Man-Thing #3 Review
Writer: R.L.
Stine
Art Team:
German Peralta, Rachelle Rosenberg
Marvel
Comics
Release
Date: April 26, 2017
Cover Price:
$3.99
Pete and Re-Pete Are in a Boat, Pete Falls Out, Who’s Left? Pete and Re-Pete …
Well it has
been a long awhile since we last checked in on Man-Thing; this after the first
two issues came out only a few weeks apart. If you have memory troubles like I
do you may vaguely remember when we left ol’ Manny (short for Man-Thing) he was
confronted with fighting his way through a gaggle of fellow swamp monsters,
succeeding for the most part, before witnessing a former ex-gf being kidnapped,
all while discovering OldFather was also been taken, against his will, to the Nexus
of all Realities. So with all of this
these problems to solve and only a few more issues for Man-Thing to accomplish
these tasks let’s find out what’s in store for us here shall we.
The book starts
by picking up in a strange place, which is typically standard for Man-Thing
titles, but this is a little bit different. If you’ve been reading along, last issue we
saw Man-Thing standing at the gates to the Nexus of all Realities, however the
story here seems to have backtracked to a point in time prior to the previous
cliffhanger we all saw. Honest to God all
we are given in these first eight pages is a Zombie fight before seeing
Man-Thing back in front of the doors to the ‘Nexus’ again so halfway through
our story we’re right back where we started, that’s just inexcusable.
After a brief
explanation of how the Nexus of all Realities work, Man-Thing enters the
doorway, and what looks like an acid trip turned into a splash page leads us to
the first new information dropped on us this issue. The crazy Nexus has sent
Man-Thing to place where he has to partake in an arena battle, like ancient
Roman times, in an effort to free OldFather. I guess the purpose of all this is for the enjoyment of some Queen we’ve just been briefly introduced to, I'm trying to figure out the WHY she cares, but her motivations are never really even hinted at, so I don't care either.
The final third
of the book fails to deliver on what seems to be setup, promised, and foreshadowed throughout the issue because just when Man-Thing, and another fellow monstrous titan, are ready to
throw down over the life of OldFather, Man-Thing reverts back into his human
persona. This obviously takes the other
warrior by surprise, he refuses to pick on someone smaller, instead choosing to plunge his own sword into his chest, all to die an honorable death, rather than be goaded
into a fight that would make him dishonorable ... okay, I guess its fine, even mindless dimensional monsters have honor, got it.
Well if you
know anything about evil Queens in literature your mildly aware they don’t like
to lose or feel taken advantage of. So despite Man-Thing being the only person
left standing in the arena, the queen isn’t happy with the way the course of
events went down, and Old Father is still sentenced to death concluding the
issue on that cliffhanger. To wrap up events we
are provided another several page back-up story, and while I enjoyed the
cleverness of the first back-up in issue one, the last two have been largely
forgettable since then, adding nothing to the actual story and feel used to add to a page count.
Overall
Man-Thing was a title that I was very much excited about in the beginning, but
after what seems like a delay in scheduling, combined with a lackluster third issue
that mostly just retreads story progress, and worse misleads the reader my interest is waning from this point
forward. The art remains a strong point
of the title, and though it’s fun to see Man-Thing in the Marvel Comics Universe and publishing lineup once again, if the last few issues don’t get back the
momentum established in the first two of the series, it might be another long
while until we see Marvel’s swamp hero again in the future.
Bits and Pieces
Man-Thing
seems to have stalled while inexcusably going back on the progress and
decisions our hero previously made in the story. I’m
not sure what happened from last month to this month but there are characters
jumping in and out of the title all over the place and the story in general just seems to have
lost its footing in a race to a conclusion.
4.5/10
Its a good novel
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