Point One #1

PLEASE NOTE: This review is only for certain material from this comic book, the star rating given reflects opinion on the specified story or stories and not the issue as a whole.

The Myth of Man by David Lapham and Roberto De La Torre is a short teaser for the Age of Apocalypse title which introduces us to Prophet and gives us a glimpse of the other members of the X-Terminated.

Despite limited interest in modern comics, Age of Apocalypse has always been one of the few titles that legitimately intrigued me even though I haven't read the original Age of Apocalypse storyline. Most my exposure to the Age of Apocalypse is almost entirely through Exiles which prominently starred several related characters such as Blink, Holocaust and Sabretooth. The reason this book has appealed to me isn't because of the fact it's an Age of Apocalypse book, but because it's a rarity; a comic starring interesting looking characters, most of whom are new, and is unlikely to succumb to the problems plague most other Marvel comics. Yes, this is a book that I would've liked to support, but I never got the chance due to the harsh mistress of geography. Probably just as well I have that as an excuse, because I am pretty confident I would never blind buy a series that is written by the guy who also wrote Deadpool: MAX. Despite never buying it, I was genuinely disappointed to hear it had been cancelled (and furthermore the entire reality apparently set to be wiped out by the Celestials because it didn't sell). Before the book wraps up, I thought I'd like to at least give it a shot to maybe be reminded comics aren't always rubbish.

What we have is a short story based around a mutant called Krakken - a father with an eye missing - as he tells his son bedtime stories which serve as a crude recap of the basics of Age of Apocalypse and go into detail about how he fought in the war against humans and personally killed the rebel known as the Prophet. After saying goodnight to his son and finding his wife dead in the other room, we find out that the father's claims are false as he is confronted by his wife's murderer; Prophet himself. Turns out the exact opposite happened and Prophet nearly killed Krakken and in fact it's how he lost his eye. As Krakken boasts about how he is a mutant and therefore superior to a homo sapien like Prophet, the "inferior" human murders Krakken. Afterwards, Prophet regroups with the rest of the X-Terminated and we get a nice splash page showing us the other four characters (Deadeye, Fiend, Goodnight and Horror Show).

Stories of this length are a pretty tough thing to get right. It's hard to get stuff across and get people invested in such a short amount of time. But, honestly, this story actually really appropriately makes use of the length. It doesn't rely on two many characters with only Krakken and Prophet being central and at the core it is a simple story. While, of course, very few 8-page teasers are fantastic - this was a well-written one that narratively understood exactly what it was meant to do and how to do it. Even more surprisingly so since it's by the guy who has wrote some terrible books in the past.

I was already intrigued by Age of Apocalypse, so I can't claim this story exactly did it's job - but on the other hand, it didn't make me suddenly disinterested or dreading Age of Apocalypse. It served as a nice, short introduction to a (basically) new character and it was surprisingly not-full of itself. A pleasant introduction to a series that I am now only looking forward to reading a bit more.