|
MARVEL KNIGHTS: MILLENNIAL VISIONS #1
Mildly Recommended (6/10)
|
Marvel Comics
Writers/Artists: various
Editor: Mike Marts
Price: $3.99 US/$5.99 CAN |
As I said in my review of X-Men: Millennial Visions last week, I have very little interest in pin-up books, and so the Millennial Visions pretty much fail for me on a conceptual level. However, for those who enjoy that kind of thing, the Visions are a decent example of how they should be done. The Marvel Knights Millennial Visions has more diversity in
its offerings, and also a generally stronger cast of artists and writers, and
there are a pretty good number of projects suggested here that I wouldn't mind
seeing.
Because Marvel Knights is such a loosely-defined imprint, the creators have a fair bit of latitude in coming up with concepts for this Visions, and that shows in the diversity of the offerings. Rather than overly dark futures with all-too-familiar characters, as the X-Men Visions had, this one encompasses a wider
view of the Marvel Universe and futures that range from dark to standard
super-heroic to funny.
There are several
re-imaginings of Marvel's horror characters, with "anime" style versions of
Ghost Rider and Werewolf by Night, Jim Calafiore (with inks from Peter
Palmiotti) serving up a disturbing and moody Man-Thing portrait and John
Totleben re-imagining Dracula as a technological nightmare, with the amount of
story potential probably spent in the one-page of text by Matt Nixon. SHIELD
also makes several appearances, from the intriguing Western take on Nick Fury by
Studio Udon to a nice Elektra piece by Ryan Bodenheim to Kaare Andrews
movie-poster style Marvel Boy, which is impressive but really doesn't sound like
a great story idea.
Humor is in full swing as
well. Amanda Connor and Chris Eliopoulos serve up hilarious pinups of Black
Widow and the Marvel Universe (although Eliopoulos seems awfully concerned with
overweight characters), Sean Phillips closes things out with a "diner ad"
featuring Captain America and Daredevil and John McCrea (with Bill Rosemann)
serves up my favorite piece of the book, a "Shaft" style Doctor Strange that it
just crying out for a one-shot.
The rest of the book is
something of a mixed bag. There are dark future re-imaginings, such as JH
Williams and Dan Curtis Johnson's look at the themes that drive Captain America
with an android future, and then there are simple character portraits, such as
Bradstreet's Punisher and Deathlok pieces, which both offer nothing really new
or unusual about the characters. The lack of Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee, two of
Marvel Knights's defining stars is felt, in a Sentry vision that is lackluster
in art and potential story and a couple of takes on the Inhumans that manage to
bore me to tears with only a page of story and art. There are also a couple of
"legacy" ideas featuring a female Black Panther and Moon Knight, done with
beautiful art but not really making me want to see any stories involving them.
All in all, I'm borderline
tempted to pick this up just because of the talent involved and some of the
intriguing visions offered. However, I'd just as soon see these creators tackle
entire stories rather than simple one-page "visions" and so this format
continues to fall squarely into the "not for me" camp.
Email Randy Lander comments about this review, or discuss it on the Fourth Rail message board. |
