By: Josh Williamson (writer), Sami Basri (artist), Jessica Kholinne (colorist)
The Story: Don’t be hating on me, brother—we’re all of the same people, right?
The Review: I think it’s only right that I tell you how much I hate research. When I studied journalism in college, that was always my least favorite part of the writing process. I’d read the news, and enjoy that, but I hated the meticulousness of having to sift through mountains of information to find the details I needed. And now that life’s gotten so busy, I don’t even keep up with the news very well.
So it should be to no one’s surprise that I had no idea a new writer was taking over this title from Ron Marz up until I got this issue. It hardly mattered, though; I could tell, just from reading through the first half, that something was amiss. The thought that kept running through my head was, Man, Marz is having something of an off day, isn’t he? So it goes without saying that the change in writing doesn’t feel like it’s for the better.
First off, Williamson is a great deal more liberal in his use of narration than Marz ever was. Williamson fills whole panels with text, mostly exposition. More problematically, he gives it all a whiny, plaintive tone this series never sported before now. You can hear it wafting from Fallon’s recounting of her background: “Things were easier when I was a Black Razor. Becoming the FBI liaison and tracking down extraterrestrial threats looked like a promotion. Not I see it was really a punishment. This job was my whole life.”
The dialogue has gotten more emotionally charged, too. Marz always impressed me with his choice to make the cast as restrained in expressing their emotions as possible. Whether you’re talking Voodoo or Agent Fallon or even Green Lantern, nearly every character on this series is a soldier or peace officer of some kind, so holding back their true feelings made a lot of sense. I don’t know if this is Williamson’s style or if it’s the climactic nature of the issue, but it seems like everyone has decided to let all their inside stuff out: “You’re an abomination! You must be annihilated!” “You will not ruin…my mission!” “Are you insane?!” “All this power the Black Razors gave me—all that I can do—and I can’t stop a single woman half my size?!”
Even if we can get over the difference in style, we still have problems with the substance. The issue ends on a major cliffhanger—spoiler alert—Voodoo is actually a clone of an original already in the military’s custody. Quite a surprise, but not in a good way. It’s one of those twists that feels more appropriate to a series jumping the shark on its last legs, since we’re a little too early to be discovering that the protagonist (whom we know not too much about in the first place) is a mere doppelganger. But the major problem with this development is it simply makes no sense. If the Razors had the original all along, why didn’t they get more information out of her before? And why did Fallon, who knew the original’s execution was going down that soon, forget about her until the last minute? Why would they want to execute her in the first place? Why didn’t Voodoo learn about this when she read both Fallon and her partner’s minds?
Despite all the problems with the script, Basri and Kholinne continue to deliver solid work, getting to demonstrate some of their sci-fi chops in this issue, what with all the alien-on-alien sparring. I won’t spoil it for you, but the scene where Voodoo finally vanquishes her opponent is spectacularly rendered, if a bit grisly.
Conclusion: I think it’s a mistake to take Marz off this title, exacerbated by the fact that the switch is really on the climax of his first arc. If this is what we can expect from this series now, I don’t think I want to be a part of it.
Grade: C
-Minhquan Nguyen
Some Musings: - I don’t want to cause trouble, but Voodoo’s whole spiel about the Daemonites as a dying race and needing to hybridize with humans to evolve—well, that sounds like a complete rip-off of a Dr. Who plot, where the Daleks (also with much contention among themselves) experiment in merging with humans to save their race. The relevant episodes, for the curious, are “Daleks in Manhattan” and “Evolution of the Daleks,” from Series 3 of Dr. Who.
Filed under: DC Comics, Reviews Tagged: | Daemonites, DC, DC Comics, Jess Fallon, Jessica Kholinne, Josh Williamson, Ron Marz, Sami Basri, Voodoo, Voodoo #5, Voodoo #5 review
