COMICS: Dave's REAL Late Rant: Galactica,Pantheon

[Dave Van Domelen]

[Sorry for the goof earlier, hopefully it'll cancel properly. I missed an
error message resulting from some changes Russ made in eyrie's ftp settings,
and posted an old file I thought I had overwritten.]

Dave's Late Rant:

Battlestar Galactica #3 "Recurring Nightmare"
Pantheon #1 (of 12) "Supreme Squadron"

Battlestar Galactica actually came out last week, but my copy came in
the mail today. And as I noted in another thread, Diamond didn't bother to
send Pantheon to my usual store, so I picked it up elsewhere today.

CAPSULES

Battlestar Galactica #3: Realm Press - Painted art is somewhat fuzzy and
indistinct, story is mostly a mix of Aliens and various Trek episodes, but
has a few good points. Mildly recommended. $2.99/$4.20Cn
Pantheon #1 (of 12): Lone Star Press - Story is starting slow, and is as
much an exercise in spotting refs as it is a story in itself. Art is weaker
than what I remember of Leeke's earlier work, might be the different inker.
Mildly recommended. $2.95/$4.15Cn

Spoilers....

Galactica "Prison of Souls Part 1": Okay, the main plot is constructed
from elements which have been done to death: heroes discover massive
abandoned alien ship which isn't so abandoned and Gigeresque aliens come
after them, plus the old "everyone has waking nightmares, which are part
attack and part warning" trick we've seen on Next Generation a half dozen or
so times. Parts of it made me think back to the "Bill, The Galactic Hero"
book with the Aliens parody...everyone being horror-movie stupid, splitting
up, etc.
However, what redeemed the story was the use of parallel structure in
the form of Baltar's subplot. The waking dreams interact with the people on
the prison barge, giving that plot an interesting twist...heck, if the
conspirators can manage to make it to Baltar, he may be begging for death
thanks to his walking nightmare of a clawed Adama.
Artistically, it's still a mixed bag. The painting itself is pretty
good, but there's too many dark, murky scenes or settings with too little
color contrast. In regular line art, the inking helps keep things visually
distinct, but in this painted art it all sort of muddies together. Scalf and
Scott need to sharpen up the lines. That, or start setting scenes in
better-lit conditions with more colors. Also, the soft and shadowy art
continues to clash horribly with the crisp and bright speech balloons.

Pantheon "Comrades in Arms": This was the story of how the Elementals
would have continued after the Oblivion War if Willingham hadn't left the
book. Note the "was." Obviously, some things had to be changed to avoid
trademark infringement on the characters Willingham sold to Comico. And
other things changed because of these changes. And still others changed just
because time had passed and Bill had new ideas.
Anyway, here's what's left. Superheroes have a more mystic/supernatural
bent than in most superhero settings, just as seen in Elementals. They all
banded together to deal with a really nasty threat some time in the past, and
now there's no supervillains left. Some of the more machiavellian heroes,
like Daedalus (the clearest pastiche of the lot, he's Tommy), have decided to
take over the world for its own good. Others have decided to oppose this.
The stage is set for the end of the story of the superheroes in this world.
Comparisons have been made to Kingdom Come, but it's a lot closer to the
Squadron Supreme LS in spirit, although it picks up at a different point in
the narrative. This time out, we start with the POV of the one gathering
heroes against the takeover, and don't even see the "badguy" heroes until the
very end, with Daedalus spying on his old teammates.
It has promise. But don't get too attached to any of the characters,
because they mostly exist to be killed. The scorecard section in back admits
to as much. Almost brags, in fact. Perhaps "Cannon Fodder" would have been
a more fitting title?

Dave Van Domelen, "Using your sidekick to fetch your cigarettes? That's
setting a good example." - Dynasty (female Superman) to Blackheart (Batman)