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MUTIES #2
"Toy Soldiers"
Neutral (3/10)
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Marvel Comics
Writer: Karl Bollers
Pencils: Patrick Spaziante
Inks: Danny Miki, Victor Olazaba & Crime Lab Studios
Colors: Hi-Fi Design
Letters: Paul Tutrone
Editor: Mark Powers
Price: $2.50 US/$4.00 CAN |
Given that most of my appreciation for Muties #1 came from the
artwork, my first reaction upon opening this issue was even more disappointment,
seeing a new artist. However, Spaziante's art, a manga-influenced action-heavy
style, is actually perfect for the "toy" sequences of this book. It's a shame
that Bollers's script is still highly predictable, and that the book in general
is still trying too hard to be relevant and important. I didn't really care much
about any of the characters or the plot, but I did think that the mutant power
exhibited in this issue was a nifty idea, and the artwork showed it off
perfectly.
The previous issue of Muties suffered because despite being inside the
character's head, we never really got a feel for who he was. He was a tool of
the story, and that much was painfully clear throughout. The same is true this
issue, as Bollers trots out abuse and an unhealthy fantasy life in a
by-the-numbers exercise that ends the only way it could have. It doesn't help
that the lead character doesn't (or can't) speak, and so we really don't get
much of a sense of who he is beyond his powers.
Mind you, those powers are pretty nifty. A kid who can animate his toys is exactly the sort of "non-action" type of mutant that fits nicely into the Muties
concept, and Spaziante's artwork, though not well-suited to the real life
sequences, was ideal for the images of the toys fighting one another. I didn't
really care what happened in the main plot, but whenever the mutant power was
being used, I was drawn to what a cool idea it was, and how well-executed it was
visually.
Unfortunately, one cool idea
does not a story make, and while Bollers's story does follow all the basic rules
of storytelling as far as changing the characters and having them make a
decision which leads to the conclusion, it fails to hit the most basic rule: be
entertaining. Though I'm not averse to dark stories, I need to buy into the
people as somewhat real before I can get into them, and the characters of
Keiji's mother and abusive stepfather are as cardboard as they come, right out
of a Lifetime movie of the week. As with the first issue, which attempted to
take on the idea of Columbine, this story makes light of the problems of abuse
rather than dealing with it or giving the reader cause to think.
Muties is a good idea, examining what happens to the no
doubt numerous mutants out there who don't put on spandex and go out to save (or
rule) the world. Unfortunately, thus far the series has been marked by a clumsy
and unsophisticated approach that would look poor in a standard spandex book and
looks even worse in a book that is supposed to be aiming for a more human level
of storytelling.
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