Hit-Monkey Issue 1, SPOILERS
Oh God, this should be horrible and full of terrible jokes. And yet, it's great and dead serious, who would have known? I remember hearing about this and thinking it would be another Marvel Apes (Ugh) and yet I had hope. See, I love the pictures he is based on so I gave Hit-Monkey a chance. And I am glad I did.
And now to spoil.
Hit-Monkey is in fact a monkey. No shocker there. But I had it in my mind that he would be like Congorilla, a man in a gorillas body. Or that it would be some race of smart monkeys, like Gorilla Grodd. Instead, Hit-Monkey is just that, a monkey who hits things. He comes from a clan of monkeys who saved a man in the mountains and raised him back to health. Of course, Hit-Monkey didn't trust him and found out he was an assassin and learned a little from him through observation. Then the assassin gets assassinated and all the monkeys die as well. Except for Hit-Monkey that is, who had been exiled due to violence (That he learned from their visitor). He ends up picking up some of the guns from the hit-men and kills them all. It was done with not a single joke, visual gag, or tone of sarcasm. I am shocked.
However, this worked really well. In fact, I cared when the monkeys died, and they were just one time characters and for that matter monkeys without personalities. When they die though and Hit-Monkey watches them get slaughtered, you want him to pick up the gun and get revenge. Coming from Daniel Way (Who I only know from Deadpool, which is not serious at all), I was pleasantly surprised.
I even thought that the morals of the assassin and what he teaches the monkey was well done. He tells Hit -Monkey that "He who picks up a gun in anger is cursed to never again put it down." This eventually becomes the curse of Hit-Monkey and I can't wait to see how he develops in Deadpool and the great contrast they will have. I am sure that this will work beautifully and I hope they keep Hit-Monkey devoid of any thoughts or dialogue and keep him bottled up in anger as he is here. It works, please keep it.
As for the art, Dalibor Talajic does a really nice job. His style is reminiscent of Iron Fist and I really think that works well for this book. I would in fact read an ongoing with his art based on this alone and I think that Hit-Monkey would be a great place to start.
Overall, I say 4 out of 5. This book is pretty flawless but ultimately short and nothing more than an origin tale. Not bad though, that is for sure. It just seems like this book was lacking something, but that's the way first issues are. If you read Deadpool or Iron Fist, pick this up, it's up your alley.
