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Pick of the Week: “Action Man” #1

By | June 23rd, 2016
Posted in News, Pick of the Week | % Comments

Hasbro’s revitalization of old Hasbro properties continues with this week’s “Action Man” #1. After Britain loses its best secret agent not named Bond, his successor has to deal with living up to the original Action Man’s legacy, on top of finding his killer.

Written by John Barber
Illustrated by Paolo Villanelli

ACTION MAN IS DEAD — LONG LIVE ACTION MAN! He’s the world’s greatest special agent… until he dies saving the planet, with all the world’s eyes on him. Now his young protégé has to step into the role — whether he’s ready or not!

This week has a whole bunch of releases from whatever DC’s doing with “Rebirth”, but we thought we’d look across the pond for our Pick of the Week. From what my four minutes of research can tell me, Action Man is the British knock-off version of G.I. Joe that was given to precocious moppets who couldn’t understand the patriotism that run through the veins of G.I. Joe. Kind of like how Marvel/Miracleman was a sad knock-off of Captain Marvel the same way The Beatles were a cheap copy of The Monkees. Action Man never got his chance in the spotlight or a movie with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, so this comic is really his chance to stand in the spotlight.

Anyway, Action Man dies almost immediately as the comic starts. In the course of stopping a doomsday weapon set off by the nefarious Doctor X (who I’m 40% sure is just X, The Eliminator from Harvey Birdman), Action Man sacrifices himself in front of technological prodigy Ian Noble, some white dude who looks just like Action Man and is probably going to be his son or something. Anywho, MI6 just hands off the Action Man mantle to Ian and not of the other qualified candidates at MI6 because of reasons that’ll show up eventually. Everyone ends up giving a lot of crap to Ian for not being as cool or skilled as the original Action Man. Just how cooler was he? When faced with immediate death, Action Man just stared out of the pod he was about to be burnt to death in and made an “Ashes to Ashes” reference, knowing he’d never be able to use his name to make that reference again.

That scene’s pretty great too, because Action Man just has this same creepy smile as he’s staring out the pod. I don’t think it’s coincidental because a lot of the art in “Action Man” #1 feels kind of stiff. The comic has a vibrant palette that helps distinguish it as more of a superhero spy book, robbing me of any chances to compare it to James Bond. But there’s still a lack of consistency in the motion of its big action scenes that makes them feel less like an organic sequence of events and more like characters were just copy and pasted into the scene.

I’m also not too hot on the cast of characters this issue introduces which consists of Ian, the supervisor he has a crush on, his nerdy scientist pal, the special ops guy pissed that Ian’s the new Action Man, and the director of the program I’ve been assuming is MI6. I don’t know if this is going to sound like it makes sense, but so far they all feel like reactions to Ian rather than actual characters. The exception is the MI6 director who explains that there’s been an Action Man since the reign of Elizabeth II, one of whom was Victor Hugo, the writer of Les Miserables. I’m kind of down for the idea of going back to see historical figures like Victor Hugo, Arthuer Conan Doyle, or whoever else we’re going to say was part of this Assassin’s Order of one man armies. At least I’m more excited to do that than keep rolling with Ian who is… fine? I kind of agree with his co-workers, he’s just there.

Final Verdict: 6.8 – This hasn’t been the most positive review, which is kind of a weird thing for a Pick of the Week to be, but there’s a lot of room for “Action Man” to grow and I figured our small spotlight could go to IDW, rather than whatever’s going on at Image, DC, or Marvel. IDW’s actually doing some cool stuff with their licenses on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Transformers, G.I. Joe, and pretty much everything else that was a toy in the 80’s. I wouldn’t give “Action Man” as much of an unqualified recommendation as I would those other titles just yet, but it certainly has the potential to improve, especially with Ian’s quest to hunt down his predecessor’s killer. Since most of the stuff IDW publishes ends up being way radder than I expect it to, I’d keep this one on my radar and check back in when it gets into trades.


//TAGS | Pick of the Week

James Johnston

James Johnston is a grizzled post-millenial. Follow him on Twitter to challenge him to a fight.

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