Brian MIchael Bendis is one of those names that is instantly recognizable to most comic book fans, and even quite a few non comic book fans as well. The man has a career that has spanned decades with a list of titles that includes some of the comic industry’s greatest heroes. On top of that, many of his books have gone on to inspire some of the greatest superhero movies of the past decade and his work will go down as some of the best the superhero genre has ever seen.
Now Bendis is embarking on his latest adventure where he has decided to leave the confines of the Big Two and partner with Dark Horse comics to work on his creator owned imprint: Jinxworld. The new publishing initiative will reprint many of his already published books and include some new stories, one of which we get to review today.
Let’s see how it turns out
Written by Brian Michael BendisCover by: Stephen Byrne
Illustrated and Colored by Stephen Byrne
Lettered by Joshua Reed
Brian Michael Bendis, the New York Times bestselling and multi-Eisner Award winner, teams up with scorching hot comics sensation Stephen Byrne (Wonder Twins, Legion of Superheroes) for their very first creator-owned blockbuster series.Fifty-five years from now. Joy is an EN•VOI. A special agent of one of the JONANDO TRUST. Trusts are corporate-owned cities that are the centerpiece of modern society. She rights wrongs for the trust. She is excellent. Perfection. Hard on herself. Driven. Almost legendary in some parts. Until one day a voice pops in her head trying to get her to betray everything she has ever believed.
All this and also an exclusive look behind-the-scenes and a look forward to other Jinxworld projects coming exclusively to Dark Horse.
In the not too distant future, the world is controlled by massive mega corporations based in massive company towns and policed by company law officers. “Joy Operations” #1 introduces the readers to Joy, a special operations soldier called an EN.VOI that works as a bodyguard/soldier of one of these corporations called the Jonando Trust. While she is a capable and deadly operative with amazing combat skills and a wide array of sci-fi weapons, there seems to be something else going on behind the scenes, including a strange and mysterious voice inside her head that seems to know more about what’s going on than she does.
“Joy Operations” #1 is written by Brian Michael Bendis, and your enjoyment of the book will depend entirely on whether or not you enjoy Bendis’ unique writing style. The star of the story is Bendis’ use of dialogue between Joy and the mysterious voice inside her head. They have a solid back and forth and the whole thing feels very natural and organic, which is a skill set that Bendis is well known for and has been honing for years. The dialogue is the main source of character development and exposition in the entire story and does a very good job of showing the reader a world occupied by the rich, powerful, and dangerous and a main character that is an incredibly capable soldier, but seems to be emotionally and mentally vulnerable to a plethora of outside forces that do not necessarily have her best interests at heart.
While the dialogue and characters may be the greatest strength of “Joy Operations” #1, it is also one of the book’s most glaring weaknesses. Bendis seems to make the conscious decision to forego any outside exposition or explaination to craft the story in such a way that all the story’s information is delivered through the dialogue. While it is an ambitious and commendable use of story mechanics, it does make the comic confusing and difficult to follow. On top of that, while the sci-fi setting is certainly cool, it’s unfortunately filled with a lot of things sci-fi fans have already seen before. Granted, appearances aren’t necessarily the most important metric when judging the validity of a science fiction universe; but in a comic book market that is oversaturated with amazing sci-fi, a new book has to be firing on all cylinders these days to be a hit and unfortunately, “Joy Operations” #1 is not firing on all cylinders.
Continued belowThe artwork for “Joy Operations” #1 is provided by Stephen Byrne and does a very good job at being a classic Bendis book. Byrne has a pretty standard mainstream comic art style that looks great for science fiction and superhero work, and it’s on full display here. The highlight of the artwork is definitely the action scenes in the book, where Byrne makes full use of a classic Bendis trope and uses lots of massive double page spreads with lots of tiny panels to create fight scenes that are well choreographed and look very cool. On top of that, Byrne has a very keen sense of color, light, and background which all comes together to give the book a very sleek and futuristic feel.
Unfortunately, while Byrne’s artwork in “Joy Operations” #1 is good, it suffers from a lot of the problems that plague the writing. The lack of exposition or world building means that we’re given a world with amazing and mysterious stuff to look at, but we have no idea how it works or what’s really going on. On top of that the cool stuff like floating skyscrapers and implanted energy weapons are all things we’ve seen before, and unfortunately Byrne doesn’t do enough to really separate the book from the rest of the pack.
“Joy Operations” #1 is a book created by one of the most solid and dependable names in the entire comic book industry, and has a lot of the tropes and ideas that we’ve come to expect from a writer like Bendis. Unfortunately, the book’s rapid-fire dialogue and commitment to lots of very pretty double page spreads can make the book difficult to read and the sci-fi setting doesn’t do very much to separate itself from the thousands of other books out there that do too many similar things.
Final Verdict: 6.8- It’s a standard sci fi comic with some fantastic talent behind it, but it feels like it’s trying to be a bit too cute with its world building and dialogue.
