I’ve been sitting on this review for about a week because it’s taken me that long to really digest how I feel about it. It’s a solid first issue, but it plays it moderately safe with its execution. At times it was funny and the rest of the time it’s trying to be funny. We meet Mikey as he’s arrested in Brooklyn, in costume and taken into a police station. He’s narrating the entire time and it’s all pretty general until he starts talking about how he ended up in Brooklyn. Basically his dad lost his job and they had to move specifically to Brooklyn. He’s pissed because he had to leave friends behind and now the family is bleh instead of happy. All of this is being narrated to us which is fine. It’s an origin story and even though we’re getting a lot of really pointless info, it’s not a deal breaker. During all this though we saw Mikey in the present being brought to an interrogation room. We see this room again when the cop tells Mikey to get to point already… yeah. He’s narrating this to everyone… believability for the character suddenly drops.
The rest of the issue we see Mikey basically take up with a gang run by a kid not much older than him. I couldn’t tell you why. I guess Mikey is really just that mad about having to move which seems entirely blow out of proportion. We don’t get to Mikey’s powers and the last quarter of the issue is dedicated to introducing not one, but two potential threats/rival gangs.
I will definitely read more of this because I liked it enough to do so, but it’s far from perfect. The narration is thick, much too thick and a lot of it didn’t serve the origin or the story. None of this backstory paints us a picture of how Mikey is because he’s defined by how angry he is at his father. That’s it. There’s nothing else to him and present Mikey has the same attitude, but amplified. He has a chip on his shoulder and it doesn’t leave. The dialogue isn’t terrible, but there are definitely more than a few scenes that have bad or cheesy dialogue.
The art is good. It’s not perfect and the artist still has a way to go before being a great visual storyteller, but there’s talent there. Part of it is the structure of the story. Because there’s an excess of scenes that fill the book, the art is left doing the same. The gore isn’t over the top nor is the blood. The action in general is the best part of the book, especially the drive by shooting which is probably the best I’ve ever seen done in a comic. The art definitely helps elevate the story, but it’s also handcuffed by it as well. The writer needs to put more trust in the art.
This is an independent superhero comic book. Which there are plenty of. You’ll basically be able to decide if you want to read more superhero books or not. If you are, then this one has a maturity to it that a lot of other superhero books don’t. That’s not to say that it’s maturity is just violence, because it’s not. It’s the narration and the overall presentation of the world that makes it mature in addition to the artwork. If you’re reading superhero comics then check this one out, if you’re not then you weren’t going to read this one anyway.
Score: 3/5
Elasticator #1 Writer: A.C. Medina Artist: Kevin Shah Publisher: Scout Comics Price: $3.99 Release Date: Format: Print
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