I wasn’t a huge fan of Kevin Smith’s Green Hornet, but I did enjoy it for the most part so when the same team was tapped for The Bionic Man I was instantly interested. What I got was basically the exact same problems that arose in Green Hornet: a halfway decent story with a new take on an old idea, with a character that no one can possible like in real life because they speak like a child 90% of the time.At its core the story is just Green Lantern minus the space protector angle, otherwise everything fits: Best pilot ever, bravest man ever, chronically late for work due to sex, problems with superior officers, etc, etc. That’s all that Smith and company have done is transplant Hal Jordon onto Steve Austin and given him the mind of a twelve-year old boy.

The story isn’t bad actually, it’s very predictable, but that’s kind of how these tragic beginning stories have to be. You can’t have someone say, “We can rebuild him” if there’s no reason to. In a nutshell the story goes like this. Mystery man breaks into a lab and steals a chip and a new arm and he looks a lot like the guy on the cover until you see his jacked up face. The next day Austin is late for the final flight of the new prototype plane he’s been testing. While he’s late everyone talks about how great he is and basically tugs one-off about him. We meet Steve, he’s an idiot. He shows up for the flight and everything on this plane goes wrong… even though this is supposed to be the final testing of the plane before it goes into production and then cliffhanger!

The reason this book falls into the WTF category is for Steve’s dialog alone. Everything he says is ridiculous and the funny part is that no one and I mean no one acknowledges anything he says. Here’s an example,but let me set the stage for you. Steve has just had his prostate examined before flying on his final test flight. Why you ask? I have no fucking clue.

Doctor: How often am I going to see you now that you’releaving the good life behind?

Steve: With that fat retirement health plan the government’sproviding? Try once every twenty years.

Doctor: I’ll miss you, Steve (they shake hands) It’s alwaysa pleasure being your physician.

Steve: ew… this was the hand, wasn’t it?

Doctor: Tear a new one in the sky, Austin.

Now if that doesn’t hit you the first time then read it again. First off all Steve basically tells the Doctor he’s never seeing him again and the Doctor just says, “Yeah we had fun.” Then Steve asks if that was the hand up his bum and the Doctor tells him to tear the sky a new one? I’ve read this scene four times and the dialog makes no sense and that’s Steve’s dialog the entire time, completely out of sync with everyone else.

The sad part is the book is not half bad, but Dynamite didn’t want to strip Smith’s script for the story alone, no they needed the dick jokes. I’ll say that I’m curious enough to read the second issue, but only to see if there are more ridiculous scenes like the one I’ve pointed out here. Hell this is the first WTF Review to receive a half way decent score; that says something right?

Score: 3/5