Script: Mark Waid
Review: Will Dubbeld
Laugh it up if you’d like, but I’ve many fond memories of Impact Comics. I’ve never looked into whose vanity project Impact was at DC, but I’m glad they were indulged.
In the early ‘90s, during my larval stage of comic nerdery, I bought the even lovin’ bejeezus out of these Impact books.
Why?
Initially because of price point. These bad dads could be bought fresh off the spinner for one American dollar, which was .25, .50, .75 cents cheaper than their peers.
And the stories weren’t terrible either.
The whole line was a reboot of Golden Age superheroes first appearing in books published by Archie Comics and featured the adventures of what have evolved into archetypical hero tropes. The Fly was a Spider-Mannish teen, The Web was a superspy organization akin to SHIELD or Checkmate, The Shield was a patriotic hero similar to Captain America. These characters predated my examples, of course, but my young nerd-brain placed connective tissue where I pleased.
The Comet, from what I recall, was somewhat of a Nova-eque character. A young man who is the recipient of alien powers including flight, some measure of invulnerability, energy blasts, etc. etc. He wasn’t one of my top Impact picks, but a good read nevertheless.
Issue 2 dumps the dear reader headfirst into a mess of dead parents, serial killers, government stooges and a pinch of relationship character building.
The first issue must’ve been one helluva launching pad.
Much of the issue focuses on a manhunt for a supervillain named Applejack, a serial killing boogeyman who is a mix between Jack the Ripper and Candyman. Breakfast cereal themed name aside, Applejack strikes a distinctive figure and full accolades for the character design. He also appears to have the superpower of creeping people out. Seriously.
His eye glows and folks are like, “Gaaaah!”, and scamper away.
You takes what you can gets…
Tom Lyle’s art is a high point of the book for me as I fondly recalled his work on the first Robin miniseries. It’s got that sharp appeal that late ‘80s-early ‘90s books had before the tide of pouches and crosshatching took over.
Inks and colors are provided by Scott Hanna and Tom Ziuko and masterfully done. It’s the style that’ll wistfully take you back to the days before computers took a front seat and 4-color was king.
I’d started rolling my eyes at myself whenever I ran across an Impact book in my collection, but I’m gonna have to munch a bit of crow after the fact. The comics are simple superhero romps wrapped in some deeper-themed writing and are again a welcome break from the Modern Era comics. I’ve a decent collection of Impact books lurking in my longboxes and I’ll have to pull some of them out for another go-around.
No comments:
Post a Comment