I love the concept of The Ride, a series of stories that revolve around a '68 Camaro. Unfortunately, in execution, The Ride #1 has some pretty significant problems that keep me from loving it as much as I really wanted to. Still, while the book didn't live up to my expectations, that doesn't mean it's a failure, as the art by the members of Gaijin Studios is flashy and fun and Wagner's stories do have a sense of frenetic fun to them as well. The tone of the book is just a little inconsistent, and for a comic that is based around the Camaro, the car itself plays surprisingly little role in the actual stories.
Wagner tells two stories here, connected not so much by the Camaro but by the driver of it, a long-standing Atlanta cop with a maverick attitude and his rookie partner. I know, cliche, right? Well, yes, but Wagner does a pretty decent job of this cliche, and I like the brusque attitude that he gives Sergeant Frank Simms, who absolutely steals the show from the other characters in this issue. In fact, the only other one who captures my attention as much as Simms is something of a cartoon, memorable more for her outrageousness than from any lingering characterization.
At any rate, the two stories differ wildly in tone, and I don't know if that's down to just the art or a conscious decision by the writer or what. It is somewhat disconcerting, however, that the first story is one of a pair of cops on a bust and the second one turns into a sort of weird psycho-violence right out of a Lynch or Tarantino flick. To be honest, it's the first one that I liked better in terms of story, because I thought Wagner established the partnership pretty solidly before launching into the surprisingly violent conclusion, whereas the second one just sort of comes out of nowhere. Wagner is working with relatively few story pages here, so I'm inclined to cut him some slack, but the truth is that the plot of the issue is paper thin, largely an excuse for the artists to draw some slick action sequences.
Oh, but they are some slick action sequences. Hamner's work on the first story is a burst of sudden violence, a somewhat gritty look at police brutality as seen through the eyes of a shocked rookie. The story doesn't seem to have much interest in exploring the consequences of this violence, which undercuts the power of the sequence, but it is undeniably powerful. The second story, with art by Brian Stelfreeze, is more stylized, with what amounts to a powerful pin-up right in the middle that spills all we need to know about our cartoonish antagonist, and is pretty much a successful big blockbuster moment. Mind you, in terms of actual storytelling, the sequence lacks any sense of place, and so characters and vehicles seem to enter and leave the scene almost at random, and it takes a couple read-throughs to get what's supposed to be going on.
What most surprised me about The Ride was two things: One was that the book was black and white, perhaps necessary in terms of cost but unfortunate in that this kind of high-octane action and art just begs for splashy color. The other was that the car, which is the motivating concept, really isn't any more important than the guns or badges that the characters have, but is just another prop. I was hoping for a little bit more of a concept story, and what I got instead were a couple of empty calorie (but fun) action tales.
