I really tried. I love Sienkiewicz's art, but I'm unfamiliar with Helfer's writing.

So...a few things here.

First, why oh why oh why do new writers think it's smart to take characters from the 1920s/30s/40s and bring them up to current times? Doc Savage, Tarzan, John Carter, the Shadow and a host of others were of their time. They fit nicely into those times. Bringing them forward where there's colour TVs and 24 hour news and cell phones and computers? No. Doesn't work. In fact, it's often terrible, because the writer has to bend and contort the original character in so many ways to first get them up to present day, then allow them to somewhat do their thing while adapting to progress, that the original sense of the character is lost. What made them fun is buried under all those mad contortions.

I don't have a lot to go on with Helfer's writing, but if this issue's any indication, I don't care to learn more.

And Sienkiewicz? He seems to be slumming here. Yes, there's his trademark messy, cartoonish style, but none of the bite and flair and experimentation. This one feels to me like just another paycheque.

Terrible stuff. ( )