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Wednesday, June 30, 2004
Empire review
Hello, I would like to talk to you about a comic book called Empire. It’s by Mark Waid and Barry Kitson, and the book is certainly interesting. Overall, I liked it if not loved it.
Oh wait, I have to write more than that? I guess so. The book’s plot concerns a Dr. Doom-type villain achieving his goal of world domination. The villain, named Golgoth (one of the things I didn’t like about this book was the character’s name. They seemed like something a twelve-year-old boy would come up for some fantasy novel), deals with the reality of the old cliché “be careful what you wish for.”
Golgoth achieved his goal through absolute brutality. This is the first mature-readers book from Mark Waid I have read and it was kind of startling to see the man known for bringing back a Silver Age feel to comics do a book that features torture, nudity and drug use (I really, really liked the way Waid dealt with the world’s last superhero). Still, none of it seems gratuitous. It all has to deal with what I believe the theme of the book was. That is, the vicious and ruthless approach Golgoth used to accomplish his objective has infected everything else in his life. I don’t want to spoil anything (one thing I like about this book is that it has some very surprising plot twists) but even the part of Golgoth’s life that he tries to keep pure and good soon turns out to be as rotten as any of his underlings are.
His underlings are in fact a big part of the book. Lucullan, Golgoth’s Minister of War, proves to be one of the most interesting. He is someone who at first seems to be a not-so-bright follower figures heavily in one of the more absorbing developments in the book, one involving the resistance movement in Greenland. The assassins Xanna and Lohkyn were also written very well and were two characters that show how the corruption in Golgoth’s empire affected everybody.
Kitson’s art, which I wasn’t familiar with before this book, was certainly better than the average genre-book artist. The design of the characters (especially Golgoth) and the world around them is able to really bring across the menace in the book. For some reason the look of the book reminded me of 80’s sci-fi movies, and I mean that in a good way. The book does sometimes have a cinematic feel, but it doesn’t hit you over the head with it like books such as The Ultimates do. I understand that Waid and Kitson are going to be working on the Legion of Superheroes. I think Kitson will be able to do some fun stuff with the DC Universe in the 30th Century.
Pick up Empire if you want to see certain conventions in superhero comics done in a smart way. I’m glad that Waid and Kitson were able to get all of their issues of this creator-owned series out (the original publisher went bankrupt). When these two come back again with something of their own, I’ll be sure to try it.
Permanent Link: 11:47 AM |
1 comments
Comments:
I liked Empire a lot, and if this team is on Legion of Superheroes, I suddenly have an interest in something I was totally indifferent to before. Waid has really grown on me. It was odd to see the mature slant of this book after his Fantastic Four stuff, and even odder was the sudden dramatic shift towards adult audiences -- the book clearly went "Mature Readers" in the middle of the story, and the change is comically jarring. In a good way.
# posted by tomthedog : 3:21 PM
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