Didn't know what to expect from this new series. Different publishers have tried to bring back The Twilight Zone as a comic book series from time to time, but the results have never been all that impressive (to me), even with names such as Harlan Ellison and Neal Adams attached. This is an anthology series with a different writer/artist or writer/artist team every issue, so the results are liable to be mixed. I was going to post my thoughts on the first issue to the "What Comic Books Have You Read Today?" discussion, but this first issue was impressive enough (again, to me) to begin its own dedicated thread.
This first issue is written by Dan Watters, and he definitely has Rod Serling's distinctive patois down pat. I had no trouble hearing Serling's voice in my mind's ear as I read the opening and closing narration. The plot, too, is very Serling-esque, about a dying rich man obsessed with eliminating death, and yes, benefitting all mankind. (Spoiler: It doesn't work out that way.) The story is drawn in an impressionistic style by artist Morgan Beem. Instead of detail, we get mood. It's not beautiful on the surface, but sometimes beauty rests in the design rather than in perfect delineation of a character or thing.
It's not a perfect imitation of the old TV show, but it's at least as good an approximation as Oni Press's "EC" comics are of the original EC Comics. And that's a pretty high compliment.
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ISSUE #4:
The scene is set. A beautiful lake in summer, a houseboat for the weekend.
When Laura takes her abrasive brother, Chet, on a birthday vacation, their relationship is already wobbling on its last leg. A loving sister and her devoted boyfriend will try-desperately and one final time to salvage a relationship with a once-loving little brother now grown to be a hateful young man. But when all three are plunged into worlds of their deepest desires, will they even want to find each other once again?
I liked this one. I didn't think of it so much as a "Twilight Zone" story as I did a horror/suspense story in the EC vein.
The covers: Again, I picked the more generic Francesco Francavilla cover (which forms a diptych with #3's) rather than the story-specific Nate Powell main cover. (Do all the Francavilla covers fit together? I'll have to look into that.) Again, the UPC/price copy is on the front of the "A" cover but the back of the "B." Why couldn't they do that with both? Oh, well... only one issue left. :(
I missed the first issue of this series, but have been able to get the others. It's a decent approximation of the Twilight Zone spirit -- good call in making the comics black-and-white -- but the art ranges from mediocre to amateurish. I'd recommend it more highly if the art was better.
ISSUE #5:
A female scientist, an expert in the emerging fields of acoustics and sonic vibrations, is assigned to an otherwise all male crew to investigate a meteor emitting cryptic audio waves which has crashed into the ocean. No one listens to her. Perhaps they should have. Then again, perhaps not. Once again, I bought the Francavilla cover (which is appropriate since he co-wrote and drew the issue).
I actually liked this one more than the others. The art at least was competent. It bothered me that the naval officer had a Van Dyke beard (it's not a goatee, although people often mistakenly call it that), but it bothered me more -- in sympathy with the story's protagonist -- that they just wouldn't listen to her, like she had cooties or something.
I thought that aspect of the story was well-handled, very convincing, very disturbing.
My first thought when the men went out to investigate was that to leave only one person able to open the door, and that person was a newcomer who wasn't in the chain of command, and hadn't exactly been welcomed with open arms, was that it was a plot set-up. No military man would allow a civilian to have that much control over the fate of his men. It was a man-behind-the-curtain moment for me.
Other than that, I found it pretty creepy.
ISSUE #6:
One look at the cover and the title and you can pretty much guess what this story is going to be like, can't you?
"Piper can’t take care of herself. She barely eats, and her apartment is a mess. In a last desperate attempt to quick-fix her life, she decides to order a food delivery service. But her first delivery includes an unexpected arrival: an unsettlingly baby-shaped vegetable. Its pudgy plant hands and feet may be too cute to eat, but Piper is about to learn that caring for another is far more complicated than caring for yourself. Especially if you love the other more than yourself..."
Well done. I'm unfamiliar with Niclole Goux's work, but I'll keep my eye out for it going forward.
It was lovely that Piper had a friend willing to spend so much of her own life trying to fix Piper's. Especially when she had a family of her own. But she did serve as an exposition machine, which may have been her story purpose.
That being said, Jeff's right that the ending -- or at least that nothing good was going to come of this -- was evident early on. Sometimes when I've guessed the conclusion I get bored waiting for what I know is going to happen, to happen. In this case, it just allowed the dread to grow.
I appreciate that this title allows it stories to grow (ahem) for a whole issue. The EC anthology approach gives a lot of bang for the buck, in that you get a slew of different (creepy) ideas. But the brevity, which enhances shock endings, doesn't allow for character or concept development. I like having the time to think "How can this end?" or "What does this mean" or even "Oh, no." The length helps maintain the TV show's "vibe" as well.
I like both approaches, and I'm glad to live in an era that offers both.
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