Man-Thing #5 Review
Writer: R.L.
Stine
Art Team: German Peralta, Rachelle Rosenberg
Marvel
Comics
Release
Date: June 21, 2017
Cover Price:
$3.99
Put the Man-Thing Away
Man-Thing reaches
its conclusion here this month as this five issue mini-series comes to a
close. While initially excited about
learning who this character was and what he was capable of, I find four issues
in, that hasn’t been touched on much. Instead we’ve gotten just a series of
weird things happening, just to progress the story further, which makes me glad
it’s come to a close at five issues to be honest. So does the conclusion to the
series at least redeem the story a bit? Let’s find out inside.
Man Thing
begins this issue under the control of Evil Queen Irena, possessing a magic
sword and standing over OldFather, very reminiscent of the scene from the previous
issue only this time Man-Thing’s possessing the sword. Believe it or not Man-Thing goes through with
the deed, ‘seemingly’ killing OldFather, as Irena comes down to congratulate
him for going through with her commands.
Suddenly
with Irena in front of him, Man-Thing, for one reason or another, breaks her
spell upon him as she gets close, lashing out at her for forcing him to kill
OldFather, withstanding her defensive efforts to trick him once again. Man-Thing
ultimately succeeds in finally killing Irena with the one power I knew he had
coming into this series his ‘burning touch’. The attending crowd in the packed Colosseum
panics and empties scattering throughout Nexus never to be seen in this book
again.
As Man-Thing
stares upon the horror he caused, the severed head of OldFather, it begins shockingly
speaking to Man-Thing. The head of OldFather yells at Man-Thing, declaring he,
despite being bodyless, is not a “wuss”. The head of OldFather demands
Man-Thing hurry up and find his body, and place his head back upon it quickly,
before he dies for good since a magic man can only go headless so long I guess.
The remainder
of the majority of this issue is Man-Thing, and the head of OldFather, fighting
off a character called the Yellow Arrow, who shows up out of nowhere and is
bright as the sun, followed by the official hunt for OldFather’s the missing
body, which is quickly stumbled upon, in none other than a place called the “Body
Shop”.
Believe it
or not our story concludes when Man-Thing, in three point shot fashion,
replaces the head of OldFather on the body just in the nick of time. Now fully powered up, OldFather summons two
portals to take our ‘heroes’ home, but Man-Thing stumbles into the wrong one ending
up in a Rick and Morty-esque world where everyone resembles himself … he’s in a
world where Man-Thing’s are everywhere NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
Overall I
guess I expected a little something different from this series going in and
after having read all five issues I do feel slightly let down by the overall
product. I understand anything can
happen in Nexus but as a result don’t know much about the character of
Man-Thing or his power-set to any great degree after five issues. I don’t get how
this journey benefited Man-Thing as a character in any way shape or form. This
felt like a book where things were determined ahead of time characters would be
making weird decisions just for the sake of making them. Nothing was done to
benefit the story in any real way, or to provide a twist in the that made sense
... it was all just weird for the sake of being weird.
The art was
the highlight of this series with everything rendered on the page in eye
catching fashion. There are a few perspective issues towards the end of this
issue, especially with the way the portals are positioned, but the art was good
overall.
Bits and Pieces
Man-Thing
started pretty intriguing as a mini-series but ultimately morphed into a random
series of events for the story to reach a ho-hum conclusion. The art looks pretty, and can get trippy when
the characters are in Nexus, but there's nothing special that make this issue or
series ultimately worth it as a whole to check out.
4.5/10
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