My Greatest Adventure #3 – Review

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

The Story: Robotman in the jungle!  Garbage Man meets Batman!  Tanga flies with whales!

The Review: Back in my creative writing days, I had a professor (shout-out to Ron Carlson) who would talk to us about the hump of fiction known as the “Big Fat Middle,” the long stretch of stuff between the beginning and the end, the dreaded second act.  Here is where the merits of a story rises to the top or hits rock bottom, where a writer has to maintain your interest as his plot builds and finds itself.  Needless to say, many otherwise fine stories fall to the Big Fat Middle.

So it goes with “Robotman.”  Matt Kindt did a good job setting up a Silver Agey version of the mechanical man, putting Cliff’s technological capabilities to creative use (less so here, as Cliff simply burns his way through the mecha-snake’s gullet).  But this installment mostly treads ground we’ve covered before—Robotman’s regenerative abilities, Maddy’s guilt (of what, we still don’t know), the mutating nanites—and there isn’t quite enough action to make up for the lack of new information.  At least Scott Kolins continues to deliver a perky, charming-looking feature, and Mike Atiyeh employs a stunning spectrum of colors for all the nanite-infected creatures in the story, from silver-red geckos to sapphire blue butterflies to neon purple-green-yellow lava monsters—yes, I did say nanite-infected lava monster.  It’s pretty neat.

Aaron Lopresti already draws Batman over on Justice League International, but now he gets to write the Dark Knight too.  For the most part, he does a fine job.  His Batman is a to-the-point, tough-talking guy, although so generic you can probably have the same dialogue come out of any cop’s mouth: “You can talk.  Good.  Stay down.  I have some questions I want answered.”  It seems his only service to the story is to act as investigator, so I don’t know if his use in this story is worth his distracting presence.  Then again, without him, you basically have a cut-and-dry business drama (“I want this trail dead and buried.  Permanently.”) and some random monster-versus-monster action.  Still, a dinosaur in the sewer can be pretty good times, and Lopresti delivers a good-looking feature, well serviced by Matt Ryan’s inks and John Kalisz’s colors.

But of all the features spawned by this grand sci-fi experiment, the only one that has the stuff to support a worthwhile ongoing is Kevin Maguire’s “Tanga.”  Not only has he developed a very likable and distinctive protagonist, he’s also done a terrific job building an equally likable and distinctive supporting cast.  By now, you’ve grown to know and enjoy the strong-and-silent Korghan and sarcastic Bent (“The stench in here is quite unbearable.”  “Ah, your sense of smell.  I envy you that.”  “Not today, you don’t.”) as well as Tanga herself.  And now we can add Berilidos, a consummate xenologist, to the gang.  His lack of self-consciousness about his own weirdness makes for some pretty funny jokes (“That goo will prove…helpful.”  Tanga: “How’s that?—she asked, a little afraid of the answer.”), but as a man determined to get answers, he not only helps Tanga uncover some much needed information about the conspiracy against her, he gets her to reveal some primo facts about herself.  For example, we finally discover the source of her powers, “thermonuclear chi,” which just sounds awesome.  Even though this feature is mostly panels full of talking heads, Maguire’s great sense of expression and depth, made more so by Cheetham’s lush colors, creates an eye-catching, lovely comic.

Conclusion: To be perfectly honest, I’m mostly collecting this series for the “Tanga” feature.  The others aren’t really terrible, and they certainly have their positive points, but they really do suffer by comparison.

Grade: B-

– Minhquan Nguyen

Some Musings: – I like Robotman’s quiet freakout upon encountering an ape, which I assume to be a subtle reference to his long history with Monsieur Mallah.

– Wow, Maguire.  I don’t even know what to say about that alien whale creature you dreamed up except that it looks genuinely weird and strange and a little horrifying—and amazing.