With Great Power Comes Mediocre Storytelling Storytellers: Kenneth Rocafort and Dan DiDio
Art by: Kenneth Rocafort, Ivan Plascencia, Dan Brown, and Travis Lanham
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: August 8, 2018
Following a mostly gripping and grim previous issue, surely the team will be able to provide genuine character moments as well as a strong plot to continue the growth of DC's latest youngster? The short answer? Nope.
This issue begins with a brief snippet involving the Seven Soldiers. It's pretty clear what's going on but it sure looks pretty since Kenneth Rocafort is back on art duties. We then cut back to Derek and his woes.
Derek's mom was killed by the powers that be at the end of the last issue. This death indicated to me that DC really, truly did want their own version of Spider-Man. My impression of the finale was that the creative team was finally going to focus and hone in on this character in order to let him be defined. Instead, we get an honestly boring and meandering issue that does absolutely nothing for me.
I'm a bit of a sucker. If a story can get a handle on me emotionally, then you've got me. I'm in if you have my heart. Dan DiDio and Carmine Di Giandomenico briefly grazed my heart last issue, but now this team missed it and went straight for a kick to the family jewels. This just feels dishonest. I don't know much about Derek or his father but the way they're going about this tragedy simply doesn't ring true to me, and that's this issue's biggest failure for me. It doesn't even seriously acknowledge a tragic event that is supposed to define a character and give them their motivation or mission. Instead, it seems obvious that the team was playing the long game. They may be taking a page from Brian Michael Bendis' and Mark Bagley's Ultimate Spider-Man in this regard, but the characters remain uncompelling. The fact that Derek's mom died in #6 is a testament to how much the book has been lazing around without any momentum for the previous five issues.
Rocafort's art is nice, though. Despite the lackluster quality of the plot he's clearly doing as best he can with depicting the characters. The acting and layouts are good enough not to bore me. It's when the Seven Soldiers are involved that the art goes a bit out there as Rocafort may be having a bit of fun.
Bits and Pieces:
The characters are disingenuine and completely out of character. Instead of defining the character and moving on from here. the plot goes completely... sideways, and I'm not given a reason to care about the aforementioned tragedy nor the people who are affected by it.
4/10
I thought this was a decent issue. This isn't solely about Dereck being sad at his mother's death, it's more about his anger at how he failed her which led to her death. There was a point in the book I thought this story was about Dereck becoming a villian. He revealed everything by using his powers, and didn't care. If his friend wasn't there, I have the feeling he would have done more than push them around with water.
ReplyDeleteThe whole hero team does come a little to close to his mother's death but we all new this book was going to lead somehow back to the dark Multiverse. Just looking at this team I already like it more then the Justice League Dark team.( also oddly enough I find Bulleteer really hot). This issue moved the book forwards pointed at it's real goal. I know there are people out there that hate rocaforts art, but I love it.
6.5/10