How To Make a Monster Man
Written By: Steve Orlando
Art By: Felipe Watanabe, Scott Hanna, Hi-Fi, Clayton Cowles
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: June 14, 2017
*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*
I really hope that at some point going forward that this series will be able to be something that I don't dread to read. I mean, it's never a painful experience and it's usually pretty quick, but I know it's probably going to have something that fucks up continuity, something that doesn't make sense, bad dialog, forced tensions in the team and all of that precedes each issues' time to get its preach on by telling you about some injustice that's forced into the story. I just want to have fun and see our heroes doing something that seems worthwhile and makes sense, but we're really haven't been given that so far and at this point, I'm starting to think that it will never happen. I'm still hopeful, but I'm also a sucker so take that hope as you will. Let's jump into this issue and see what our JLA team are up to and if it will be nonsense or not. Let's check it out.
Explain It!:
Our issue begins with us seeing a painted up man running through the jungle of Monster Valley with some monster birds because they're being chased by some robot soldiers of the organization S.K.U.L.L........... Yeah, it's one of those lesser known DC groups and their whole deal is halting progression and tech brokering and for some reason, they're after some jungle man named Makson, who we eventually learn after the JLA defeat all the robots was a man who grew up in the valley after his parent's plane crashed their when he was three and he was then raised by the monster birds called Amaredonts. The SKULL robots end up killing all of Makson's monster family, but don't worry, a few days later he's back in the normal world, where he's now a celebrity because of his story and can speak perfect English and seems well adjusted........... Nonsense.
Back at the Sanctuary, our team are talking about Makson, who they discover is named Brenton Hamilton and he's the heir to the Hamilton fortune, which is setup as a trust called the Hamilton Court. Batman, after seeing some of his interviews doesn't trust the man and our team split up into groups that trust Brenton and those who don't........... and eventually Ryan Choi picks Batman's side and goes to investigate Brenton's apartment, while Batman, Black Canary and Lobo go to Infinity Island to see what they can discover from SKULL's computers.
In the end, Batman finds out that the family that Brenton has surrounded himself with now are actually the ones who run SKULL and that it was them who sent the robots after him as a way to make sure that the Hamilton fortune continues to fund SKULL, but The Atom discovers in Brenton's apartment that the once Monster Man has plans of his own and those plans involve taking revenge on the family that possibly stranded him in Monster Valley to begin with.
That's it for this issue of JLA and this issue really never had a chance to breath with everything it was throwing at us, that seemed way too forced to begin with and the one thing that might have been decent to tell was the setup for Brenton Hamilton, where we see this guy running through the jungle for what seemed like half the book, while the JLA fought the robots and eventually we end with him grasping a dead monster bird........ but since nothing was initially setup, I had no connection to Brenton to feel sorry for him and thought that the birds were originally after him. This is just a mess of a series and things never seem to add up as the story progresses and the only thing I can really say positive about this issue is that the art looked good. I'm just really tired of this series, but mostly Steve Orlando's writing.
Bits and Pieces:
Another issue of JLA that is forced as hell and doesn't quite add up by the end of the story. The only real positive to this issue is the art because while that looked good, the story never progressed enough for you to care about its twist ending that it only seemed to want to get to in the first place.
4.9/10
Sorry to learn that DC has put out such a clunker in one of it's premier titles. Thanks for reading the comic so we don't have to.
ReplyDeleteWorsens by issue. I'm very sad for the characters of the book and they don't click as a team. JLA should be the 80's Outsiders led by Martian Manhunter plus Choi and Vibe who has vanished since new 52.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of doing a horror take on the Tarzan character, or taking the idea of Tarzan and putting it at odds with the Justice League, perhaps even revealing facets of the Tarzan character never before considered, but everything about this comic and the way it's delivered is so bloody ho hum it's infuriating.
ReplyDeletei agree...could have been so much better
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