From Beyond the Unknown #2 came out yesterday. Of course I bought it...even though issue #1 was a bit of a disappointment. But the first new solo Kamandi story that I can remember since the Wednesday Comics series from eleven years ago?...well, yeah, I'll buy that. Hells yeah.
Here are the details: 8 pages, written by Tom Sniegoski, pencils and inks by Eric Gapstur. I don't really know Sniegoski, but he's been around for awhile, and has written novels--including this one
which boasts a super cool cover--as well as quite a few comic books. I'm sure I've read some of his comic book work, but the only title I can really associate with him right now is Vampirella, and I've read very few of those. ANYway...the guy's definitely got a thick pad of experience behind him.
I'd never heard of artist Eric Gapstur before, but it looks like he's got a bit of work behind him as well. In this Kamandi story, his work looks a lot like Phil Hester to me--kind of empty and scratchy. Which is not necessarily a bad thing...but isn't really my cup of tea. I blame Keith Giffen. I'd have to say that it's adequate in this story, though, and at least I never had to stop to try to figure out what was going on in a panel. (Which happens pretty often in modern comics, actually. I have often done the Steve Martin / Dan Akroyd "What the hell IS it?" routine whilst reading comic books.) I'd give it a solid C+.
Speaking of the story...well, it's just pretty insipid, I'm sorry to say. Like D or even D - level. I'm going to spoil it...because if you're not a Kamandi fan who will buy just about anything The Last Boy on Earth appears in (me), I think you deserve to save your 99¢ on this. You'll have to use your secret decoder ring to read it, though. *
Kamandi gets off his raft and is attacked by stupid rat creatures. He runs to a house and a robot butler lets him in. Robot butler is waiting for his masters to come home. Kamandi has met these masters--they were all sitting in an abandoned vehicle out on the road. Dead. For some time. Kamandi and the butler then fend off the stupid rat creatures. Butler is wounded. Kamandi wants to make robot butler happy (?) before he dies (?), so he goes out to the vehicle and drags the corpses into the house. He puts them into chairs at the dinner table. Then he leaves.
I mean...is that some shit or what?
This is the problem with people writing Kamandi stories...pretty much since Jack Kirby gave up the reins. First, they think that they have to re-tell at least some portion of Kamandi's origin. Every. Single. Time. Second, they don't seem to understand that Kamandi is the least interesting part of a Kamandi story. I mean...he's just a teenage boy who wanders around and gets into trouble. So you can't focus on him. Jack Kirby knew that, and focused on the world in which this poor lad lived. Kamandi was constantly finding interesting people and places. And he was constantly on the move.
I'm still hoping for more solo Kamandi, of course, because I'll take pretty much anything. Hell, I even spent $3.39
Kamandi in it.
As for the second half of From Beyond the Unknown #2...Dan Jurgens (writer and artist, the latter along with Norm Raymond) didn't exactly disappoint me here...but he didn't make me all that happy, either. The story was almost good...involving yet another of those kind of re-defining touches that I've found in several of the DC digital comic books...but was pretty much just more of the same old same old Legion of Super-Heroes stuff, and, as usual, the female Legionaires tits seemed to be unnecessarily prominent.
To wit:
I mean...nice cheesecake, boys, but...really?
And oddly enough, the male characters' sexual appurtenances are not prominent. In fact, if you look back at that cover and take into account the tightness of the uniforms, it seems that the two Legion guys shown here have no penises whatsoever. Just as well, I suppose, as given the scantily clad nature of their female cohorts, they'd be too tumescent to fight the bad guys if they had any equipment to speak of.
ANYway...I'm not feeling that I want my dollar back on this, but I'm not feeling like I got my money's worth, either.
Looking forward to issue #3 next week...ha ha.
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