Written by Aaron Lopresti, Kevin Maguire and Matt Kindt
Illustrated by Aaron Lopresti, Kevin Maguire and Scott KolinsFrom a giant snake smashing through Zanzibar — and through Robotman — and an ancient reptile stalking the alleyways of Gotham City, to the endless plague of titans attracted to Tanga on a faraway planet, our heroes are put to the test as they face off against their demons
As someone who didn’t read the 6-issue Weird Worlds miniseries earlier this year, I was hoping that My Greatest Adventure wouldn’t be too hard to pick up blind. After all, Robotman was a character I was familiar with, and Tanga and Garbage Man were launched in the Weird Worlds series, so I figured there was a better than average chance of being able to pick up the book without any prior reading. I was right (more so for two of the characters than another, but we’ll get to that later), the book was easy enough to jump into and get caught up to speed with these three characters.
But accessible doesn’t always mean good – so, was this any good? Hit the jump to find out.
Let’s take these one at a time:
Robotman – This is a really fun story. Matt Kindt does a great job capturing the spirit of the Doom Patrol without making the book feel like it is simply continuing an old story. In fact, save for one small mention in this issue, Robotman is never presented as a member of a team striking out on his own; he is, instead, presented a simply another hero.
A hero that, with his updated power set, actually may make him more suited for Stormwatch than Doom Patrol. Kindt and penciler Scott Kolins work with a lot of techno-babble here, but all the designs are fluid and the action remains clearly in the foreground.
All in all, the book is clever (see if you can spot a reference to a Flash villain), a great place to potentially start another Doom Patrol series, and, above all, fun.
Garbage Man – Let’s get the obvious piece out of the way: the character is very, very Swamp Thing-y. In fact, I would bet that if a rival publisher were putting out this book, DC might get litigious over just how much this feels looks like a Swamp Thing book.
That said, it is way more fun than your average Swamp Thing story. Aaron Lopresti, despite bringing Batman into the book, does a nice job giving the book a tone that is so far removed from Swamp Thing. Lopresti has also created a small set of supporting characters that manage to be pretty unique in the world of comics: a platonic female friend and a minister committed to helping the less fortunate.
Lopresti’s art has a classic feel to it, and he uses some fun onomatopoeia during GB’s fight with Batman. Overall, his art really sells the story well and manages to present a character that is both a little gross to look at (i could practically smell the trash at parts), but not so disgusting that you don’t want to keep reading. This and Robotman, in addition to their very similar character names, both feel like a small tribute to the classic Silver Age tales, and both succeed in emulating that, without simply copying it. Although doubtful, I would enjoy more adventures from Garbage Man.
Tanga – Here is where this book lost me. Despite reading all three issues of this mini, I still have little to no idea who Tanga is, what her powers are, or how I’m supposed to feel about the character. Kevin Maguire’s pencils are the best of the lot, but his story leaves a ton to be desired. Some digging around online led me to the fact that this was originally planned as a second feature for the late R.E.B.E.L.S., which seems to fit, in so much as it was another book that took place in space that others cared for but I found boring.
Continued belowI think that there is a lot of potential for cosmic books in the DCnU, but this is not the type of book that is needed to fill that hole. Part of my dislike for this story must be from the fact that it follows two other stories that I enjoyed so much – it is hard to top the fun of the first two stories, and Maguire sadly can’t live up. I wouldn’t be surprised if Tanga were to join a lower-tier team book in the future, but until her motivations, power set, and character are more fully developed, I’ll pass on more solo adventures.
So, two out of three ain’t bad, and I hope that DC continues to put out minis like this to feature some new characters (or old characters getting new chances) and to get people excited about prospective new books. I do think, however, you could bump each story up to 12 pages, add a fourth character, charge $.99 a week and make this a digital exclusive that tells each character’s story one week out of the month, and that would be a better format in 2011 for this sort of book. Just an idea.
Final Verdict: 7.1 – Buy, but ignore the last story.
