“This one gets points for being a brilliant reinvention of a fairly silly character. Something that really shouldn’t be any good.
This book is a nice jumping-on point if you’re curious about what happened to comics in the mid-80’s, the time when everything got pretty dark. It certainly qualifies as a piece of history in that respect.
Great moments in this one, but the art certainly feels specific to its time.
I’ve started wondering if the art and the trends within comic book art might be something that has held the medium back in terms of mainstream success. The thing is, they slap a new cover on popular books every ten years or so. And that’s the only art associated with it. So you end up with stuff that’s not too dated most of the time.
For example:
A couple tweaks, all is well.
But with comics, it’s not that simple. Which means that you end up with some classics of the medium that have some fairly dated art. Early Sandman, Frank Miller’s Daredevil stuff.
Don’t get me wrong. I have a place in my heart for this stuff. But it’s gotta be difficult for someone to go to the theater and see the spectacular visuals of the Avengers and then go back and read the older books. It must seem like complete slow motion. In a weird way, the superheroes of our movies have surpassed the physicality of the superheroes in our comics from the 70’s and 80’s. I didn’t really think it was possible, but I’m pretty sure that Chris Hemsworth looks more like a comic book superhero than ACTUAL COMIC BOOK THOR. I almost believe in the existence of Chris Hemsworth less than I do Thor, which makes no sense.
At any rate, this is a pretty damn good book, so if the art turns you off, I’d say consider it a history lesson, and 15 minutes in you won’t even notice.
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