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Review: Z-Men #4

I didn’t mean to review Z-Men last. It just kind of happened. Time and scheduling and such, hell you may have noticed the new look to the site that you’re looking at at this very moment. What I’m getting at is that don’t let my schedule and the timing of this review be a reflection on the book itself. Clancy and Teddy continue to be a hoot. They’ve got a dead officer that’s coming back to life in the truck, they’re drinking his coffee and they’re trying to figure out… well basically what the hell is going on. Clancy is getting closer to making sense of things, but he’s still got a way to go.

Interestingly enough if you’ve read Slab then you’ll hear a familiar term in this issue, “Torque.” What’s interesting is that the people with the Torque refer to them as such. What that means remains to be scene. Also the little old lady the boys dropped off, yeah she’s a leader for the Deltas.

Z-Men-#4-1Z-Men’s story is happening in an interesting bubble. There’s things like the helicopter in, I believe, Honor showing up in this series. The story is still in the thick of things during that first night, but now it’s taken a path to a different part of the state. One we haven’t seen yet which definitely adds a new layer to the story.

The pacing of this issue is on point. It moves fast and that works because there’s a lot of smaller action scenes that are happening in-between the banter and the overall confusion of our main characters. The dialogue continues to be some of the sharpest on this series and I chuckled at the last line of the book and it’s double meaning.

The art is actually pretty consistent given the fact that four people did the layouts and four people did the finishes. There’s definitely a few places that I could spot the changes, but I actually had to be looking for it. While I was reading it the first time through I didn’t really notice and definitely wasn’t distracted. There could have been more detail overall to the issue, but again it was surprisingly consistent.

The story has taken a break from the humor just due to where it is within the timeline, but my hope is that Clancy and Teddy will be given more opportunities to amuse us next time. They’re toned down a bit in this issue and it works, but I miss their shenanigans. Otherwise, a very entertaining and solid issue that presents some a situation that could have a ripple on the rest of the universe.

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Z-Men #4
Story: Bill James, Michael Coast
Script: Jeff McComsey, Bill Jemas
Layouts: Young Heller, Kurt Tiede, David Hillman, Benjamin Silberstein
Pencils, Kurt Tiede, Stan Chou, Vincenzo Riccardi, Jaime Salangsang
Colorist: Maxflan Araujo
Publisher: Double Take Comics
Price: $2.50
Release Date: 6/1/16
Format: Ongoing; Print/Digital

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