By: Stephen Scott (writer), David Hahn (art), Guillem Mari (colors)
The Story: An assassin lady who dresses up in disguise to kill her targets.
What’s Good: Not much. There are a million silly, funny quips I could make, but that would be rude with a creator-owned book title like this one. So let’s focus on the art, which is the best part of this comic.
The art reminds me a little bit of Oeming’s art in Powers. It isn’t as good as Oeming’s and it isn’t quite the same, but it has that similar “Did you draw this with a Sharpie?” look to it that I enjoy. Given that I might scream if I see another gritty/assassin book that is all photo-realistic, it was nice to see pretty good art on a story like this even if it did fail a little during the action scenes.
What’s Not So Good: The story is big-time confusing. I have a standing personal rule that I don’t read message board comments before I review a comic here at WCBR so that what the reader is getting is my unpolluted opinion and not some group-think review. And the only time I break that rule is when I read a comic like Murderland that just confused the hell out of me and I think there’s a chance that I just didn’t get it or read it properly. So, I can say with confidence that this is a confusing comic…there’s not trick to it. It might get better in future issues, but it didn’t work for me here.
The story centers around an assassin-ess named Method. She plays herself up as an actress who is just playing her part (the part where she kills people), but the story goes VERY non-linear about half-way through and starts flashing back to what I think was Method before she became an assassin (I really wasn’t sure). Then another assassin shows up (or was he a bodyguard?) to prevent her from killing her target, they fight, her handler/boyfriend is wounded and Method suddenly grows spikes out of her knees and fingers and wins the fight with the assassin/guard, but then runs away without killing her target…. Hopefully telling that as a run-on sentence will approximate what it was like to read. It is a bit of a mess.
The only glimmer of hope I see for the story is the tie-in to arabber, street huxterism and the possibility that what we’ve seen here in issue #1 was all a ruse of sorts, but I just didn’t see enough promise to encourage me much.
Conclusion: WTF? This is why I hate pre-ordering comics, because now I’m stuck with issue #2 whether I want it or not.
Grade: D
- Dean Stell
Filed under: Image Comics Tagged: | comic book reviewsw, David Hahn, Dean Stell, Guillem Mari, Image Comics, Murderland, Murderland #1, Murderland #1 review, review, Stephen Scott, Weekly Comic Book Review
I know I’m way late on the release of this comic. I’m on the way to the store for the second issue. Nice read
Hey Stephen,
And….that’s the other bad thing about reviewing comics online….knowing that the creators are actually reading this stuff.
Take care!
Dean
Dean,
As the guy who wrote and created Murderland, I think you should know that David and I read all the reviews we can find and don’t feel peed on at all. We just thought it was raining.
Thanks for paying attention to the book at all, and if you still regret preordering issue 2 after reading it, get in touch. For you only, I’ll refund your money if you will back up your dissatisfaction with another blistering review.
Keep on speaking your mind.
Hey Rob…. I’m glad you liked it. The worst thing about reviewing comics online is when you don’t care for a new creator owned title because you know they’re worked really hard and are publishing it at a loss and here I am, peeing all over their work. So, it does make me glad to hear someone liked it. It just wasn’t my thing…
I disagree. I liked not being spoon fed the story. I look forward to more from these guys.
I lol’d when you wrote that at one point, she just grows spikes.
Was marginally curious about this title….not anymore.