Mini Reviews: Horizon Experiment: The Sacred Damned, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Green Lantern Dark, Absolute Wonder Woman, Iron Man, Dazzler, and more!

Sometimes, the staff at Graphic Policy read more comics than we’re able to get reviewed. When that happens you’ll see a weekly feature compiling reviews of the comics, or graphic novels, we just didn’t get a chance to write a full one for.

These are Graphic Policy’s Mini Reviews and Recommendations.

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Horizon Experiment: The Sacred Damned #1 (Image) – Sabir Pirzada and Michael Walsh‘s The Sacred Damned #1 reminded me a lot of 1988’s Hellblazer #1 which opens with a man eating everything in sight, but dying of starvation. Pirzada and Walsh dig into the horrors of the overconsumption of American culture, but from the POV of a badass Muslim occultist named Inayah Jibril. In The Sacred Damned, she investigates the strange case of a college football player possessed by Djinn and comes to grips with her own demons. Jibril’s no hero and even revels a little bit in the fact that Kyle is getting comeuppance for his careless, hateful, privileged life. Pirzada’s plotting and Michael Walsh’s visuals are classic Vertigo horror, but from a different perspective than white British men. Overall: 8.2 Verdict: Buy

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #4 (IDW) – This Leonardo-centric issue has a lot of navel-gazing with just a pinch of ninja action at the end as Jason Aaron and Cliff Chiang show us what Leo has been up to for the past nine months. The answer (Communing with turtles on the banks of the Ganges.) isn’t that exciting, but it’s fun to watch him get off his ass and return to being the leader of the Hamato Clan. As with the previous two issues of TMNT, the art is the headliner with Chiang playing with shapes, silhouettes, and shadows when Leo saves some soft shell turtles from poachers. His color palette also sets the mood for the story from the serenity of meditation to the harshness of crashing a helicopter into a building. Overall: 7.0 Verdict: Read

Green Lantern Dark #1 (DC) – Tate Brombal, Something is Killing the Children’s Werther Dell’Edera, and Giovanna Niro tell a tale of hope in utter bleakness in Green Lantern Dark #1. They construct a world without heroes except for a reluctant Green Lantern and a girl who believes in her. Dell’Edera’s horror chops come in handy as Solomon grundy’s minions overwhelm the tone and snuff out the light. Some of the panels have strange angles though, and it’s hard to follow the story, especially in an early diner sequence. However, Green Lantern Dark #1 is a stripped down tale about finding hope in the darkest places that rings true in today’s world. Pair it with a power outage for an even better reading experience. Overall: 8.0 Verdict: Buy

Paranoid Gardens #4 (Dark Horse) – Gerard Way, Shaun Simon, and Chris Weston finally start to reveal what’s actually going on that creepy, extraterrestrial retirement home in Paranoid Gardens #4. Antagonist Dr. Zerc is in full selfish mode and doing whatever he can to live forever no matter the cost while protagonist Loo scrambles around and helps out bonding with the unnamed superhero, who basically was pulled over by a space cop on the way to save the day. Putting mundane situations in weird, new contexts is where Paranoid Gardens really sings, and Weston’s deadpan-style art matches this tone nicely like when a vampire has a group therapy session with some ghosts. Paranoid Gardens is 2/3 finished, but really shows some narrative momentum in issue four although the book continues to be scatter-brained for better or worse. Overall: 7.5 Verdict: Read

Alien Romulus #1 (Marvel) – Zac Thompson, Daniel Piccioto, and Yen Nitro turn in a solid adaptation of an Alien Romulus prequel story by the film’s writer/director Fede Alvarez and co-writer Rodo Sayagues. It connects Alien Romulus even more closely to the original Alien film as well as Prometheus with Rook pontificating about creating new life and immortality while xenomorphs wreck the Renaissance. There are even some dark moments when a scientist contemplates using the xenomorphs for human genocide before he dies a gruesome death. The art from Piccioto is pretty standard issue, but he turns up the gore to match Thompson’s frenetic dialogue. However, Alien Romulus #1‘s biggest strength is how seamlessly it works with Alien Romulus film. You can read this, put on Alien Romulus (On VHS, perhaps.) and have your own xenomorph double feature. Overall: 7.8 Verdict: Buy

The Power Fantasy #3 (Image) – In Power Fantasy #3, Kieron Gillen and Caspar Wijingaard both narrow their focus on the angelic Superpower Santa Valentina and broaden it to show just how different the world of The Power Fantasy is from our own culminating in a “wtf” type final page. I love how unchanging Wijingaard makes Santa Valentina’s facial expressions from jumping out of the womb with atomic powers to her telepathic chats with Etienne Lux in the present day. She’s truly the never-fading representation of youth culture with a glowing color palette from Caspar Wijingaard. The Power Fantasy #3 (Especially a key data page.) adds context to this book’s world and characters, and I’m even more afraid to be a regular person in this universe. Overall: 8.3 Verdict: Buy

Dazzler #2 (Marvel) – After proclaiming that she’s a mutant with her new track “Out and Proud” and surviving a supervillain attack, Alison Blaire is off to London for the next stop of her world tour. Even though there’s a typical mind control/sabotage type plot in this issue, Dazzler’s real antagonist is a talk show host as Jason Loo and Rafael Loureiro show how the press use loaded questions and twist artists’ words. I felt more tension when Dazzler was trying to get through the interview than when she was destroying a radio show live lounge set or duking it out with a mind controlled Domino. Dazzler #2 definitely ups the stakes and fear and hated quotient. My one qualm with the book is that the art is a little too Marvel house style, but Loureiro does turn in some gorgeous fits for Alison Blaire and company, especially a secret guest star. Overall: 8.0 Verdict: Buy

Absolute Wonder Woman #1 (DC) – Kelly Thompson, Hayden Sherman, and Jordie Bellaire unleash a literally hellish take on Diana of Themiscyra in Absolute Wonder Woman #1. They create a world of fickle gods and frightening monsters, and Wonder Woman’s usual villain Circe is her closest friend, confidant, and mother. Although there are scenes set in the present, Absolute Wonder Woman #1 is very much in origin story mode showing how Diana became a hero and warrior while growing up in Hell. A lot of the story comes from details in Sherman’s art as they and Bellaire show Circe and Diana’s empty cave turn into a magical home where a young woman can learn to be a warrior and save the world. Hayden Sherman also uses a lot of cool layouts, especially during the fight scenes in the present, which are super metal. Absolute Wonder Woman #1 is a darker take on the iconic character that still preserves her heroic nature. Overall: 8.7 Verdict: Buy

Iron Man #1 (Marvel) – Political journalist Spencer Ackerman teams up with artist Julius Ohta and colorist Alex Sinclair to tell a story of Tony Stark at his lowest (Again.) as he must will himself to fight a takeover of Stark Unlimited by Roxxon and AIM. Ackerman and Ohta repurpose B and Z-list villains as agents of the late capitalist military-industrial-social media complex, and I’m not gonna lie, it’s kind of charming to see Tiger Shark as social media troll/streamer/online gambling fixer. However, contemporary window dressing and Julius Ohta art that makes Tony Stark look utterly burned out aside, I feel like I’ve read this story when it was written by David Michelinie, Matt Fraction, Christopher Cantwell, or hell, even Gerry Duggan when it wasn’t a sub-plot book for X-Men. (Are we running out of Iron Man stories? Should we have retired them like Robert Downey Jr. did with the role in the MCU?) This book has some fun moments like the factory workers shading Stark, the new Iron Monger design/Justine Hammer showing she’s not a nepo baby, but it’s not a hit straight out of the gates. Overall: 7.5 Verdict: Read

Source: Graphic Policy