By Laramie Martinez
Godkiller Vol.1 takes place in a dark, confusing, post-apocalyptic world where magic and technology collide to make everyone miserable. At least that’s how I’ve come to understand it. From all the hype surrounding this book, the two main points that kept showing up were Uber-violence and hyper sexuality. And while this comic does indeed contain those things you get the feeling that all the “edgy” content is just there to be “edgy”. If you strip away the sex and violence, all you have is a sub-par story with a lot of scatters story arch littered throughout.
Before I get into the plot I want to comment on the art. My initial reaction to the collage style of comics is not to like it, but for this comic, where the tone is so clearly intended to be a dark and extreme image of what society could become, I felt it fit the book. It art wasn’t good enough for me to change my opinion of collage style as a whole, but it was passable. The main issue I have with the art is the consistency. Some panels you can’t tell who it is you’re looking at. Which is a big problem in a book where the shadows already take up most of the page. It’s fine to have a loose style, but when the rest of the page is already full of vague shapes I feel you need to have something that grounds the reader. Facial features should definitely be on that list.
As for the plot, it is just as inconsistent as the art. It suffers from having too many characters who don’t have enough back-story for the reader to care about. There is also a lack of a central conflict, it seems as though the author were trying to incorporate a few different points of conflict, but instead of clearly presenting them as Main Conflict and various sub conflicts he instead throws everything at the wall in the hopes that it will raise the steaks. There is also the point of the mood of the volume. It’s dark to the point where it feels gratuitous, the sex and violence serves no point to the story. It’s darkness for the sake of edginess. All that being said there was one small portion of the comic where I felt it had a chance. The story had come together and the characters were heading toward a unified goal. That small section was a passable section, but the rest was disappointing.
Not enough substance would be the main folly of this volume. I can’t think of a reason to recommend it to anyone. Even for fans of the post-apocalyptic genre, there are other books which are better reads.
Score: 2/5
Godkiller vol. 1
Writer: Matteo PIzzolo
Artist: Anna WieszczyK
Publisher: Black Mask Studios