Week In Review : Hawkeye #1 + Infected #1 + The First X-Men #1

Three more #1's folks! This week has been choc-full of new-comic goodness and we've got some doozies here for you today! The hotly anticipated Hawkeye and First X-Men as well as IDW's new offering. Enjoy!
- Always-helpful Akshay

Hawkeye #1 (Marvel)

Story : Matt Fraction

Art : David Aja (linework), Matt Holingsworth (colors)

(Reviewed by Anubhav Dasgupta)

Marvel is winning.

I can’t believe I typed that. I’m a harcore DC guy and I typed “Marvel is winning.”

Now, I don’t know a lot about Hawkeye beyond what I’ve read since the Heroic Age. I wasn’t really a fan until I read last year’s Hawkeye & Mockingbird by Jim McCann, which was amazing fun. But this one… it’s textbook. It’s brilliant. It’s so good that it makes making brilliant comics look easy.

This comic doesn’t have any epic fights between super-powered heroes or alien invasions or another stupid plot involving the Phoenix, rather it’s a human story. It’s what happens when Hawkeye isn’t 'Avengering'. It’s what Clint Barton does when he isn’t hanging around with Tony Stark or Steve Rogers.

Three pages in, Matt Fraction has nailed Clint Barton’s character. He can be an ass at times, but his heart is in the right place.

The rest of the story is about him taking on some Russian gangster-type who wants to get the tenants out of a building he owns. It might not sound like much, but it’s executed really well. Plus, it feels quite refreshing to have such a grounded story, what with all the cosmic douche-baggery going on over in AvX.

Hawkeye #1 wouldn’t have been a great comic without the awe-inspiring art. The colours by Matt Holingsworth are gritty and muted, perfectly complementing David Aja’s noir-like linework. David’s art is beautiful. There isn’t even a millimetre of this comic that looks ugly. Emotion simply oozes out of those panels. It’s just so beautiful. The colours really help to set the mood, I loved how every scene has a different colour palette. It allows the comic to shift to another time without a “2 HOURS AGO” caption interfering with the story. It just makes everything more fluid, more real, and very inviting. As I said : textbook.

Flaws, you ask? Couldn’t find any. I think this comic did what it intended to do. It achieved its goal. It’s an emotional story, it’s funny, it’s gritty without being dark and it’s just plain brilliant. At $ 2.99, it’s a bargain.

Pick this comic up. Read it. I doubt anyone’s going to hate it. Marvel’s got another hit on their hands after Waid’s Daredevil began last year. And this may shape up to be even better than that.

Definitely a Hawk-Aye!

SCORE : 9.5 / 10

Infected #1 (IDW)

Story : Scott Sigler

Art : Chad Minshew

(Reviewed by Anubhav Dasgupta)

I’d never heard of the novel “Infected” by Scott Sigler before. I plunged into the comic, an adaptation of that novel, knowing absolutely nothing about the story and nothing about the writers or artists involved. And you know what? It’s nearly great.

The art is pretty decent, with some really good colouring work and great angles.

What kills it is exposition. If there’s one thing I hate, it's exposition in a comic-book. When a novel is adapted into any form, be it a film or a comic, a certain amount of exposition is necessary, but it should be weaved in cleverly so as not to interfere with the storytelling. A lot of the exposition is handled well in this comic, but a lot of it buries the story. Character’s backstories are told rather than revealed, a lot of information is narrated and it becomes too much. It just made the comic feel bloated. The comic gets better as we reach the cliffhanger, but by that time, the first few pages have already left a bad taste in your mouth.

There’s a great comic in there somewhere. It’s got some great dialogue, an intriguing concept about a plague-like infection that’s making people go haywire and it doesn’t falter in execution. It does a good job of establishing the effects of the infection with some brilliant scenes. But it’s too wordy to be tense or suspenseful.

It’s not a bad comic by a long shot, but it’s not great either. Such a meaty concept could have been much, much better.

SCORE : 7 / 10

The First X-Men #1 (Marvel)

Story : Neal Adams and Christos Gage

Art : Neal Adams

(Reviewed by Akshay Dhar)

Well it's finally here folks, the madcap new addition to the X-Men mythos – a series that's so over-the-top in it's premise alone that most fans threw up their hands and then proceeded to sadly shake their heads at the waste of talent and money that Marvel has undertaken here in an effort to squeeze more money from the fans who just like to see Wolverine tear #$&@ up.

The premise?

The X-Men had an informal incarnation before Charles Xavier started his school for gifted youngsters and was bank-rolled by Logan (a.k.a. Wolverine for those who've been living under a rock for the past half-century) who was the first to undertake the mission to save young mutants from being exploited and hurt and giving them a better chance. Seriously. That's it – and of course Sabretooth is still with him, Magneto is in the mix and it just looks like either the greatest comic ever written or the biggest train wreck since the slap in the face of fans everywhere that was Joe Quesada's One More Day retcon story arc from Spiderman a few years ago.

I picked this up because (1) Christos Gage is one of my favoured writers among the current crop who has done good, steady work for both Wildstorm and Marvel and (2) Neal Adams is an artistic legend. Though yes, a part of me winced a little at the news that Adams was also writing – a feeling anyone who has tried to read his ongoing Batman: Odyssey series and felt their brain try to escape out their ears will share.

The verdict?

Honestly? As a first issue, it's passable at best. Thankfully nowhere near as brain dissolving as Adams' other mega-endeavour, the story feels forced and for me did not read well. It feels a little like they had an idea and are now trying too hard to make it work – not the worst script I've come across in a while, but one that hardly makes me want to bother with #2, the only bright spot being a young female mutant named Holo who can seems to have mind-influencing powers not unlike super-villain Master-Mind. Plus the representation of Prof. X also felt like it was being done just because and for me clashes violently with the character as we know it. PLUS, the art by Adams is mediocre at best (far from his best) and felt painfully inconsistent at a lot of places.

If you are a glutton for punishment or just can't stop yourself from picking up every Wolverine or X-book on the shelf, go for it. If you like a good comic and don't want to soil your brain and the good memories of the X-origins, I'd say skip this and pretend it's a “What If?” event. It may surprise us because Gage is good at what he does, but this first installment does not bode well.

SCORE : 3 / 10