By: Scott Kolins (writer and artist), Mike Atiyeh (colorist)
The Story: Citizen Cold versus Mr. Freeze. What can be cooler than that?
The Review: For a while now, DC has played the dicey game of allowing artists to take up writing duties, with mixed results. It can be a difficult transition to go from thinking in terms of visuals to more substantive storytelling. Developing rounded characters, layered plots, credible dialogue, and conscious themes is pretty hard, after all. So letting a fairly weak artist write a title that’ll be published regardless of consequence takes the diceyness to a whole new level.
Although he’s been co-credited for conceiving a few characters with Geoff Johns, Kolins seems to have little to no experience in fiction-writing, and it shows—rather painfully. His dialogue reads like every groaner line from every action flick you’ve ever seen, with excessive text styling to boot: “You broke the rules coming to my town, Freeze!” “Cold? I don’t have time for this!”
But the clichéd dialogue is only the symptom of Kolins’ weak character writing. He essentially latches on to the most superficial qualities of each character and plays it up embarrassingly. The Scottish Mirror Master talks like a bizarre combination of Willie MacDougal and Yoda: “He cannae help yeh now. Either dead or run-off he is.” Iris West reeks of the falsest emotions in reporters: “…it is this reporter’s opinion: that Lisa just needs someone to care—to help.”
You will find no savior in an engaging plot either. Kolins immediately destroys any depth or tension the issue might have by Citizen Cold stating flat-out within the first two pages that he’s a fake hero, an unnecessary admission as you can see that just from his “heroics” (“Thank you for saving all of us—but did you have to kill…to do it?” Cold’s response? “My pleasure, pretty little popsicle!”). Kolins misses a huge opportunity to play around with the question of Cold’s heroism, and in not doing so, he makes the end-game of this story almost completely moot.
It just seems that Kolins punched out a script based on vague ideas for a story without even thinking of how to give sense or weight to that story. When the news breaks out that his sister Lisa has murdered their father (one who apparently abused both of them as children and apparently continued that abuse on Lisa well into her adulthood), it seems Kolins can’t tell if Cold should be shocked, raging, tearful, or restrained, so he does all four at the same time, which reminds me of Jack Donaghy on 30 Rock going through all the stages of grief in two seconds.
By now, most of you know I am no fan of Kolins’ art, especially when his lines are muddied by the heavy, dark colors of Atiyeh. His character figures look rushed and rudimentary, and apparently, he can only convey strong emotions through close-ups on bulging eyes and shrunken pupils. And with his paneling and action sequences just as unimpressive, it feels like Kolins misses the mark on almost all counts.
Conclusion: Though it’s possible a dramatic improvement may be seen in the next chapter, I personally can’t bear the thought of having to read another issue of this. This marks the first occasion a debut issue has landed a title—of a three-part mini, no less—in the Dropped List.
Grade: D-
– Minhquan Nguyen
Some Musings: – How in the name of heaven and earth is “Cold snap!” supposed to be a tagline for Citizen Cold? It kind of makes me feel Kolins doesn’t exactly know what a cold snap is.
– For those of you still in doubt about Kolins’ severe limitations as a writer, he gives one character the following line: “Giggle! You gave it to him three times already, Mr. Mayor! Giggle!” That’s right—she says the word “giggle.” How editor Chris Conroy let this go makes me doubt the hiring standards at the DC offices.
Grade
Conclusion