Comic Preview Review: Big Max #1

[dvandom]

Dave's Rant Special: Big Max #1

     Dan Slott sent me a review copy PDF of the first issue of his new comic
from Mr. Comics tonight.  And considering that I screwed up my March order
(as mentioned in an earlier column) and was worried about getting this one at
all, I'm very glad he did.  :)
     It was initially solicited for March, but is a tiny bit delayed, so
expect it in April.  Well, that or it's not on any of the solicitation lists
for March 28 but is coming out then anyway.

CAPSULE

     Slott's writing gets a little too corny and wink-wink in a few places,
but is otherwise a great comic in the "this is how you do a FUN comic" vein.
Fry's art is excellent throughout.  And it has talking non-human primates!
You need this book.  $2.99

RANT

     In lieu of spoiler space, here's the credits!

Credits:
     Writer - Dan Slott
     Penciller - James Fry
     Inker - Andrew Pepoy
     Colors - Twilight Graphics
     Letters - K.T. Smith
     Editor - Lynaire Thompson (Omar Banmally assistant)
     EiC - Ty Templeton
     Surely to blame for something - Fabian Nicieza

     Okay, the cover has a gorilla in a red, white, blue and gold superhero
costume with a large M across his chest, and a skinny little monkey sidekick
in blue trunks and mask on his shoulder.  I'm already sold at this point, at
least for a three issue try.  Of course, Slott is currently one of the few
writers who gets a three issue try from me automatically, but the superhero
gorilla cover certainly helps.  As does James Fry art.  And the fact that Ty
Templeton is involved in this project.
     I think perhaps my expectations of this book are, um, high.  :)
     On the other hand, they're largely being met.  Okay, so the writing goes
a little TOO retro-cornball at times, but it's definitely in the right
spirit.  And Fry's art really works well here (and I think I caught at least
one Liberty Project cameo).
     Here's a brief summary of the story, for those who want that sort of
thing (and since I implied above that there would be some spoilers).  Big Max
is what some call a Legacy Hero, he's taking up the mantle of a hero from the
previous generation.  In this case, patriotic hero Old Glory (definitely
better than Max taking up the costume of OG's teammate Bouncing Betty!).  He
has his own sidekick, Shakes the monkey (who is of normal monkey intellect,
but can understand Max and be understood by him, if only in a Lassie sort of
way).  
     It opens with a somewhat unsuccessful fight scene and an after-action
analysis by Old Glory.  This helps establish that Max is still fairly new at
being the main hero (although he may have been a sidekick himself for a long
time).  Then Max flies off to work and we hit probably the weakest part of
the issue, a newsroom scene that really doesn't go anywhere that countless
Perry White and JJJameson parodies haven't already gone.  (I do wonder if hte
ZigZag mentioned on one of the newspaper headlines is the skunk/tiger hybrid
of anthropomorphics fame, or a new character for this setting.)  "Work" is a
gorillagram company, and he wears a human mask to pass as a guy in a gorilla
suit, which is rather clever.  It also wouldn't work at all with Templeton's
style of more realistic gorilla (as seen in the back pages).  :)  Oh, and we
get a brief glimpse at the Village Idiot, a Slapstick-like hero who also
works in Big Max's city.
     Most of the rest of the issue is devoted to a really good fight scene
against your basic "criminal mime who can make his mimery work" guy.  You
know, he can actually trap you in a box, make you walk against the wind,
shoot you with a notional bazooka...okay, that last one isn't part of the
usual repertoire.  Very fun fight.
     At the end we get some design sketches (looks like Slott's not a bad
artist himself) and five of the dozen rejected cover ideas.  Given the stark
simplicity of the actual cover (just Max and Shakes on a black background
with logo), it makes one wonder why it took so many tries.  :)  Then again:

     Rejected cover 4: "BIG MAX beats the hell out of some guy.  What on
Earth was Ty thinking?"  
     Rejected cover 5: "BIG MAX beats up some guy, AND says something mean to
him.  It was at that point that DAN sat TY down and had a talk."

     Heh.

     Anyway, Mr. Comics is a new company (their big thing is the new Planet
of the Apes comics), so you might have trouble finding this one on the
shelves.  Bug your retailer about it RIGHT NOW.  They need to tell Diamond to
stock this one.  And you need to buy a copy.

   Dave Van Domelen, "Just what was goin' through your head there, son?" "Well, the word 'ouch' comes to mind." - Old Glory and Big Max