I'm a huge fan of the work that Robert Kirkman is doing on Image books like The Walking Dead and Invincible, but as is inevitable, as his profile has risen, he's also been snapped up for work at Marvel. It is my hope that he will continue to keep his toe in with the indy waters, unlike so many other former indy writers who have gone to the big two, not just because I like his indy work so much but because he hasn't yet captured the same spark with his Marvel work. Marvel Knights 2099 is another example of this, a series of one-shots that features some neat moments but which ultimately feature mostly unimpressive artwork and somewhat bland concepts and will probably do nothing to please fans of the original 2099 stuff or to engage the imagination of potential new fans. Nothing about these books is actually bad, but neither do any of them scream out for attention and demand that more stories be told about them.
So, the quick synopsis, which is wisely reprinted in the first page of this book, is that this is a "Days of Futures Past" type story where superheroes have been mostly eliminated and then made illegal, and the Sentinels are an everpresent part of daily life. The take isn't post-apocalyptic, however, but instead utopian, as this has also eliminated supercrime and has made the society mostly crime-free. Kirkman's utopia doesn't always make sense (as when Daredevil finds the only example of street crime so he can do some convenient crimefighting), but at least he avoids the typical "it's not really utopia, it's a dystopia" cliche and has one of his heroes questioning whether or not the loss of the superheroes was a good thing. Or at least, that's the case in these first three of the five one-shots, which were offered up in First Look.
Daredevil 2099 is definitely the strongest of the bunch, in both concept and execution. Kirkman's take on the legacy hero has a neat little twist, intertwining the legacy of Daredevil with that of his greatest foe, and he uses that legacy to provide a great little shocker ending as well. He also does a pretty nifty reinvention of the character, and it's more than just adding a gun to his arsenal: this character doesn't have heightened senses and ninja training, he has gadgets that do the work for him and just a touch of inferiority complex as a result. Daredevil has always been a character driven more by idealism than guilt, but Kirkman's Daredevil is driven very much by a guilty conscience and a need to repent, which is more an unusual twist on the Spider-Man formula than Daredevil. At any rate, if any of the characters from these first three one-shots were to get a second life, Daredevil is the only one I'd be interested in following.
Of course, Punisher 2099 really doesn't have anywhere to go, which is also kind of a neat little idea, but sadly that unusual storytelling decision of actually finishing a tale in a one-shot is the best thing that Punisher 2099 has to offer. It is also a weird take on the legacy concept, not just the notion that the Punisher, who is defined mostly by insanity, would have a legacy, but by the strange mother-son relationship that drives the book. It's actually a somewhat interesting concept, but the nature of the story becomes clear in just a few pages and stays on that predictable path. Not as predictable as Mutant 2099, though, which is very much a spin on the teen hero rebel archetype and very much the most dull book of the bunch as a result. Kirkman has covered this teen hero territory before, and much better, in Invincible and even in Jubilee, and this reads like an also-ran. There's some solid moments where the teen hero actually wonders if the world might be better off without vigilante superheroes, but it's undercut by a too-convenient resolution that teaches him a lesson, and of all the books, it feels most like the one that is just doing setup for a series that probably won't (and probably shouldn't) come to pass.
Daredevil 2099 features work by Karl Moline, Mike Perkins and Rick Magyar, all artists that I like, and is the strongest of the bunch in terms of artwork as well. Moline did a great job with the acrobatic and kinetic feel of Fray, and Perkins was great on the karate-kicking castmembers of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and they're both perfect for capturing the high-flying, acrobatic movement of Daredevil. There's also a really nice attention to detail and stylistic flair on the character moments, with highlights being that emotionally charged last page or the scenes of bickering between the lead character and his wife.
The other two books feature artists I have never really warmed up to, working in a style that I'm generally not fond of. Khary Randolph's work on Mutant 2099 has the same wild proportions and anime storytelling conventions of guys like Skottie Young and Humberto Ramos, and as a result, the whole thing just comes across as a bit goofy, and the all-important job of showing the nature of this future falls by the wayside for generic backdrops that could just as easily be the modern Marvel Universe. Pop Mhan is the artist on Punisher 2099, and he has reined his wild style in considerably so that it looks more like manga by way of Alex Maleev, a weird mixture that is passable for storytelling but just doesn't fire the imagination, and in some places looks like it's still in the rough sketch stage. There are some pages that show real potential, but too much of it looks like the kind of thing you'd find in an amateur mini-comic, and the uneven nature of the quality combined with the non-starter story makes for a disappointing read.
Overall, Marvel Knights 2099 is readable, but that's just about it. Daredevil 2099 stands head and shoulders above the other two reviewed here, but is dragged down a bit by being in this unremarkable and uninteresting future setting. None of them grab me the way Kirkman's work on Invincible or Walking Dead has, or even in the way that some of the 2099 books, like Spider-Man 2099, did back in the day.
