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Review Date: 05/21/2010
Good King Leonardo noticed this past week that there are a
lot of new and interesting spy and/or espionage thriller
comics on the That's Entertainment new issues shelves, so
let's review three of them and see how they stack-up:
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Frenemy
Of The State #1
Publisher: Oni Press
Rashida Jones, Christina Weir & Nunzio DeFilippis:
Writers
Jeff Wamester: Art
Rob Ruffolo: Colors
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Oni Press has just published issue #1 of a new spy thriller
comic with the intriguing title "Frenemy Of The State."
The comic book is co-written by Rashida Jones, Christina
Weir and Nunzio DeFilippis, with art by Jeff Wamester
and colors by Rob Ruffolo.
This first issue is entitled "Codename: Noob," and
introduces us to Ariana "Ari" Von Holmberg, a twenty-something
who lives the Hollywood wealthy pseudo-celebrity life
by day, while operating as a secret CIA operative
at night. The story unfolds with two interweaving
plotlines. One story thread is Ari's origin
story, in which the CIA recruits her due to her notorious
reputation as a Hollywood partygirl who has genius-level
computer hacking and anti-surveillance skills, which
she honed by stalking and harassing her many jilted
boyfriends. The second storyline initiates Ari's
first CIA assignment, in which she is required to
steal a computer file owned by her best friend's father,
while attending said "frenemie's" over-the-top celebrity
birthday party. Issue #1 concludes
in a high action bridge to next month's issue, as
Ari attempts a dangerous escape with the secret
file.
This is a very fresh and entertaining new addition
to the spy thriller comic book genre, which works
well for a few reasons. Its a very relevant idea
to take the Jennifer Garner/Alias type of young and
beautiful undercover spy tale and give it a fresh
coating of today's celebrity sleaze culture for relevancy.
The writing team gives us the right balance of current
references to the real-world young Hollywood celebrity
culture, including TMZ and a Perez Hilton knock-off
named Strfkkr who gives up-to-the-minute tweets on
the latest celebrity doings of Ari and her airhead
bratty friends. Ironically, the title Frenemy
Of The State duly applies to both Ari's sharkpool
nightlife friends as well as her foes in this undercover
cat-and-mouse spy world.
Just two minor constructive criticisms with issue
#1. First, the creative team has to improve
their transitioning between real-time and flashback
scenes, which were a bit disjointed and confusing
in this issue. And secondly, given that Ari's
in the CIA, beyond this first issue, its a bit of
a stretch to believe that the CIA is going to keep
an undercover operative hanging out issue-after-issue
at Lindsey Lohan-type Hollywood parties, so the writers
had best move Ari on to world travel and jet-set adventure
as soon as possible. Those minor thoughts aside,
this is the best celebrity/pop culture-layered spy
series to come along in a long time, so a very positive
thumbs-up to get on-board with this entertaining issue
#1.
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Garrison
#1
Publisher: Wildstorm Productions
Jeff Mariotte: Writer
Francesco Francavilla: Art
Jeremy Shephard: Colors |
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Wildstorm Productions has just published
issue #1 of a new comic entitled Garrison.
The title is written by Jeff Mariotte with art by
Francesco Francavilla and Jeremy Shephard.
This espionage thriller opens on a very
mysterious note, as federal intelligence agents Jillian
Bracewell and Bob Walker join forces to try and
find a mysterious man in a cowboy hat, whom surveillance
tapes across the nation have identified as being
responsible for over 150 killings over several weeks.
The plot takes an odd turn as this stranger appears
at the intelligence headquarters and murders Bob,
while warning Jillian that he did so to prevent Bob
from actually killing her. The second half of
the story heightens the mystery of this stranger,
as clues lead Jillian to learn that this mysterious
Garrison leaves no fingerprints on objects that he
touches, nor does he exist in any national database.
While I'm giving this issue #1 a positive review,
its questionable whether this title will sink or swim
with future issues. The mysterious stranger
idea has merit, but some of the details of this first
issue are clunky and amateurish. The murder
sequence is completely implausible, even for
the world of comic books, as Jillian just allows Garrison
to stroll away from gunpoint solely on the comment
that Bob would have killed her in the near future.
The creative team is going to have to advance this
storyline out of the gate very quickly by answering
some of the basic questions regarding Garrison's backstory,
or else this comic series will trip-up as a pretentious
and flat effort at thriller mystery. So
give this issue #1 a deserved read on its own merits,
and keep your fingers crossed regarding the story
direction of the next few issues.
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Broken
Trinity: Pandora's Box #2
Publisher: Image Comics
Rob Levin & Bryan Edward Hill: Writers
Alessandro Vitti: Art
Sunny Gho: Colors
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Our third thriller comic title for this week's reviews is
issue #2 of Broken Trinity: Pandora's Box, published
by Image Comics. The series is scripted by Rob
Levin and Bryan Edward Hall with art by Alessandro Vitti
and colors by Sunny Gho.
Issue #2 begins with a very helpful one-page summary
of the previous month's story segment, explaining
how billionaire industrialist Glorianna Silver and
Irish gun-runner Michael Finnegan are respective holders
of the Ember Stone and the Glacier Stone, two linked
artifacts that give them each incredible powers.
While the pair are actually rivels, both are thrown-into
the same situation of being stalked by Elias Legion,
who leads a doomsday cult bent on following an ancient
trail of clues and instructions that could gain
Elias the legendary Pandora's Box, and as such the
power to end the world.
The current issue mixes two alternate storythreads.
One is a cat-and-mouse game, in which Glorianna tries
to convince the conflicted Michael to get out of the
game by handing-over his magical stone to her.
The lengthier storythread is more high action-oriented,
as the pair separately travel across the world and
battle the cult members in pursuit of Elias.
The issue climaxes with Michael and an ally of his
learning clues to Elias's whereabouts from a
mystical witch in rural Russia. The magical
experience unnerves Michael to the point where the
issue concludes with him informing Glorianna that
he's meeting her wishes by ceding his magical artifact
to her and dropping-out of the high stakes pursuit.
This is an engrossing high action tale that very successfully mixes
together the genres of high action thrillers and the
unexplainable. The best pop culture comparison
that comes to mind is The X-Files, if the main
characters were freelance adventurers rather than
federal agents. While the action and adventure
are well-presented, the story quality is greatly enhanced
by the dynamic that the writers create between Glorianna
and Michael. While these two magic artifact
owners are in the same dangerous situation, they can't
decide from moment-to-moment whether to trust each
other. That conflict leads to some sharp and
entertaining dialogue at every twist of the story,
as the pair makes and breaks their tenuous alliance
with every turn of the deadly action.
In many ways, this is the most unique non-superhero
comic title that I've read in awhile. So
a definite thumbs-up recommendation to read this new
comic title as a refreshing change of pace from the
standard story characters in other available new issue
comic titles.
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Contest
Winner Announcement!!!
Our latest contest challenge was a "contest
within a contest," in which you fanboys and fangirls were
challenged to submit to us your ideas for an upcoming Bongo
Congo contest challenge. We had some great entries,
so the Bongo Congo panel of judges decided to select
two winners of this challenge. And our co-winners
are (drumroll, please)...Tanja Pevner and Gordon Dupuis.
We won't tell you right now what their entries were.
Instead, next week we'll run Tanja's contest challenge for
you and we'll run Gordon's contest the following week.
Congrats to both of our winners, who each receive a $10.00
gift certificate to That's Entertainment.
That's all for now, so
have a great comic book reading week and see you again next
week Here In Bongo Congo!
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