I've mentioned before that I really enjoyed Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog. Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion were great. It was a fun story but having the music thrown in is what separated it from other projects. I have been wanting more since I watched the episodes. Now Dark Horse has put out a Dr. Horrible comic. Obviously there won't be singing involved. How will the comic hold up if there isn't and music or singing?
Despite the lack of singing, it was an enjoyable comic. It's nice seeing that moment that Dr. Horrible went from being a normal (intelligent) kid to deciding that evil is where it's at. The story holds up and gives us a closer look at the characters. We even get to see Dr. Horrible's first encounter with Captain Hammer. Zack Whedon had a difficult task to make this work since we don't get the hook of having music. I like seeing that Dr. Horrible is a brilliant guy, even if he believes being evil is the way to go. If he's going to 'invent' a freeze ray, he'll need that intelligence.
The combination of Joelle Jones' art and Dan Jackson's colors adds to separating this comic from the 'blog' as well. The characters do resemble their real live counterparts yet retain an art style that is clearly Jones.' It sometimes bothers me when artists try to change their style to look more like what the material is adapted from. I say if an artist is working on a book, they should do so in their own style.
It would be interesting to see if we'll get more Dr. Horrible stories. While this one works here, I'm not sure how well it would do long term without the musical hook of the Sing Along Blog. Dark Horse accomplished what they set out to do with this title. You get a nice entertaining self-contained story. Fans of the Blog will enjoy this book. If you've never watched the episodes, you can still come into this comic and follow along with the characters.
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