzard exclaims, “I got her–she won’t be able to manipulate gravity if she’s frozen solid!” Um, why not? What does being frozen have to do with manipulating gravity? If that was the case, why didn’t they call in Bobby “Iceman” Drake from the X-Men when they fought Graviton a while back? Apparently, gravity manipulators have a Kryptonite reaction to ice.

An awkward pause in the combat gives us the opportunity to explore the possibility of killing one of the Thunderbolts. That’s right. Songbird’s team takes a time out to decide if they should execute one of their own. I know these people came from villainous backgrounds, but these aren’t the Red Skull, Norman Osborne and Wilson Fisk. These are Radiation Man, Joystick and Andreas Von Strucker. Some of these aren’t even B-List. They used to roll children for their lunch money and steal the pot from the St. Jude’s Assisted Living Bingo Night. And they’ve signed on to reform, to be heroes. Heroes don’t spend four pages pondering the execution of one of their own, under any circumstances. But Fabian Nicieza does.

Fast forward as the fighting begins anew. More snappy banter, this time from Techno speaking to Joystick, “–Zemo is saying your sparkly buddy is squashing all matter across time and space like a big ol’ ball of aluminum foil!…Just in time to get you, Thighmaster!” OH MY GOD! Where do I begin? First, referring to Joystick, who’s always been drawn shapely, as “Thighmaster” is quite possibly the most childish barb I’ve ever heard. The Runaways wouldn’t even say that. Even Power Pack wouldn’t say that! Then there’s Techno, a near-genius level intellect, equating the space/time continuum to “a big ol’ ball of aluminum foil!” If you’ve ever squashed anything like a big ol’ ball of aluminum foil, you might be a redneck. If you’ve ever recycled lines from the Blue Collar Comedy Tour to script a milestone comic book issue, you might be Fabian Nicieza.

The last two pages? The Prologue! Oh wow, didn’t see that coming at all. How clever! Especially considering it actually continues directly from the epilogue we led off with. How can what happens after an epilogue be the prologue? It’s just more epilogue! Calling it a prologue is like calling Fabian Nicieza a gifted writer. As for what happens in this Epilogue 1.5, well, telling you about it would CERTAINLY be a spoiler, and I don’t think the examples of poor dialogue above really spoil anything, so I’ll refrain from getting into it. Let it suffice to say that the twist here comes COMPLETELY out of nowhere, feels completely out of character, and should mark the end of this series. Honestly, I don’t know if Fabian has pictures of Joe Quesada in compromising positions with Mark Millar or what, but if he won’t move Fabian off of this book, do the Killer Bees (Busiek and Bagley) a favor–take this dead horse out back and empty the whole clip in it.

A quick note about the art–Tom Grummett must miss Doug Hazelwood. When paired with his longtime inker at DC, they put out some consistent, quality work. Gary Erksine lends little to the figures. And whoever fell in love with Photoshop needs to knock that crap off. Very traditional comic rendering mixed with higher-end “special effects” comes off really bad. And when did artists quit drawing sound effects? There are lots of panels that should have had a “KAPOW!” or “SHRAAAAAK!” in them somewhere–oh wait, that’s the WRITER’S JOB to script sound effects.

Finally, let me mention that there’s some reprint material in the back, and it actually does the reader a disservice. It’s Busiek and Bagley’s early stuff on the title, and of course the much loved and much missed Jolt is all over it, which just shows how much this book has fallen.

Grade: F, but only because I doubt I can get away with giving it a Z.