Radical's 'Herc,' 'Caliber' seek the light - Reviews for 4/30/08

Hercules: The Thracian Wars #1 and Caliber #1 (both 32 pages for only $1) are the first comicbook releases from new publisher Radical Comics, headed up by rock photographer turned producer Barry Levine and featuring dark stories smothered even more in what looks like buckets and buckets of oh-so-serious painted artwork.  Everything is so dark that it's at times hard to follow the story and characters from panel to panel — and the noir-ish scripting does little to alleviate this. Hercules in particular is light on plot but easy enough to figure out; fantasy Western tale Caliber was tougher to follow but more obviously could be very cool if its concept can escape the dark art into the light of day. ...

Dead, She Said #1 (IDW, $3.99) tells the tale of a private eye who continues his case even though he's so dead his guts are spilling out. Full pencils and inks by Berni Wrightson are a big draw on this one, though somehow it fails to live up to the cool factor he established on DC's 1970s horror books. ... Igor Movie Prequel #1 (IDW, $3.99) tells two tales that help set up this fall's animated feature from The Weinstein Co. The art has a clever, CG-assisted look  and the story is fun enough to raise my interest in the film, but the dark colors make the reader spend too much time figuring out what they're looking at rather than just enjoying the story. ... Batman #675 (DC, $2.99) is my favorite single issue of Grant Morrison's run, for the great Bruce Wayne scenes and a particularly cool ending. ...

The Uncanny X-Men #497 (Marvel, $2.99) featured another good script from Ed Brubaker — with the exception of Emma Frost's dialog being far more colloquial than I expect from the former White Queen. Both plots — San Francisco reverting to 1969, and Wolverine, Colossus and Nightcrawler's Russian adventure — were entertaining and progressed enough to be worth the cover price. ... Doktor Sleepless #6 (Avatar, $2.99) is getting more interesting as the larger plot starts to take shape, proving to be one of Warren Ellis' more interesting sci-fi premises. ...

American Splendor Vol. 2 #1 (DC/Vertigo, $2.99) tells you more about the life of writer Harvey Pekar, who judging by his recent stories has mellowed out a bit. The lineup of artists is particularly nice — never thought David Lapham would draw a Pekar story — and for some reason I'm really glad this is still published in black and white. ... Young Liars #2 (DC/Vertigo, $2.99) is better than the first issue, feeling more like a particularly good issue of Stray Bullets than the first. Colorist Lee Loughridge does an excellent job coloring creator David Lapham's always-cool art. ... If you've read it up till now, you're not going to snub Countdown to Final Crisis #1 (DC, $2.99), which struggles to generate some excitement as it wraps up the weekly series and sets up the board for the next OMG don't-dare-miss-it event, Final Crisis.