This Was Alright. Nothing Special.
This review originally went up on The Founding Fields here.
Lobo is one of my semi-favourite Superman villains. He is such a… force of nature, no matter what story you find him in. Consequently, this issue was one I’d really been looking forward to, especially since I liked Margueritte’s debut issue for DC, Batman: Annual #2 which featured Batman inspecting Arkham Asylum’s security via an exercise where he tries to break out. Additionally, before this issue hit, DC released an “updated” character design for Lobo, which remodeled him as someone much younger, a fit athlete. He is no longer the overmuscled, hulking brute that he’s been in various comics and animated projects before.
Completely unexpectedly, this is not the Lobo I’ve come to know over the years. There are some similarities in attitude, but this new Lobo appears to be much more restrained than his previous incarnation. He is less…. violent than before. This created an interesting dichotomy for me. Lobo is all about the chaos, all about letting go and doing what you want, how you want it, and with whom. Margueritte’s Lobo is none of those things. And that’s quite a remarkable change in characterisation.
The pacing of the issue is a little off in places and its not a very clear or exciting story, much as with the above issue, but one thing I’ll say: Margueritte totally justifies the change in the character design. And it makes me want to read on to find out what’s going to happen next. Now, I wonder when this particular story will be told!
Where the art is concerned, I think Ben Oliver, Cliff Richards, Daniel Brown and Sal Cipriano do a nice job of giving this issue a distinctive Sci-Fi flavour, the kind you’d see in Star Wars or Star Trek where the multi-alien nature of the settings is concerned. This could be a very nice SF adventure in the making and it has all that visual brilliance. However, one thing I found really distracting was the panel layouts. Ben Oliver experiments a lot here, and its just confusing. All the colours however are right on the money in the context of what is happening in the specific panels. That was nice.
Overall, this is a decent issue, but could have been better. Some stilted dialogue here and there, and a distinct lack of the typically-Lobo humour that I’ve come to accept and even enjoy over the years, so clearly this is not a perfect issue by any means. Still, Margueritte remains a creator that I’d want to see more from.
Rating: 7.5/10
