HELLCYLON TPBWritten & Art by Lucas Marangon
Dark Horse Comics
Review by Frankie Rodriguez
TALE OF THE TAPE
People seem to forget that Dark Horse Comics is one of the leading independent comic book companies out there. Founded back in 1986, it was a around longer than Image Comics and has proven their longevity again and again. Not only does Dark Horse Comics has served as company that produces comics of popular novel or tv franchises, it has a great stable of translated manga and indy super heroes that make their mark.
Dark Horse is most notably known for being the home of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Hellboy. Today though, we look at one of their lesser known books as its trade is about to hit shelves on April 18th. And to that, we look at an original work that seems to have been influences from anime ... particularly anime like Patlabor, Gundam and Robotech. Today, we are gonna take a look at the sci-fi war original, Hellcylon.
CLASH FACTS
Our book begins with a group of soldiers and focuses on one of them Nika McKay. He returns to the planet(oid) of his birth, Halcyon-4, to find an old friend who contacted him while he was on Earth. As McKay steps back to his home planet, he finds the place radically changed. Political turmoil and unrest have made many students in the local colleges unruly and more and more military control is being used. What starts as a simple college protest changes immediately into a shower of tear gas ... from soldiers in Mecha.
Hold on. College students are just protesting outside of their school and the military deems it worth to stop this protest ... with tear gas and MECH?! Wow. I love this planet already. *sigh*
Wait. Those protestors are trying to get away. I don't blame them cause it just seems a bit too harsh to use mecha to break up a protest of regular people standing up foooooo . ..
*blam blam blam blam blam blam blam blam*
The soldiers are shooting at the protesters. THE SOLDERS ARE SHOOTING AT THE PROTESTERS?!!!
What the hell comic?! On this planet, protesting against the government or saying that you don't like the policy is gonna get you killed.
Oh and not just killed like the lucky ones who were shot in all the madness. No. Some are flat out tortured. And they they get shot by this military force that has come on Halcyon-4. No wonder they call this place Hellcyon.
During the said battle, McKay meets up with several characters that will all become the core cast of the book. And from there, we get an awesome chase scene on a motorcycle, reminiscent of motorcycle chases from Akira and other anime. We get some mecha battles with multiple kinds of mecha. The main cast of McKay and 4 other characters: a drug dealer, the daughter of a governor and 2 college students who are also gurellas in a movement. Our heroes, ladies and gents.
The 5 of them end up defeating some soldiers and become a brand new group of freedom fighters that the media dubs the Suicide Division. These group of characters also take "Jackets" aka Mecha combat suits, from soldiers, take down several units on their own, including an air carrier. After ... some time passes I think ...
Seriously, time jumps like 6 months after that initial fight where they are wearing DIFFERENT jackets and they are cornered by a group of military soldiers that have been hunting them down. Yet the Suicide Division is saved by other gurellas led by their ... college professor? Oh okay. And then ... you know what, I am stopping here.
CLASH TACTICS
Kind of small description right? Well, there are two reasons for that. First, I am trying not to spoil everything anymore cause that is not fair. I will spoil things if I see fit to. And Second, a lot happens and then, a lot doesn't happen. If you want to boil it down to the core, this is the kind of story where lots of things happen but there isn't too much of a big pay off.
Artistically, Marangon does a pretty solid job. His pencils are a nice blend of anime/manga influence mixed with Mark Buckingham's Pinocchio. I say that cause everyone has Pinocchio chin. I know it is a style preference but I digress. While the people are distinct, the women go from attractive to looking like trannies from time to time. Otherwise, a solid pencil and inking. And the coloring gives the book that anime/manga feel at times like we are watching Appleseed or Patlabor. I say those cause the colors are a bit brighter than what the tone of the book is but I think that works for it.
Now, the actual writing of the book is fairly good. There are just two issues with that. First, the character development is very scarce in this. The most focus goes to McKay but I don't really feel that he had too much development. The other characters had little to none, letting the action and the politics of the story carry it. Which gets to it's other problem: there feels like a lot of story was left out or cut out from the story we were given. Meaning, I feel that Marangon had a LOT more story to this that just seemed cut out. The time jumps are a little daunting and I had to double check a few times if I missed something from one scene to the next. It really disrupts the flow of the story, the characters and gives a very unbalanced look at what we have.
That said, the touches of politics were excellently displayed. And if you love Mecha fights, this book is good with them. Very good with them. The atmosphere of the story was gripping and the battles were fun to look at. Hellcyon really had a great setting to immerse readers with. The different kinds of mecha were definitely a throwback to Patlabor, in terms of design but really worked for the story.
Overall, some solid art, great setting, wonderful atmosphere and spectacular mecha battles (or bike chase) will make you love to look at this book. Yet, the characterizations and the time jumps are what keep this book from being a world champ. Honestly, if this book was longer, maybe 6 to 8 issues, and Marangon really delved into the characters more, this could have been a new classic. But, the final issue of the miniseries, which was never published helps tie this trade together well.
Hellcyon earns an X Division Contendership (3 out of 5). While it is good, there is room for improvement but it was still an enjoyable read.
Hellcyon TPB by Lucas Marangon from Dark Horse Comics will hit stores April 18th, 2012.
No comments:
Post a Comment