Rating: 2.5/5 – Comics are art+writing, but you have to love the art.
Comics are a wonderful merger of words and art, but at their core, they’re a visual medium for storytelling. I’m not going to make a declaration about the objective quality of the art, but I know that this series was my absolute favorite DC series when it started out with George Perez and Kevin Maguire doing the art to back up the stories by Paul Levitz. It also started out with some nice “fish out of water” stories as Helena & Kara were finding their way on Earth One.
A couple of things have changed. Maguire & Perez are gone. The new art team of RB Silva & Joe Weems are really not my cup of tea, and I see them credited as the team at least through #19 in January. The stories have also changed. We’re getting a lot of Desaad (who has done something to mess with Kara’s powers) and just a general change of tone to the series which seems to have lost a lot of the charm that drew me to in in the 1st 10 issues. I’ve not really been a fan of any of the Apokolips/New Gods stuff as re-imagined for the New52, which is not helping either. But that’s personal taste.
I’m hoping the new focus is really clicking with other readers (if you read this review and say “You are WRONG, Bob! I love this series now!” that is great. It means that DC is doing the right thing and going after a different (hopefully bigger) audience than the early issues seemed to be focused at. For my own part, this went from my #1 DC series to being dropped from my pull list as of right now.
It’s really hard for me to even put my finger on specifics, if I had to try I’d say the art going from a softer edge with more curved lines on the lead characters to a harder-edged more angular style is just rubbing me the wrong way. But that’s totally subjective. Comics are art+writing, if the art is making it hard for a reader then they need to move on. I’m taking my own advice…
Reviewed by: Bob Bretall – bob@comicspectrum.com
https://comicspectrum.com/ Covering the full spectrum of comics culture
Follow ComicSpectrum:
ComicSpectrum Comic Reviews 