By: Fred Van Lente (writer), Jefte Palo (art), Jean-Francois Beaulieu (colors) & Dave Lanphear (letters)
The Story: Taskmaster encounters “The Town that Was Hitler”.
What’s Good: It is hard to write a good comic book. It is also challenging to write a funny comic book. But, it is a true accomplishment to write a comic that is both good AND funny, but that is what Van Lente has pulled off again with the third issue of Taskmaster.
Towards the end of last issue, we got the hint that there might be more to Taskmaster’s past than we had previously thought, but we learn a LOT more in this issue. Instead of just telling us the whole story, Van Lente splits the origin into two parts: one-half is Taskmaster’s brain starting to remember things from his past whereas the other half is Nick Fury telling Captain Steve the other half of the story. This is so much more interesting than just having the history explained to us in narration boxes. Under Van Lente’s pen, Taskmaster is becoming a very interesting character!
What really sets Van Lente apart is the humor because it isn’t just a bunch of fart jokes. It is humor for smart people. If you read this comic and aren’t laughing it is because you are dumb and just don’t get it. Don’t worry….they have Deadpool comics for you. The humor is functioning at all sorts of different levels. For example, some of the humor is pseudo-raunchy, such as the main bad guy announcing that his organization is called the Minions International Liberation Front. Get it? Or, on a more subtle level, how about the way the town of Hitler’s are all planning to attack their neighbor for “elbow room” and how they all speak German with a Passau accent (the town where Hitler grew up). It is just smart writing for smart people.
Palo is very much up to the script that Van Lente gives him. He uses a much more traditional pen and ink style than the heavy, heavy black shadows we see in so many comics these days and it makes his characters look dynamic and alive. And there are lots of neat things with panel layout here too, including a couple of 12-panel grids that work very nicely. It would be nice to see more comics that looked like this.
What’s Not So Good: Only one minor complaint…….As much as I loved the name of the big-bad’s organization, I was sad to see the next page explain the joke to everyone. Van Lente’s writing is so smart that it is a bit of an Easter egg hunt and it is less fun when you see that he is pointing out where some of the eggs are hidden. But, that is a minor complaint.
Conclusion: This is probably the leader on the course for best superhero miniseries of 2010. Taskmaster probably just needs to par the final hole to win the title, but I’ll bet that this creative team will go for an eagle. Very, very good.
Grade: A-
– Dean Stell
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