The Losers
Feb. 10th, 2013 07:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
muck_a_luckI see I do not have an appropriate icon for this. :)
I finished The Losers yesterday.
First, actual negatives.
I am not thrilled with the art in this book. It's very stylized, and I'm guessing it IS a style that comics people would recognize. A lot of it is almost two tones - black on yellow, or black on aqua.
There is a lot of fighting in this book, you will not be shocked to hear, and in my opinion, drawings of firefights and whatnot are just not that interesting.
Now, a review. :)
I got tipped off to the ultimate ending of this story via fan fic, so I knew where it was headed. And yet, I felt the building tension in the run up to the end. There were stupid decisions, daring escapes, and the demise of characters before the final big ending. I was amused to realize at points that I was really into it, so relieved when the great escape was revealed.
Max was much better explained in the comic than in the movie. In the movie, he wanted to sell his mini nukes to any third party who might create chaos with them. In the comic he had a much clearer plan for world domination. Not a realistic plan, mind you, just a clearer plan.
The biggest weakness of this comic for me was partially that it hit me in one of my biggest squicks. Wow, do I hate and despise conspiracy theories. Our government is not competent to hide the President's petty dalliances from the press, much less a massive DoD conspiracy to sell drugs on a massive scale to arm a rogue state with dozens of nuclear weapons. I cannot suspend my disbelief for that kind of thing. So whenever the conspiracy part of the story was prominent, I was very "yeah, yeah." Also, the Max story felt very tacked on, as it was revealed in a big blurt toward the end, but that might be the constraints of the genre. These are comic books, after all, not a novel.
If you loved the characters in the movie, the comic might be both better and worse. All the characters are coarser and harder than the shinier versions in the movie. Aisha and Roque, particularly Roque, are both more evil. Aisha is EVEN MORE badassed in the comic. Jensen is a lunatic, known by his teammates for naked hacking; nerdily wanting to go check the bilge of an old freighter for classic comics; and somewhat underestimated by his teammates, particulalry Roque. Cougar does seem to have a soft spot for him. The "camel beard" thing is one of the funniest things in the book. Cougar is completely obsessed about the death of the angelitos. Clay does constantly say "outstanding."
Overall, I'm happy with this purchase, but I have very mixed emotions about recommending it.
I finished The Losers yesterday.
First, actual negatives.
I am not thrilled with the art in this book. It's very stylized, and I'm guessing it IS a style that comics people would recognize. A lot of it is almost two tones - black on yellow, or black on aqua.
There is a lot of fighting in this book, you will not be shocked to hear, and in my opinion, drawings of firefights and whatnot are just not that interesting.
Now, a review. :)
I got tipped off to the ultimate ending of this story via fan fic, so I knew where it was headed. And yet, I felt the building tension in the run up to the end. There were stupid decisions, daring escapes, and the demise of characters before the final big ending. I was amused to realize at points that I was really into it, so relieved when the great escape was revealed.
Max was much better explained in the comic than in the movie. In the movie, he wanted to sell his mini nukes to any third party who might create chaos with them. In the comic he had a much clearer plan for world domination. Not a realistic plan, mind you, just a clearer plan.
The biggest weakness of this comic for me was partially that it hit me in one of my biggest squicks. Wow, do I hate and despise conspiracy theories. Our government is not competent to hide the President's petty dalliances from the press, much less a massive DoD conspiracy to sell drugs on a massive scale to arm a rogue state with dozens of nuclear weapons. I cannot suspend my disbelief for that kind of thing. So whenever the conspiracy part of the story was prominent, I was very "yeah, yeah." Also, the Max story felt very tacked on, as it was revealed in a big blurt toward the end, but that might be the constraints of the genre. These are comic books, after all, not a novel.
If you loved the characters in the movie, the comic might be both better and worse. All the characters are coarser and harder than the shinier versions in the movie. Aisha and Roque, particularly Roque, are both more evil. Aisha is EVEN MORE badassed in the comic. Jensen is a lunatic, known by his teammates for naked hacking; nerdily wanting to go check the bilge of an old freighter for classic comics; and somewhat underestimated by his teammates, particulalry Roque. Cougar does seem to have a soft spot for him. The "camel beard" thing is one of the funniest things in the book. Cougar is completely obsessed about the death of the angelitos. Clay does constantly say "outstanding."
Overall, I'm happy with this purchase, but I have very mixed emotions about recommending it.
