Released on July 8th, 2020
Last July, when The Walking Dead ended, it also kind of felt like Robert Kirkman's career was ending. That was the book that made him famous, that spawned a hugely popular TV show, that everyone talked about. And since he ended his other long running book, Invincible, a year earlier, it kind of seemed like maybe his legendary status in the comic book world would fade. I probably only thought that because it reminded me of Garth Ennis, who was never really the same after he ended his most famous book, Preacher. Sure, Garth Ennis still writes comic books. Sure, his book, The Boys, ran for a long time and was somewhat popular. But nothing he ever wrote since Preacher was ever as good. And I kind of thought that might happen with Kirkman, that he put everything he had into The Walking Dead and it was his masterpiece and he'd never even make anything half as good again. It's early, but I bet I'm right. He's never going to write anything as great, as popular, as awesome as The Walking Dead. Oblivion Song is one of his newer books. Yesterday the big, double-size, #25 came out. When it started, I thought it was fantastic. The story was intriguing, it had potential, it felt fresh. Twenty-five issues later, it unfortunately hasn't turned into anything all that great. The basic premise is that there's another dimension with aliens. An event occurred in Philly years ago where a bunch of U.S. citizens inadvertently got zapped into the other dimension. A hero, Nathan, came up with technology that could send him to this other dimension to save those folks and bring them back. So now, twenty-five issues later, there's some people still in the other dimension and the aliens are threatening to come to earth and take over. This issue takes place three years later from #24, when Nathan got stuck in the other dimension. Now he's slowly making friends with a few of the aliens while trying to make something to get him home. And there's also a "growth" that's killing that other dimension. Whew. That's a lot of fucking story. One major problem with the book is that the art isn't very good. It's not terrible, it's just very sloppy looking. So sloppy looking that during action sequences it's hard to tell what's going on. Lorenzo de Felici does the art and Annalisa Leoni does the colors. The colors are vibrant and awesome. Annalisa also pencils the backup story, and her art is great, although probably too cartoony for this type of book (Lumberjanes should hire her). There's also a Science Dog story in the book drawn by Cory Walker that's awful. While Oblivion Song at least holds my interest, it's not as exciting as, say, The Walking Dead. Maybe when the aliens invade earth and there's a huge battle spread across fifty issues I'll change my tune. But this book is not going to be as great as The Walking Dead. And neither will Fire Power, which is better, but still too much of an Iron Fist rip-off to take very serious. The one takeaway I do have is that while Kirkman might not write another popular epic, he at least can still entertain. His books are fun, usually enjoyable. I suppose that's saying something. **1/2
No comments:
Post a Comment