CODENAME: KNOCKOUT #4
"Fleshback '73: St. Grace Under Fire"
Not Recommended (2/10)
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DC Comics/Vertigo imprint
Writer: Robert Rodi
Pencils: Louis Small Jr. & Yanick Paquette
Inks: Mark Farmer
Colors: Moose Baumann
Letters: Jack Morelli
Editor: Tony Bedard
Price: $2.50 US/$4.25 CAN |
Maybe it's my distaste for James Bond-type stories, but this espionage spoof just isn't clicking for me. In fact, Rodi pretty much loses me completely with this low-brow, immature tale of sex and... well, just sex really. The characters seem to be defined by nothing but their sexuality, and it really doesn't make me like them much. Heaving breasts and thrusting asses aren't enough to get this reader to shell out a few bucks every month.
Go-Go Fiasco tells the story how sexy-super spy Angela's parents -- one the head of G.O.O.D., the other in charge of E.V.I.L. -- met and came to do the nasty, despite their different ideologies. Celeste's attempt to head off a shipment of LSD in 1973 brings her in direct confrontation with Damon, and the pair ends up trapped in a remote gorge together for a night.
So the heroine of the story, Celeste, ends up walking around naked for the better part of the book? Oh please. I know it's a satire of a male-dominated genre of storytelling, but the exploitive and debased nature of such an idea is just too much. Rodi and Paquette titillate rather than satirize.
Small and Paquette both tells their parts of the story clearly and capably, but they do little more than that. Their work here doesn't rise beyond the level of simply standard comic-book fare. The colors are also far too dark, given the silly nature of the script.
Robert Rodi is capable of far better than this. His Four Horsemen limited series was brilliant and complex, but it was also funny. This kind of humor is beneath these creators, and it's beneath the Vertigo line as a whole. There's nothing wrong with sexual silliness (just check out this month's Angel and the Ape #1, also from DC/Vertigo), but this is just gratuitous.
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