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RADIX #3
Neutral (4/10)
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Image Comics
Writer/Artists: Ray & Ben Lai & Brian Reber
Price: $2.95 US/$4.50 CAN |
What the Lai
brothers really need is a better writer, because artwise I have very few
complaints about this book. It is gorgeous to look at, with a vividly-imagined
futuristic setting, cool-looking armor and weapons and some impressive splash
pages. Unfortunately, it doesn't make a lick of sense, as a variety of
characters who are at times indistinguishable from one another go through a plot
that is so obtuse I don't think I could follow it with a roadmap and story bible
in front of me. This one's worth it for the pretty pictures, but given how many
great-looking and well-written books there are on the market right now, that's
not good enough.
I skipped an issue of Radix, as I read issue one but not issue two, but I
have a hard time believing it matters. In this issue, like the first one, the
Lais don't seem terribly interested in telling the reader what's going on.
There's some kind of powerful bad guy after a mysterious girl who is related to
our protagonist, also a mysterious girl. She is aided by a special agent, who is
mysterious. They are helped out by a man with shiny armor and powers, who is
also mysterious. There are flash-forwards from the future (or the past), and
those are all very mysterious. Basically, there's a whole lot of mystery here,
but there's nothing for the reader to grab hold of.
There's a lot going on here, and very little of it is given any time to sink in before the Lais jump to the next part of their plot. I'm a fan of complex stories (Hell, Black Panther is one of my favorite books) but not when the complexity isn't warranted, and it certainly isn't here. The elements of this plot are all very familiar, and most of the mystery seems more designed to make the characters more alluring. Instead, since I know nothing of any of them, it makes them less. And the dialogue is much the same, a bunch of cliches and catch-phrases that I've seen in any of a hundred movies. Basically, there are two styles going here, the "switch off your brain" action style and the "question everything" style of the X-Files or The Matrix, and they don't go well together.
I have to give the Lais (and
Reber) credit for one thing, though, and that's the artwork. This is a beautiful
book, with some fantastic designs for a futuristic city and some well-designed
battle armor for the main characters. I can easily see the Lais being right at
home doing design work for Hollywood, as they have a vivid imagination for
science-fiction style.
There's plenty of potential in Radix, but the Lais need to slow down and let the
story and characters develop more slowly. Right now, it feels like they're
trying to get all their ideas out on the page at once, and the result is a
jumble of noise, with little information behind it.
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