My Greatest Adventure #2 – Review

By: Too many to list—check out the review.

The Story: Robotman gets in a tight squeeze.  Garbage Man learns the pitfalls of hailing ladies from dark alleys.  Tanga blows her stack.

The Review: For everyone who loves to read, you know a good story when it not only captures your interest, but sustains it, making you lose your sense of time and place until you finish, blinking in surprise that you are indeed still on Earth.  A multi-part feature doesn’t make itself conducive to that kind of immersive experience.  Just when you really start getting into the story, it cuts itself off, leaving you faintly annoyed at the interruption.  So it goes here.

Matt Kindt’s “Robotman” has really shaped up to be an enjoyable sample of classic sci-fi, unapologetically zany with plenty of heart.  While Cliff has a couple moments of moodiness, where he blandly notes his increasing lack of humanity, mostly he delivers a dry narration that complements the wacky storyline well: “…it’s up to me to figure out a way to kill this crazy mutated rice that’s zombified all these people…!”  Kindt makes good on this series’ title, giving Cliff out-of-box quests to sort out, like a giant, mechanized snake, but he also maintains some ongoing drama in the background; it turns out the tension between Cliff and Maddy may be more than just romantic, as Cliff states, “Since the race in Utah…I know she feels guilty.  And maybe she should.”  I must say, when Scott Kolins can go all-out cartoony, he delivers mighty fun, Silver Age-esque art, bolstered by Mike Atiyeh’s Technicolors.

It gets a little harder to talk about Aaron Lopresti’s “Garbage Man” every time it appears.  Lopresti hasn’t managed to do anything to endear the character to our hearts or get us invested in his story.  Besides an overall lack of direction to the plot (when the Reverend asks G. Man what he wants to do, the monsterfied man replies vaguely, “I don’t know.  I want my life back.”), the feature lacks a specific tone.  Superficially, it aims for serious horror, but the simplistic, obvious writing just can’t cut it, not with such soapy lines as, “Richard, I…I can’t believe it!  I’m so happy you’re alive…!”  And it seemed a mistake from the beginning to bring in Batman as a supporting character, as he’s done nothing for the story except make us question why he’s there.  By now, Lopresti’s solid art (with Matt Ryan’s inks and John Kalisz’s colors) just can’t make up for the script’s undermining failings.

Kevin Maguire’s “Tanga,” on the other hand, takes some appreciable steps forward in giving our heroine some depth and some stakes to fight for.  She was introduced as a wanderer, so it never seemed like she’d be given to attaching herself to anyone or anything.  But as she soberly contemplates in orbit of the world she feels pressured to leave, you realize her wandering ways were by necessity than choice.  It’s actually a very touching moment when she looks down at her adopted planet with watery eyes, a stark contrast to the usually hyper and upbeat attitude she usually projects.  Now, though, she’s determined to hold on to her new home and friends, even if they do resent her (Bent: “I have three injured tentacles from our last outing, one of them a dominant tentacle.”).  Maguire’s art not only makes convincing alien figures, but highly expressive ones as well—the wary look in Bent’s eyes after Tanga finds him speaks volumes—even sans eyebrows, nose, and mouth.

Conclusion: A much stronger effort overall from at least two of the features, though “Garbage Man” remains a kind of inert weight on the title.

Grade: B-

– Minhquan Nguyen

Some Musings: – I may be alone, but I would love an ongoing spin-off series featuring the adventures of Tanga, Korghan, and Bent.  Weirdest trio of friends ever.

– If any of you are wondering where the overfishing problem comes from, this issue makes it clear: Robotman’s eating ‘em all.  But only because he needs to fuel his rocket power.