Weekly Comic Book Review

By: Mark Millar (writer), Leinil Yu (pencils), Gerry Alanguilan (inks), Sunny Gho (colors), Clayton Cowles (letters) & Nicole Boose (editor)

The Story: Will Simon/Superior make a deal with the devil to save Earth.

Four Things:

1. Has a popcorn-y summer movie feel. – I can totally see this being a summer movie and I’m sure Millar has either already signed with a producer or is hard at work securing such a deal.  That’s not a bad thing because this could be a lot of fun to see on the big screen.  The story is linear, doesn’t ask too much of the reader and has a happy ending.  This comic could be adapted without too much fuss.  Yay!

2. Great linework. – For me, the real star of this series has been the Yu/Alanguilan art team.  Even if the art is a much more realistic than I like, I can still appreciate what’s going on here.  The hard thing with realism is that you have to nail it and that takes special artists to not give us faces that fall apart when you stare at them for too long.  Yu and Alanguilan are up the challenge.  They also do a pretty good job of capturing the super-powered action, which is (again) hard for realistic artists to pull off (for the same reason a photograph almost never has the vitality of the real thing).  My only fear when I see a comic like this is that they’re inspiring other young artists….who are far less talented….to draw like them because this is NOT a style that looks good when it isn’t done well.

3. Sunny Gho is a very diverse colorist. – I’ve been really impressed with this guy’s versatility.  This coloring might be a little more highlighted than I usually like, but he’s doing it largely within the confines of the linework, so I can deal with it.  But, this coloring is 180 degrees away from the gorgeous work that he’s done on the Velocity miniseries from Top Cow (where I first was exposed to Mr. Gho’s work) and on the current Incredible Hulk for Marvel.  He’s definitely a colorist to keep an eye on.

4. Ultimately light, fluffy and a little predictable. – I’ve been pretty positive on this series, which is going to make people wonder why it isn’t getting an “A” down below.  Ultimately what holds this series back (for me) is that it’s too light and fluffy.  It’s a good time and you’ll enjoy it and the art is pretty, but there’s nothing in this comic that is going to get seared into my brain (example….the panel in Kick Ass 1 where Kick Ass has been brutalized by the bad guys and he stands up, pulls up his pants, grabs a chair-leg and swears he’s going to beat the crap out of them).  It’s pretty obvious that Millar is thinking film rights when he wrote this series and sometimes you’re going to get summertime fluff….and that’s fine.  In some ways, this series reminds me of the film Super 8 from last summer.  That film was cute and made a lot of money, but I didn’t LOVE it.  If they’d made Super 8 a little darker or a little edgier, I would have liked it more and it would have made 1/10 the money.  Such is life.  And, Millar has hardly lost it…..he’s still doing edgy work that pushes the limits of decency like Nemesis or Kick Ass 2.  You just won’t find that edginess in this series.

Conclusion: Light, enjoyable and not to filling.  This will make a fun movie when it comes out and I’ll be right there in line to pay my money and then complain that it wasn’t edgier. 

Grade: B

-Dean Stell

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Filed under: Marvel Comics Tagged: | Clayton Cowles, Dean Stell, Gerry Alanguilan, Icon, Leinil Yu, Mark Millar, Marvel, Nicole Boose, review, Sunny Gho, Superior, Superior #7, Superior #7 review