Martian Grift
This cover's actually surprisingly not terrible for Liefeld. Sure the gun is super square and the arm makes no sense and his crotch is super stretched out and FOCUS ON THE POSITIVES OR YOU'LL HAVE A STROKE MONARCH! Ok, ok. The design is actually kind of nice. Good atmosphere, not the best, but probably the best for Liefeld.
And he's not drawing interiors, thank god. Instead we've got Scott Clark! Though it feels like Clark's been taking some lessons from Liefeld, but not enough to completely ruin his output. When heads are a little too big or guns are excessive, Clark makes it WORKS as part of the atmosphere. He's even really toned down the 'CGI' aspect his art tends to have a tad too much of. It feels a lot more like good old fashioned line work; it looses a bit of the stylistic charm, but works really well on this series.
Not much really happens in this issue, Grifter's new 'crew' act like a bunch of high school douchbags, but Grifter lampshades it in his monologue referring to them as 'rejected extras from The Expendables.' They question his whole 'chosen one' thing like EVERY SINGLE READER and then they get attacked. Then they get safe. Then they get attacked again. This issue feels a little hollow to be honest. Some character develpment is forced and pretty much nobody but Grifter is honestly interesting in the least. Well.... Deathblow's got a sliver of intrigue, and his over-the-top badassery actually fits in well alongside the more subtly badass Grifter.
Everything was rolling along fine, nothing too great, pretty generic but decently entertaining; and the 'chosen one' bullcrap is relatively underplayed; but explain to me this. Since when did Grifter become Martian Manhunter? Before he had the nice 'perchanced upon' power to 'hear' the Daemonites. It made him the on best soldier to fight the Daemonites. One skilled man who happened into this. But now he can read EVERYONE'S mind and he's got an insane level of telekinetic powers? He can fire a ton of guns in midair and shove waves of Daemonites off a cliff? WHEN DID HE GET THESE POWERS!? Not only does it come out of nowhere and left unexplained, it completely ruins the sense of dramatic tension.
In Conclusion: 2/5
I kind of liked the beginning. Grifter saying he hates people really made me connect with the character. Yeah I said it. This was decent enough to maybe merit a 3.5, nice and easy, not too much to it; but then he pulls overpowered powers straight out of his ass and just ruined the whole thing. When the hell did he get these powers, and why the hell didn't he use them until now?
