I broke down and read this week’s issue of Escape From New York and man oh man do I wish I hadn’t. That’s why I’m writing the review so that others won’t make the same mistake. Snake gets hauled to the Twins again, but not before all the people that were hiding him for all of three hours were captured or killed. Then the scene jumps straight to Snake wearing a Battle Royale collar and training soldiers that don’t want to be in the army any more than he does. Thankfully no one tries to offer Snake a fucking cigarette in this issue. Snake meets another dude in a collar that’s supposed to help him and they make a friendship of sorts.
Oh and remember how Snake said he doesn’t want to be a hero or anything? Well when he finds out the U.S. is going to war with Florida because he’s there… well that changes.
There’s so much crap wrong with this book that I don’t even know where to begin. The biggest problem I had with it was that Snake kills a lot of soldiers. There’s two problems, the first is that we see that most people serving in this army don’t want to be there… so he’s killing a lot of guys just waiting their turn to leave or at least that’s how it fucking comes across when you plant that fucking seed with dialogue and visuals!!! So Snake just mercs guys doing the same fucking thing he’s doing… out of character doesn’t begin to explain this. The second problem is that he and the other dude go on a killing tour just mercing dudes all over the base… without anyone finding out or caring. I get the caring part, I don’t get the finding out part.
Also Snakes plan sucks. I won’t say what it is, but it was so Fozzy Bear wacka-wacka that I let out a heavy sigh. I hope that Snake at least has a cool fight scene with Meemaw and that he finally kills her, but at this point I think it’s asking for too much.
The art is still bad. I hate to be mean, but it really is ugly and all of the characters lack any kind of consistency which just makes them devoid of personality. I mean I get that you can’t draw Kurt fucking Russell because he’s not going to sign off on it, but own that fucking character then. Make your own Snake because so far on this series it’s just been an eye patch running around. That’s as much visual personality that Snake has… his fucking eye patch. Snake has no presences and that’s a crime against the character.
This series is a road map for what not to do with a licensed property. In fact it’s just ammo for other companies that mock licensed books like they’re a virus on the comic industry. They’re not when done right. When executed correctly a licensed property can take a world, a story and characters that you enjoy and further the experience without cheapening it.
But that’s not what Escape From New York does… it makes me want to curl in a ball and watch the movie and pretend this series never happened.
Score: 1/5
Writer: Christopher Sebela Artist: Diego Barreto Publisher: BOOM! Studios Price: $3.99 Release Date: 2/4/15 Format: Ongoing; Print/Digital