a pleasant surprise
To start things off, I have a very basic idea of Age of Apocalypse and I know very little about the universe other than the overall concept. I know even less about William Stryker, at one point I thought he and Thunderbolt Ross were the same character. Still, I can't really harp on this comic much. This is a good introduction to the nasty brutal world where mutants hunt down the last remaining humans. To start off, William Stryker in this universe is apparently Batman. His intro pretty much described him exactly like Batman. Is this a bad thing? Not really, if you've always wanted to see Batman fighting an oppressive post-apocalyptic regime with a rag-tag group of survivors than this is your book. I really enjoyed the Ishmael style narration with Simmons being our eyes and ears into this world. It introduces the universe and the characters well to newer readers like myself. Whereas books like Scarlet Spider are so bogged down in older continuity that it becomes difficult to care about the characters when it feels like we'd have to have read over 20 issues in order to do so. The art is great and it reminds me a lot of DMZ. Overall, this book has really impressed me and I look forward to seeing more. While AoA got a rough start with Marvel Point One and that sloppy introduction by Rick Rememder. I love Remender as much as the next guy, but his storytelling style is too esoteric for this book. I'm not familiar with David Lapham, but its clear that things are in good hands at this point.
