Week In Review : Supreme #64 + The Spider #1 + Voltron Year One #2

Welcome back for more reviews folks! 

After the DC #1 overload yesterday, we've got some great new titles reviewed for you so dive right on in!

Supreme #64 (Image)

Story : Erik Larsen

Art : Erik Larsen & Cory Hamscher

(Reviewed by Akshay Dhar)

This was a very conflicting issue.
For those of you here last month, the last issue was the series' relaunch after the abrupt cancellation of the series right in the middle of Alan Moore's now-legendary run on the character. One, just one script by him remained unproduced and lay in the archives... the misty haze of legend surrounding it and every fanboy and fangirl who knew of it waited for the day it would finally see the light.

Then, Erik Larsen came on board to relaunch the series.

The good news is that he is a fantastic artist and arguably the most dedicated and consistent of the original Image founders, his work on his own series – Savage Dragon – being some legendary stuff itself for a writer/artist.

Anyway, after a pretty decent return last month with Erik on art duties for Moore's script, this month we finally get the first non-Alan script and the one that shows what they new season will be made off... and I gotta tell you, I'm mighty confused as to whether I love it or hate it.

Larsen has been a good fellow fanboy in that he picked up with the lost script and carried on the continuity of the last volume/series of Supreme and things like the Citadel Supreme, the Suprematons (robot guards, like the android-Supermen from the old DC silver age) and the multitudes of Supreme's from across realities – all the myriad elements that were Alan Moore's love letter to those good old days of comics.

Except Larsen then does the unexpected – which is a good thing – and reminds us of the original Liefeld-era Supreme – who was a murderous raging maniac – and in the end we are left with a most unique and brilliant finale. But I have to admit, given the stakes of what it implies and where this could go, I'm completely in a conundrum.

If you've seen his art, you know Larsen is a master and his pages, his action and his layouts are always great. If you haven't, well then you'll enjoy this issue and honestly, he is a fine example of how a comic can benefit from the writer being the artist as well. Not as a rule, but it makes a world of difference when translating to the page.

All in all, a good issue and one that fans will likely enjoy – but my guess is that till the next issue when Erik settles into his intended groove, we will all be waiting at the edge of the cliff.

SCORE : 6 / 10

The Spider #1 (Dynamite)

Story : David Liss

Art : Colton Worley

(Reviewed by Akshay Dhar)

Pure Pulpy Awesomeness!!

Being a total sucker for the old school Pulp-stories and the heroes they brought to life, I've been in heaven with the recent surge in these characters getting a rebirth – The Spider being among the lesser known but pretty intense.

Uncompromising and intense, The Spider is the alter ego of one Richard Wentworth, a difficult to judge clichéd millionaire playboy who stalks the night in his disturbingly cool webbed outfit (see cover on left!). But here he is neither mystically or mysteriously super or anything as was the forte of The Shadow, nor is he an avenging angel of the dark like Batman – quite simply he is a well-trained tough guy with a lot of money, connections and the like who decided that he'd had enough of the bad in the world and evil guys getting away with things. He just decided that he was going to take the law into his own hands and set things as straight as only he could because he would operate outside the law. Our hero is brutal and has no hesitation killing those he thinks are deserving... or even those he thinks might be getting off easy by dying. He does it anyway.

The issue sets him and his psyche and motivations up nicely as well as introducing several supporting characters, even a few not so supportive ones – but all important nonetheless. I've never read the novels that Liss has written, but I became a die-hard fan of his gritty, urban story abilities after his recent run on the mind-blowing Black Panther: Man Without Fear (and Deadliest Man Alive), which sadly ended far too soon.

Accompanying this excellent first issues' script is some very suitably grim and shadowy art by Colton Worley who really does a nice job with the tone of the pages and the way the pages flow from top to bottom. His panoramic and splash pages in particular look spectacular and it is his rendering of The Spider himself that really steals the show here.

Definitely worth a read if you like any of the stuff I've talked about here.

SCORE : 7.8 / 10

Voltron Year One #2 (Dynamite)

Story : Brandon Thomas

Art : Craig Cermak

(Reviewed by Anupam Sarkar)

For guys who can't guess it from the cover yet, the comic features the back-story of the Voltron Force before they came to Planet Arus, when they were known only as Space Explorer Squadron #686 a.k.a, the best squad in the entire universe. And in case you're thinking, NO, there are no big mecha robos or any of the silly shit.

This issue continues from where #1 left off(obviously): Sven and his teammate were surrounded by the bad guys of Private Planet Gomos. 

It begins with Sven and Lance performing some crazy action and finally escaping from one planet and crash landing into another. And the bad guys followed them to the other planet. So, Sven and his teammates try to defeat them which leads to Roswel Rabins (the guy Squadron #686 was carrying) finally dying.

Writer Brandon Thomas spins quite a good tale which keeps the readers entertained throughout the issue. Artist Craig Cermak's clear lines and awesome sequences do real justice to the script.

And finally a hat's off to colorist Adriano Lucas, whose colors are the only thing that keeps the issues alive.

SCORE : 7 / 10