By Dustin Cabeal
Recently I treated myself to the Blu-Ray of Big Trouble in Little China. What a great fucking movie. I almost want to end the review here and just put a score for this book, but I’ll continue.
To say that I’ve disliked everything that BOOM! has done with the Big Trouble in Little China license is a complete understatement. I have loathed every issue I’ve read, and I have read many issues. I kept trying; I kept hoping that someone would get it right and make it click. Jack Burton isn’t the star; he’s just our window into the world. Sure, we follow him the most, but it's so that we can explore this crazy world with him. When he hit the comics though he became the Forrest Gump of the supernatural and it’s been just a terrible reading experience for me.
“Old Man Jack” sounds great. They’ve aged him, and I wanted to see what that meant. Instead, it was their best impression of Chew, but without any of the talents behind that series. That’s really what this is; its Chew with Big Trouble in Little China clothes one. As if someone did a mod of a PC game and we all thought it was cute and then it got its own game, and it’s not so fun anymore.
Jack is in his own little paradise… which happens to be in Florida. Get it; he’s retired to Florida. Fuck me that’s an old joke. He apparently helped some demon bring hell to earth, but got rewarded. Instead of being Jack fucking Burton he accepted his reward and let the earth burn… what in the holy fuck? Now a person over a radio has found him and played to his one weakness…boobs. She goes on and on about needing rescue and how hot she is and because Burton was such a perv in the movie… wait, he wasn’t. He was a fucking flirt, but not a perv, anyway, he goes to rescue her… it’s not a woman, and it was predictable who it was because there are only two memorable staples of this franchise and BOOM! loves over using both.
The writing is safe and boring. Again, just think Chew and crank it down to a watered down consumer level and you have this book. The dialogue is boring and never once captures the essence of the movie character, but does quite well with capturing the terrible comic version that BOOM! has developed over the years.
The art is again very Chew inspired which is confusing. Should I take this story serious at all? Is it just taking a piss and I should close my mouth and move on? I feel like it’s the latter. I don’t remember the movie not taking itself seriously and yet this comic and all the others from BOOM! try to be cute and poke fun at themselves. That’s not why I want to visit this world. The art is a terrible fit for the story, it’s good on its own, but it doesn’t work for this story.
This is it, folks. I will never read another Big Trouble in Little China comic. It made me regret my movie purchase that’s how awful this comic is to read. None of the charms is there, none of the personality and none of the entertainment. If you want a bunch of dad jokes, then go for it, pick up Big Trouble in Little China: Old Man Jack. If you don’t pick it up and read it then good for you, I wish I could be you.
Score: 1/5
Big Trouble in Little China: Old Man Jack #1
BOOM! Studios