By: Joe Benitez (creator, writer & art), Peter Steigerwald (colors) & Josh Reed (letters)
The Story: In a steampunky world, a mysterious & lovely mercenary comes to the aid of a half-mechanical monster.
What’s Good: The big attraction on this title is Joe Benitez’s art. If you see the image on the cover and like that, you’ll probably like this book because that is pretty much what you get. Everything is just very highly detailed: the guns have all these steam-punky hoop-a-joops all over them, belts are covered with detailed pouches, shirts have intricate buckles (the better to allow bosoms to heave) and goggles have individual little screws. As we know, even with a high level of detail on the characters, art can sometimes run amok, but Benitez also does many things with unique panel layouts and backgrounds (or lack thereof) to help tell the story. The color palate is very muted (mostly shades of gray), but that makes Lady Mechanika’s red eyes really stand out. More comics go for that “stark red in a field of gray” look than actually pull it off, but it works nicely here.
As for the hook of the story, we should dispense a spoiler warning first. So far, it is a very simple, but worthwhile story. Lady Mechanika hunts down a partially mechanical monster, but befriends it when she learns it is just hungry (establishing that she is a friendly mercenary). Later the monster is killed by the Blackpool (a sinister industrialist-type) who is trying to capture half-mechanical creatures for his own schemes. It turns out that Mechanika is partially mechanical, but has no memory of her past. Blackpool tries to capture her, they fight, she escapes…stay tuned for issue #1.
Nothing too edgy or complex there, but you can see that story being a decent frame for a comic series.
What’s Not So Good: Not much really. There are a few panels where the art isn’t quite as good as elsewhere in the book and a few where it looked like the omitted background might have been a time-constraint problem and not an artistic choice. But, you could say those sorts of things about most books on the stands.
Conclusion: An intriguing first chapter. Worth a look when the #1 issue comes out.
Grade: B
– Dean Stell
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