I’ve been lucky in that so far everything I’ve chosen to review has had some level of personal nostalgia attached to it. Even Turok. While Turok, Son of Stone has been around FOREVER (if you count the 50’s as forever) I remember him fondly from his N64 video game but mostly for that games awesome and significantly superior, but unimaginatively titled sequel: Turok 2. I had just seen Phantasm and that game had a gun that shot Phantasm balls. It was everything a 16 year old me wanted in life back in ’94: dinosaurs, Nintendo, first person shooters and more killer balls than a testicular cancer ward. When the gruesome ball gun got boring you had a kick ass bow. There were less dinosaurs in it however, instead there were, like, dinoids? Human/dino/alien hybrid thingies or something. Overall I give this Turok game 10 out of 6 ½ hats.
Wait, that’s not what I’m reviewing? But, I’m tired now! Okay fine, I’ll review this pretty great Turok book as well, you get a two-fer today. The books premise is Robin Hood meets Dino-Riders by way of Dinotopia. There’s a lot of 90’s in that sentence right there. Turok is playing the role of Robin Hood, literally, he is called Robin Hood in this. It appears this takes place in that period and isn’t some kind of weird future-past using analogs for the originals. It’s Robin Hood with dinosaurs and dinosaurs make everything better.
Turok Hood is robbing the rich to give to the poor. The rich don’t like it, the poor seem pretty okay with the idea. So, the rich set up a trap for Turok and company but fail to catch him with either arrows or dinosaurs which leaves only the most dangerous predator known to man: woman? That’s the implication anyway. On the list of escalation it goes: arrows -> t-rex -> woman. That isn’t even subtext, that’s straight up in the text. The first ¾’s of the issue is solid, well drawn and well written action. The last ¼ is Turok being seduced by the one thing fiercer that the bite of an Allosaurus: feminine wiles? She gets him drunk and takes him to bed, we end on a cliffhanger as she draws a knife.
I usually don’t like to spoil the ending so blatantly, I’d like to leave some reason to buy the book, but really you see this coming a mile away. Mostly because our femme fatale blatantly says that’s what she’s going to do on page 12. If you don’t get it by then I suggest you take a reading comprehension class at the local learning annex. There’s enough here to bring me back and as far as I’m concerned that’s the ultimate measure of a book even if everything else is just slightly above middle C.
Score: 3/5
Writer: Paul Tobin/Greg Pak Artist: Felipe Cunha/ Ruairi Coleman Colorist: Luigi Anderson Publisher: Dynamite Entertainment Price: $3.99 Release Date: 1/28/15 Format: Ongoing; Print/Digital