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THE FORGOTTEN #1
"Shattered Lives Part 1"
Recommended (8/10)
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Fintan Studios
Writers: Jareth Grealish & Evan Young
Pencils: John Forcucci
Inks: Mostafa Moussa & James Taylor
Letters: Jack Nolan
Price: $2.95 US/$4.50 CAN |
Fintan Studios makes a lot of crazy promises about their premiere book, The Forgotten: on-time shipping is a big enough hurdle, but to promise great stories and fantastic art, right off the bat, from a new and untested company? You can imagine my surprise when they lived up to every one of them in this first issue of The Forgotten.
If I didn't know better, I'd
think that Young and Grealish had cooked up this story especially for me. It's
got elements of organized crime, vigilante justice, super-hero history and
investigative journalism, all in one tightly plotted story. The elements are all
right up my alley, and the execution is top notch. They have captured the
narration style of a private detective perfectly, and their dialogue, while
perhaps not quite as distinctive as work by Bendis or Azzarello, is smooth and
believable. Our lead character has a dark edge to him, as a hero who seems to
have burnt out after not making enough of a difference, but he's heroic enough
to still keep trying. He's more of a pulp hero than a modern-day super-hero in
attitude.
Though I'm always wary of super-heroes creeping in where they're not wanted, I thought the super-heroic
elements of this one were very important to the story. Leaving aside that it makes our lead something more than just the stereotypical hard-boiled P.I., it allows the creative team to tie in a story about a student pursuing some investigative journalism, which gives the book a whole other aspect besides the
noir crime side. The look into a newspaper that has studied heroes over the ages, and a graduate student investigating a forgotten hero for a research project, are interesting aspects of a super-hero world, and though we're seeing more projects like Deadline, Powers or Astro City that examine these other elements of
super-heroes, I'm always glad to see more.
I was sold on this book by
the preview of Tom Derenick's cover, but unsure what the interiors might look
like. Happily, the interior art is impressive. Forcucci's work is reminiscent of
Derec Aucoin or Terry Dodson, with strongly defined faces and anatomy for the
various characters. In addition, though his storytelling is fairly simple to
follow, I was impressed that he has no fear of breaking panels or shifting the
camera around. I'm a little nervous to hear that there will be a different
penciller for the second issue, but given how well Fintan Studios has delivered
on the first issue, I'm inclined to trust them.
Which is not to say that The Forgotten is perfect. Though Jack Nolan does a solid job with the lettering, as professional as the rest of the book, the black with white lettering captions were sometimes difficult to read. On the other hand, it was a good way to set the narration apart from the rest of the dialogue and descriptions. Basically, The Forgotten is a professional package all around, and well worth a look from those who enjoy crime books or crime-tinged super-hero books like Detective Comics, Powers or Alias.
Email Randy Lander comments about this review, or discuss it on the Fourth Rail message board. |
