The quality plateus - which isn't a bad thing.
The last issue of Heavy Metal I reviewed was pretty good. I was pleased with the writing and the story. With this issue, rather then the quality bouncing up and down like a car along a poor road, the quality plateaus. Considering that last issue was pretty solid, this isn't a bad thing at all.
The Good: Den continues to be absolutely excellent, as the series continues in more familiar territory for those who were first exposed to the character through the Heavy Metal film. World Apart continues to be a so-bad-its-good train wreck, with excellent art but terrible dialog. Polonius also continues to be really good as well both in terms of art and writing. Philippe Druillet also provides a great little one-shot in Aaarrrzzz., and Moebius continues to do excellent art and writing with the dark It's A Small Universe. There's also a great little short story by Roger Zelazny called Is There A Demon Lover In The House.
The Bad: While Moebius does contribute a good story to this volume, he also contributes a not-so-good story with the introduction of the character of Major Fatal. The story feels like it's trying to be clever for its own sake. The same thing can be said for the story Teonanactal Genese by Cortman, which tries to thinks it's clever by doing an inverse of the bug-splattering-against-a-windshield thing, but it doesn't quite work.
The Trippy: Zha and Claveloux continue their interesting little series which I don't have a name for. I've actually read to the conclusion of the series and I finally, finally get the point of the series now - but considering that at the time it was published it took 5 years of publication time for me to get it, I would have preferred if I could have gotten the story at one whack. I guess this kind of demonstrates the problems with Heavy Metal Magazine's format - it doesn't work well for every multi-part story.
The Verdict: This issue keeps the quality solid, with continuing on-goings that are fun to read, plus a few enjoyable one-shots - which in the past have been the magazine's weakness. 4 out of 5.