Rapture (Dark Horse – Avon Oeming/ Soma)
I love a good end of the world, apocalyptic romp! Bring on the fires in big barrels and fashioning things from shoe laces and old tooth brushes (ya know or whatever you can find) and building secret forts in basements of abandoned buildings. I just love that stuff.
Rapture, not one of those.
Michael Avon Oeming does some nice stuff, tells some decent tales and best of all does it out of the mainstream, so his ideas tend to stay fresh, or at least untainted. So, bonus.
Rapture, though, just isn’t, I don’t know that well thought out? I know they can’t all be winners, but I would have hoped for something more…orginal. Maybe less whiny and angst ridden too.
I get the end of the world concept, that the superheros got a little quarrelsome, then crazy and wrecked the planet, then left. I’m a little fuzzy on the details on how exactly they managed to decimate the whole planet, and why they split. But okay, whatever, it happened.
I weary of the reluctant hero crap. “Take the power…save the world…”
“No, I don’t want it…” fill in the blank, I’m too busy, I’m not worthy, I’m scared, you must have me confused with someone else. Take the friggin’ spear! Everyone would take the friggin’ spear, “Me? Really? Can I smite my neighbor’s dog? I’ll take it!” Who wouldn’t take the power offered by the ‘word’ of God to save a decimated world? No brainer. Dispense withthe convention, get to the meat of it, take the spear.
I don’t like the spear as an object of power either. Why not an amulet like an eye or something? I don’t know, spear seems kind of clunky to me. Must be some other cool object to plumb from the depths of the book of Genesis that they could have used.
There are some definate good moments of dialoge in this book, but then in the next panel there is some contrived conventions to drop in world information and clumsy attempts at foreshadowing. The first page of issue #1 is like a game of ping-pong between those two modes. Bonk, bonk, bonk.
I have to admit, I did like the cliche of her surviving the plane crash by the supers. On the other hand I didn’t like the cliche of throwing her out the window to convince her of her own invulnerability and duty to Fate. And I can do without the love of your life finds another girl after the apocalypse because he thought you died in a plane crash plot line. Really.
And there sure are alot of fires still burning a year after the catastrophe.
Overall, as usual, the art is competent, the action clear, the characters distinct, the colors subtle and not overbearing.
But yes, less angst please.
Story C+
Art B+