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Author Topic: TITANs Villains For Hire - After'view  (Read 6382 times)
Perry
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« on: October 29, 2010, 02:39:56 PM »

Please note - the following "review" is poorly written (I was a little inebriated) I just can't suffer through trying to read this book again for a rewrite.  Grin I would rather you guys see this pathetic piece of crap review than to sit through a sober reading and try to write it over.
 Grin

Per Jeff's request ... TITANS - VILLAINS FOR HIRE

I have often wondered if I would ever be lucky enough to read “the worse comic ever produced”. Would I ever get a chance to slowly and painfully flip through the pages of a book that would leave me scarred for life? Would I find the bottom of the barrel in sequential art? Could I locate the crappiest of the crap filled crap?

 I have asked this not because I am masochistic by nature, no, no, I have only asked this for reasons of scientific curiosity … that and I am inherently self-destructive by nature.

There have been times when I was sure I found it, this Holy Grail of Ineptitude, only to find another title deserving of said moniker months later. In fact, it has been awhile since I have had any comic come close to that lofty designation (the most recent entry that was close, yet fell just short was Greg Hurwitz’s FOOLKILLER … a dreadful read, but not the worse comic ever), but now … now we have a real contender. I give you –

TITANS : VILLAINS FOR HIRE SPECIAL #1

*NOTE - This is a “read along review”. It will help greatly if you pull out your copy of this issue, if you were unlucky enough to buy one, as I am going to get a little nonsensical in my description of events as I am a little drunk and just flipping the pages and writing what I see.

This starts off bad from the very first splash page with Slade Wilson (DC’s Deathstroke the Terminator) conveying to us that -
“The world thinks it knows who I am. You should hear the names they call me. Mercenary. Assassin. Terminator. They don’t know me. No one does. But they are about to find out.”

Really? This is how we start? Okay, first off, those distinctions you list are pretty much spot on. You are those things. In fact, you regularly employ one to describe yourself all the time, Deathstroke the ‘Terminator’. Remember that? Or perhaps you were lamenting the fact that the world doesn’t ‘know’ you … the real you, the inner you? So what you are saying that after you do what you are about to do, the world will know who you really are deep down inside as a person?

The next four pages just heighten the disarray of this story and totally breaks down … no … it totally destroys any timing, flow and pacing. Ya know, important things when you are dealing with static images.

First we see a tranquil park scene with people walking around and enjoying life and then we get a close up of someone’s mouth, for some reason. Yes it is the Atom screaming ‘lookout’ as he falls through a gazebo, but the transition is horrible. We then see vines reaching across the next panel.

The next page we see Atom tangled in the vines of Floronic Man, okay, not bad. We saw the vines coming in the last panel, so this makes sense proper pacing has been established. We also see that Atom is, according to head and body sizes, currently in his normal, un-shrunken state. But then …

On the very next page, we see the special effects of him growing to normal un-shrunken size. Unfortunately for him, he is still tangled in the vines of our less than spectacular villain. What the hell happened here? Don’t try and tell me it was just poor perspective and he was small in the last scene. He had just fallen through the roof of a gazebo so he had to have size and mass already or he would have bounced off.

But wait, there’s more.

On the same page, we go from a panel of Atom growing to normal size and ensnared in vines (as previously bitched about), to him suddenly being alone, no vines in sight. He is now bending a huge, 6 foot long gas pipe that is sticking straight out of the ground, because parks always have those. How do I know it is a gas pipe? Oh, just wait, I will get to that.
On the next panel we see Atoms hand. Haha. Yep. He is holding the pipe you know. We needed that information. His right hand and a pipe is what we need to see. That is all.

So now, in the next panel, Atom is lighting a Zippo lighter. Yep, you could have shown him reaching in whatever utility belt he has on him in the last panel, but no, you showed us him holding a pipe, and now he has a lit zippo? (Of course you know where I am going with the pipe now, don’t you?)

Keep in mind, this entire fiasco is taking at least 7 seconds or so and our villain has yet to come back into play. He is not attacking Atom, he is not even mocking him with vile insults about his mother. I guess he is just checking the park scenery as Atom sets his plan into motion.

So now, the crescendo of the Atom vs. Floronic Man. Atom kills Floronic Man. He lights the gas coming from the pipe (the same pipe that was just sticking out of the ground in a community park, with no freaking cap on it, apparently spewing gas into the air even before Atom arrived!). He lit him ablaze. He killed him. Oh sure, the next panel shows ‘one hour later’ the police taking a glass cage away, trying to show that he is not dead, but this villain was made of wood. He is a tree. Atom lit a tree on fire using a natural gas blowtorch. Burned. Not to mention the rest of the park is now scorched.

Atom then walks home. In uniform. Just walking down the street for blocks, talking to himself. Did I mention he is still in uniform? Maybe Atom has no secret identity and is not worried about people seeing him, but a hero walking down the street in uniform is just freaking weird (JMS’s Superman the exception as he is doing it with purpose). Get a taxi.

Eh, enough of the panel by panel run down.

I could go on and on about this issue, but what started out as a short review, has seemed to turn into a 3 page manifesto or pure rambling as I try and retain all the ludicrous information I just witnessed in that book, I apologize and promise my other reviews will be shorter (though still not coherent or concise) but I could not contain myself in expressing, in detail, the horror that is this comics first few pages. It doesn’t get better.

From Slade going through this elaborate plan, getting all of these villains together, when all he had to do was fire the shotgun when Atom walked in the door (I mean Slade did end up just stabbing Atom … would a gunshot been more avoidable?), to Atom just shrinking to one foot tall to “run away” from Slade (Because smaller strides can get you better separation from danger?) to Cheshire crying in front of Slade? … Crying? … To art work that started out decent enough but fell off the pace pretty fast, to the most horrendous script and use of flow, timing and pacing I have been witness to, this is just a bad comic.

At the end, I don’t even care that another hero has died. And shouldn’t I? Even if it is just comic death?

This issue may not be my “bad comics Arc of the Covenant” that I have searched for my entire life, but it is the current leader, and while my warning may be far too late … be careful, my friend, once you open it, your face may indeed melt off your skull.



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Jeff
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« Reply #1 on: October 30, 2010, 04:26:51 AM »

Sounds lime you didn't have enough beer.   Cheesy

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“If I could go back in time and like tell 11 year old me that like not only do you get to go to Comic Con but you go every year.  So much so that you get greeted by Stan Lee when you show up.  And 11 year old me would be like - How did we get so fat?”- Kevin Smith
Perry
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« Reply #2 on: October 30, 2010, 01:52:59 PM »

Sounds lime you didn't have enough beer.   Cheesy



I need more just to wash the taste from my mouth.

Horrible piece O'shit that was.

I didn't even get to discuss the killing of Atom. I just couldn't stand anymore.

 Grin
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Jeff
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« Reply #3 on: October 30, 2010, 04:17:22 PM »

Are you sure you went into this "unbiased"?  I didn't think it was that bad and in fact I liked it.  I started picking up the series as a result.
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“If I could go back in time and like tell 11 year old me that like not only do you get to go to Comic Con but you go every year.  So much so that you get greeted by Stan Lee when you show up.  And 11 year old me would be like - How did we get so fat?”- Kevin Smith
Perry
Just an old man
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« Reply #4 on: October 30, 2010, 04:34:58 PM »

Yes, I am sure.
Follow along with the panel by panel description ... it is bad in the worst way.

Big, but yet small to big?
Gas just spewing from a pipe in the park?
A zippo lighter ?
In the grasp and then no-where in sight?
Cheshire Crying?
Why did Slade have to pull all of those villains? He just stabbed him, he could have shot him when he walked in the door.
Atom shrinking to a foot high to run away? why not smaller? Why that size when you can't run fast at all?

Horrible book man ... horrible.

Glad you liked it though.
 Grin
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Avatar mash-up is from Ross Pearsall... and of course those that own the original characters Smiley
Jeff
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« Reply #5 on: October 30, 2010, 09:02:43 PM »


Horrible book man ... horrible.

Glad you liked it though.
 Grin

Lol
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“If I could go back in time and like tell 11 year old me that like not only do you get to go to Comic Con but you go every year.  So much so that you get greeted by Stan Lee when you show up.  And 11 year old me would be like - How did we get so fat?”- Kevin Smith
Jimmy T
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« Reply #6 on: October 31, 2010, 05:38:47 AM »

Ever since Sean McKeever left the title, it has been absolute garbage under Felicia Hendersen and whatever editorial direction the book has gone. I'm too understand that JT Krul will be onboard soon with 100, but he's been wholly underwhelming with Green Arrow, so I see nothing of note to be said of his work currently.
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Jimmy T since 2001
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