Axe Cop had always been one of those properties where I had heard of but never had a chance to read the book for myself. I was aware of the TV show, and had seen the initial episode, but I wasn’t overly impress by the show. While the show did not encourage me to continue watching, I still had interest in the property because it just sounded like a good idea that could be fun. So I decided to skip the TV show, and try the comic maybe thinking that this property is just better appreciated in comic form and not in TV show, and after reading the first issue of Axe Cop: The American Choppers, I was right. The book is just a great story, that has just tons of imagination, funny moments, over the top action, and a bad ass cop that goes out for an adventure and is suddenly joined by similar heroes with axe wielding abilities that goes from crazy to overdrive crazy. The tone and pacing of this book is great and it fits with what you would expect from an Axe Cop book. It’s over the top, and fast, and the dialogue really lends itself to be really out there. Even the way heroes meet each other is just great, the main team is united by a stickup that a group called the Food Force Three tried to pull but the villains are thwarted by the three heroes working together whether they admit it or not.
The dialogue in this book is very good too. You can appreciate this best in the pages with Captain Axe, and Axe Cop. One of my favorite’s parts of Axe Cop and Capt. Axe dialogue is when they are going back and forth on who should be the leader of the team. Captain Axe pulling the rank card on him to justify that he should be captain was hilarious, but I loved Axe Cop’s response even more when he says “Well, maybe I’ll go get my Captain license, then I can be Captain.” It was just a good funny moment of the book.
Even the Origin story for Capt. Axe was awesome, I loved how he explains that comes from “Captain Planet” a planet filled with Captains, and how their planet got destroyed by the General Planet, and he was shipped out of his planet in an asteroid. Its stuff like that that tickles your funny bone.
The art in this book is just amazing as well, I love how the artist just splashes color to the pages, its vivid, cartoony, but it goes hand in hand with the over the top story telling that the comic is providing. One of my favorite art pages is actually the second page of the book. Where Axe Cop just goes off to fight crime in his dinosaur which is armed with two chain-guns. That page sums up the wacky adventure that you will be taken to in Axe Cop: The American Choppers. Overall, Axe Cop: The American Choppers is a fun book, that pushes the imagination, and it is filled great art that matches the craziness that is Axe Cop.
Score: 5/5
Writer: Malachai Nicolle Artist: Ethan Nicolle Colorist: Dirk Erik Schulz Publisher: Dark Horse Comics Price: $3.99 Release Date: 5/21/14 Format: Mini-Series, Print/Digital