An Ultramega Rundown

If you’re thinking that I’ll be writing up my thoughts on the second (and concluding) volume of James Harren’s gonzo kaiju-fighting series, you’d be right.  If you’re also thinking that the reason I’m writing it up as the latest part of this type of article is because I didn’t like it all that much, you’re also right!

So let’s get into it:  Ultramega vol. 2:  Smells Like Kaiju returns us to a world where Earth has been dominated by kaiju and young Noah, the only person with the power to fight them, has been reunited with the (still living) head of his father.  He’s ready to start learning the ropes to being a proper hero, but it’s possible that there may be another, bigger threat waiting to prey on the kaiju.  While creator James Harren once again draws the hell out of this world and the crazy action within it, the characterization and plotting was an honest-to-god mess that left me confused and not caring about anything that went on here.  I can only hope that if Harren keeps writing comics for himself to draw that he takes the lessons learned here and delivers something more coherent next time.

The kaiju train rolls on as another one attacks New York in Behemoth and a bunch of its citizens, including food truck driver Sarah, wind up inside its belly.  Now they’ve got to find a way out through the wreckage, gastric juices, and parasites that are in their way.  While I wasn’t familiar with the creative team behind this comic – co-writers Grant Sputore & Ryan Engle and artist Jay Martin – I thought the premise sounded interesting and figured I’d check it out.  What I got was a well-crafted B-movie of a comic that wastes no time introducing its cast, getting to the exciting parts of the story, and wringing some great drama and tension out of the challenges they face.  There are times when the art has trouble capturing the scale of things, and the ending perhaps goes a bit bigger and happier than it should, but finding things like this is the reason I’ll keep checking out neat-sounding comics from creative teams I don’t know.

Ripperland, from co-writers Steve Orlando & John Harris Dunning, and artist Alessandro Oliveri, also has a neat premise:  The year is 2188 and Britain has been reduced to a tourist trap for America, with its citizens consigned to live their lives as if they were still in the Victorian Era.  So it’s either part of the era’s charm or a tasteless joke when a killer mimicking Jack the Ripper murders a tech giant’s son, forcing a team-up between a modern American detective and his British counterpart.  Orlando and Dunning explore the tension in this setup a bit, but don’t really do a whole lot with it as the focus is mainly on the murder mystery, which itself peters out at the end.  Oliveri does give the story a distinct look, but his work also reminded me of the late great Kevin O’Neill in a He Would Have Done This Better kind of way.

Charles “Dragon Butcher” Ward, has been given a task by his Duke:  Sail across the sea and defeat the heathens who are standing in the way of spreading God’s good word in Knights vs. Samurai.  After “Creature Commandos” disappointed, I was hoping that writer David Dastmalchian would deliver something on the level of his “Count Crowley” miniseries here.  That doesn’t happen as the book is hampered by a too-large cast on both sides of the title and a fantasy setting that doesn’t feel all that fantastic.  Federico Mele delivers art that’s capable enough, but doesn’t really excite let alone elevate the material.  Though it would be easy enough to blame the creators for how this end product turned out, the back cover provides another convenient scapegoat as it says that this miniseries (which ends without resolving anything) was produced under the mentorship of Todd McFarlane.

Vol.3 of Dogsred came out a little while back, but I’ve been putting off writing about it as there’s a lot of “more of the same” with this volume.  Rou and the other first years at Oinokami High are still undergoing the brutal training their eccentric coach is putting them through, with our ostensible protagonist weathering it better than most.  While vol. 2 left off promising some bear-related action, that doesn’t come into play until late in the volume.  Fortunately the action starts picking up before then, allowing the volume to wrap up on something of a high note.  I’m still enjoying what this series has to offer, it’s just that things still feel like they’re in the introductory phase three volumes in.