Future Quest #3 - A Review

Future Quest #3 takes a break from its story-line to give us two introductory stories involving some of the cast we've seen so far. One story centers on Birdman and explains how he first teamed up with Inter-Nation agent Deva Sumadi. The other gives us an origin story for The Herculoids.

Jeff Parker writes both stories with the same sense of pulp fiction excitement that has dominated the series so far. The Birdman story is an excellent combination of both the spy thriller and superhero genres, that draws on Alex Toth's original notes for Birdman's origin story that never made it into the original cartoons.

The Herculoids story is something greater. As far as my research can determine, Alex Toth never wrote a formal background for The Herculoids as he did with Birdman. The show depicted the humanoid family fighting to keep their planet free from technology but never explained why.

Parker's story - whether based on his own ideas or Toth's - provides the explanation that Zandor and Tarra were escapees from a world destroyed by a robot uprising. The story also explains a discrepancy regarding the name of the Herculoid's homeworld, which had two different names in two different Herculoids cartoons. Don't worry, action fans - there's plenty of monsters fighting robots action amid the continuity porn for the trivia enthusiasts!

The entire book is beautifully illustrated. Steve Rude and Steve Buccellato give the Birdman story a suitably retro feel, that recalls the look of the original cartoons as well as the comics of Jim Steranko. The Herculoids story is more animated, if you'll pardon the pun. Aaron Lopresti perfectly captures the look of the various bestial Herculoids while crafting some uniquely 60s-style robots. Karl Kessel finds the right balance to the inks, keeping things light in depicting the futuristic society of Quasar but heavily shading the primordial jungle of Amzot. And the colors by Hi-Fi are nice and vivid.

Captain Marvel #3 - A Review

I have a suggestion for The Eisner Award committee. Start a new category for 'Best Recap Page'. Then give it to Captain Marvel.




No book I've read in recent memory has handled its' own exposition so smoothly as this one. After being informed of the disappearance of Carol Danvers (a.k.a. Captain Marvel) on the first page, the story quickly brings us up to speed on how - for some reason - Carol has been teleported into the past. She finds herself alongside The Banshee Squad - an elite all-women unit from World War II. The plot thickens in this issue as the Banshees discover that the Japanese Air Force is using some very advanced technology. Technology that Carol immediately recognizes as belonging to The Kree - the alien race responsible for her super powers.



Kelly Sue DeConnick proves to be as phenomenal as ever. The action scenes contained within this issue are well-paced and exciting. But this issue truly shines during the quieter scenes where Carol Danvers bonds with a group of women who revolutionized the idea of female soldiers and blazed the trail that she eventually walked down. This scene also sets up a cute gag at the end of the book, where we see what appears to be a "lost comic" penned and drawn by the Banshee Squad's aspiring writer and artist, starring a somewhat familiar looking heroine.




This sequence is illustrated by Karl Kessel and Javier Rodriguez, who provide a picture perfect parody of the Golden-Age superhero style. There is another two-page back-up scene, well-illustrated by Rich Elson and Will Quintana, which seems to be setting up a future storyline for Carol to deal with. The lion's share of the artwork is once again handled by Dexter Soy, who is quickly becoming one of my favorite artists.

Bottom Line: If you aren't reading Captain Marvel, you should be!