It’s kind of crazy to think that the three main characters in this team-up were all before and lesser-known than the characters they went on to inspire. According to Dynamite’s website, “Doc Savage inspired the creation of Superman. The Shadow directly inspired the creation of Batman. The Avenger sparked the creation of a multitude of… well… Avengers!” This is a very interesting fact and although unfortunate, this book makes you realize why Superman, Batman, and the Avengers are so much more popular than Doc Savage, The Avenger, and the Shadow-they feel very outdated, even in this modern comic book. The whole story itself feels like you’re reading an outdated comic with its cheesy banter, bland plot progression, and overall lack of anything really exciting or memorable to come back to. Doc Savage is the main character of focus in this story as he tries to travel back in time to 1939 and save a plane that’s headed for the wormhole through time created by Savage in 2014.
Other than that, not much happens. There’s tons of dialogue, a good portion of it talking about people who don’t make an appearance or barely do. We get to see the Shadow for a glimpse at the end, but out of the three he’s my favorite by far.
Personal bias aside, all in all this was a chore to get through. For a good amount of the dialogue I felt like a nerdy kid that overhears all the popular kids talking about a party and goes “hey guys, whatcha talkin’ about?” Of course the cool kids keep it secretive and ignore you completely so you don’t know what’s going on. That’s this comic made me feel, which is both weird and off-putting. It took me two read-throughs to make more sense of certain things and get all the characters straight, but I really wouldn’t have read through it twice unless I was doing this review.
I can’t recommend this book to anyone unless you’re huge fans of Doc Savage, The Avenger, or The Shadow. Even the extra footnotes at the end feel like something your grandpa is trying to tell you about the “good old days” at Thanksgiving dinner. It’s all just very boring to me. The art didn’t save this one for me either, it’s good but not good enough to hide the other negative aspects of the book.
Score: 2/5
Writer: Michael Uslan Artist: Giovanni Timpano Publisher: Dynamite Entertainment Price: $3.99 Release Date: 8/20/14 Format: Miniseries; Print/Digital