By Patrick Wolf
This is, without a doubt, one of the worst titles I’ve read all year. Loaded with pretentious language, exposition, plot-holes, stock characters, and new age religious nonsense, I can’t believe anyone could enjoy this drivel. Normally, whenever I'm reviewing an indie series, I try to be as charitable as possible, but there’s no way I can endorse this one. With the exception of the art, there’s nothing good about this and the only way I’d recommend it to anyone is if that person was either a new-age hippy or just some guy I don’t like.
The story stars Stephen Haddon, a former US astronaut who discovers a mystical artifact deep within the Moon’s core that transforms him into the ‘Supernaut.' Armed with the powers of teleportation and enlightenment, Haddon now joins a team of intergalactic thieves to take on the universe’s greatest foe: God. Can Supernaut and his team find the five artifacts and defeat the almighty, or will the universe be annihilated, as we know it?
There’s so much wrong with this series I could literally write 20 pages and still just barely scratch the surface. To begin with, the entire franchise reads more like a Scientology pamphlet than an actual comic book. About 90% of it is exposition, and most of this exposition is made up of pseudo-scientific gibberish that’ll have you wondering if even Nelsen knows what he’s talking about. I get it that he wants his story to come off as deep and profound, but using scores of jargon and pretentious language will never achieve this feat; in fact, it’ll almost always do the opposite.
Another problem that Nelsen faces is an extremely boring, predictable, and linear narrative. Because his series has so much exposition in it, there’s hardly any room for an actual story. So, whenever we get past his scores of religious and quasi-scientific musings, we’re left with a set of rushed and simple scenes. There’s hardly any mystery, and whenever there is, it’s solved with zero effort; all the action scenes are generic and uninspired; the characters are flat and one-dimensional; and there’s only one twist and it doesn’t even make any sense (one of the thieves betrays Supernaut for a bunch of gold, even though she knows that if Supernaut fails, the universe will be destroyed—rendering herself and the gold nonexistent).
Related to this narrative problem is another problem that Nelsen probably knew he’d eventually face: plot holes. Lots and lots of plot holes. As you can imagine, there’s a ton of them, and I won’t bore you by listing them all. So, I’ll just give you a taste of the most obvious contenders. For starters, how do the thieves know the universe is going to be destroyed? Do they have some kind of special access to God’s will? How do they know where Supernaut is located, and how do they know he has the power to defeat God?
Why does there exist five random artifacts that can overpower God? Who made them and why are they separated? Why does God allow for these artifacts to exist? Why are aliens defending the artifacts when they know they’re guaranteed to die by taking on such an action? Either they’ll fail and Supernaut will kill them, or they’ll succeed and God will kill them. If the aliens wanted to help God, why not just give him the artifacts instead of defending them? God’s all-powerful, and supposedly the artifacts are the only things that can defeat him. If the aliens just gave him one, he’d be invincible.
Finally, what’s the point of having the thieves in the story? If Nelsen felt the plot required the skill of burglary for Supernaut to be successful, why not just make Supernaut a thief as well? Moreover, none of the thieves actually used their thieving skills. During every ‘heist’ all they do is teleport where they want to go, kill everyone, and grab what they want. Their skills did absolutely nothing to drive the story forward. Why even have them?
I could go on, but I think you get the point. Avoid this series at all costs. In fact, after going back and rereading it, I’m convinced Nelsen didn’t even want to tell a story. I think he believes he’s in possession of some divine truth and that the best way to convey this knowledge is through the comic book medium. The story is more like filler, and the real meat is the new age religious baloney he’s feeding us. So, unless you think Nelsen is the next Buddha, stay away from this title. I’d give it a 1-out-of-5, but since the artwork is good, I’ll to bump it up a notch.
SCORE: 2/5
Supernaut
Creator: Michael Nelsen
Publisher: 215 Ink