Shut the 1011101001 Up!
Written By: Van Jensen
Art By: Ron Salas, Mike Atiyeh
Release Date: July 13, 2016
Publisher: Dynamite
Review By: Dan Mayhoff
Release Date: July 13, 2016
Publisher: Dynamite
Review By: Dan Mayhoff
*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*
Is it fair to assume everyone still knows about the Six Million Dollar Man? Well, I’m sure that everyone still knows the classic line. “We can rebuild him. We have the technology.” It’s a line that’s been parodied an ungodly number of times but yet, I’m not sure if people still know what it’s from. So if you don’t know anything about this series, then I’ll explain it really quickly. Guy gets in terrible plane crash and is inches from death. Guy gets robot body parts to keep him alive and make him faster and stronger than before. Guy becomes secret agent for a government agency. Congrats! You are all caught up. So, let’s just jump into this issue.
We first see our hero falling out of the sky from a plane crash and a voice is screaming curses at him to wake up. Steve (our hero) looks around and believes that he is in a dream as he often experiences his original accident when he dreams. However, the voice in his head brings him to his senses very quickly and tells him to get off his ass and refrain from dying. Steve is able to assess the situation and with a little help from the voice in his head, he makes it to a crate that breaks his fall. He gets up, badly injured and walks away from the crash site before falling unconscious.
He awakes in a medical room and is greeted by a doctor that he mistakenly calls a nurse. (She’s wearing a lab coat. Seriously dude?) She informs him that he has been out for three weeks and that they’ve made all the repairs needed. He thinks about telling her about the voice in his head but it butts in, letting him know that it’s a bad idea. We jump forward then to see Steve training in the gym to be interrupted by some of his old associates included Barney Hiller. However, during the conversation, a phrase comes up which triggers something in Steve to download a classified file into his mind.
Steve waits until the night to break into the compound where he works and retrieves the files he was looking for. Unfortunately for him, he missed a silent alarm and suddenly he is being surrounded. The guards are confused that Steve is breaking in and most everyone is shocked when he fights back and gets away. Seeing that Steve had gotten into some secure files, his (now former) associates get worried and immediately start a man hunt. One member doesn’t just want to reobtain Steve, but instead orders his man to take him out so that the technology inside of him doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.
We cut back to Steve after he has gone through the files he stole. Turns out that the O.S.I. lied to him and has continued trying to make more agents like him. Considering the toil it has taken on himself, Steve decides that he can’t allow this to happen to anyone else. However, just then a new threat reveals themselves. It’s the Yakuza and they want revenge on Steve. They easily bring him down and are about to kill him when they are interrupted again. The CEO of Arvo, Mick Gentle comes forward offering the Yakuza a lot of money for Steve if he is kept alive. During the debate though, Mick removes his sunglasses to reveal his glowing eyes which shoot lasers into the members of the Yakuza, ripping them apart. To see what happens next, we’ll have to check out the next issue.
There’s not a whole lot to complain about with this issue but there’s not a whole lot to praise either. It’s your typical spy story that you would expect in a first issue. The voice in Steve’s head is a nice twist and is probably the best part of this issue. It’s just vastly more interesting than anything else. I’m actually a big fan of the art on this book as well. However, there is one major gripe that I have with this book and it unfortunately overshadows a lot. While the dialogue between Steve and the voice in his head is great, ultimately any other dialogue is absolutely atrocious. It’s very choppy and contrived. It feels like the writer is using the dialogue boxes to give us an ungodly amount of exposition. While it’s nice to have that information and backstory, ultimately I don’t believe that anyone would talk like this. I don’t know if it was an attempt to make the dialogue more like the old television show, but I can assure you that it doesn’t work.
Bits and Pieces:
If you like the typical spy comic, there’s a good chance that you will enjoy this book. It has that classic feel to some of its parts and the art is really nice to look at. Unfortunately, the dialogue in this book really hinders everything else. When you’re reading a book and you get to the point where you want to skip dialogue, then there’s a problem.
4.5/10
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