Review: War of the Worlds: Second Wave #1

War of the Worlds: Second Wave #1
by Michael Alan Nelson & Chee
Boom! Studios, $2.99

The basic story of War of the Worlds is probably familiar to just about everyone, if not through H. G. Wells' original novel than via one of he many other media adaptations: Martians invade Earth and wreck destruction upon humanity until finally they are wiped out in a rather anticlimactic fasion via common Earth germs.

This first issue of this new Boom! Studios series retells the basic WotW story, set in modern day middle America, from the perspective of Miles, a self-professoed unheroic suburban everyman who just wants to survive. In the process Miles loses his wife to the Martian's onslaught, and he vows revenge. He may get his chance, as the last page of the comic reveals (and I don't think I'm spoiling anything here, as it is the main premise of the series) that a week later the Martians return.

Therein lies the main problem with this first issue: it's all set-up. Worse, it's set-up that we basially already know. The interesting story, the *real* story, is what happens during the Second Wave, and how Miles will respond. While the set-up is important, it probably should have been condensed way down to four pages or so, and perhaps moved into a flashback.

As for the art, the uni-named Chee has solid storytelling abilities, and during the action scenes brings a good level of tension to the story. There's room for improvement with the figurework, especially in the case of Miles' wife Gina, drawn in many panels looking more like an 11-year-old girl than a twenty-something woman (which caused this reader at least a bit of confusion in the opening).

On the whole, War of the Worlds: Second Wave is off to a somewhat flawed but promising start. It's hard to judge, given that the real story doesn't kick off until the last page. But I'm interested enough to want to see where the story goes from here, so I'm looking forward to the real story kicking off in the second issue.

Rating: 3 (out of 5)

A review copy of this comic was provided by the publisher.

YACB Bulletins

ITEM! If it's February, it must be the start of awards season (which goes for what, six months?) Nominees have been announced for the Shuster Awards (Canadian creators), the Glyph Awards (Achievement in black comics), and the ISPie Awards (Indy & Small Press).

ITEM! This week, the Detroit Free Press is running a survey asking readers which comics in their comics section should stay and which should go. Vote now and send Mallard Fillmore to the early grave it deserves!

ITEM! Scholastic are apparently considering a line of manga targeted at elementary kids. (Follow along with the discussion for inersting responses about kids & comics in libraries.)

ITEM! Newsarama have up preview pages for 3 of the DC OYL comics: Aquaman, Catwoman, and Hawkgirl. Spoilers ahoy, especially for Catwoman. Tom Spurgeon has some interesting comments regarding DCs latest creative direction/marketing ploy. Success will hang, I think, on not just the quality of the comics, but whether or not sales increase enough to justify the costs of the high-profile creative teams involved in many of the titles. If not, look for second- and third-tier creators coming on-board in 2007.

ITEM! We're suffering under a massive denial-of-service attack on campus today, as apparently are many other institutions, which is making Web surfing slow to a crawl sporadically. Kind of makes my 100Mbs connection kind of worthless right now...