it's a Wildstorm title, but I wouldn't say it's "based" in Wildstorm. It's a standalone title.
Amazing book though. Along with Fables, it is consistently one of the greatest titles on the shelves. I have yet to read an issue that didn't impress me.
I feel like you definitely want to read the issue rather than have me ruin it, but this review should at least recap with some effectiveness what goes down:
[SPOILER - highlight to read]: Super sombre issue.
Spans across 2005-2008. Mitchell starts his bid for presidency.
A drunk Bradbury confesses he's always been in love with Mitch, Mitch pushes him away, Bradbury punches him and leaves for ever.
Kremlin attempts to blackmail Hundred into becoming the Great Machine again. When Mitch refuses, Kremlin threatens him with a gun, before turning the gun on to himself. Mitch clarifies that Kremlin hasn't shared the information with anybody, before using his powers to make the gun go off, murdering Kremlin.
All Mitch's former friends are gone from his life. At the end of the issue, it's revealed that his presidential campaign failed and he ended up getting into the white house as McCain's VP.
This is all told in flashbacks that mirror the very first issue, which, if you remember right, started with Hundred saying something to the effectiveness of "this is a sad story, despite appearances".
I'd recommend not reading the last issue and just having your own end in your head, honestly.
[SPOILER - highlight to read]: The end felt rushed and shoehorned to me, like things were originally planned one way, the stuff in between ended up having a different result than the writer was thinking at issue one, he was still hung up on the end and didn't think about re-writing it, so everything just happened in quick succession without the usual levels of foreshadowing and depth the comic normally possessed.
Not just the spoilered parts from Existere's post, which was enough for me to feel like I wasn't reading Michael Hundred, but also the origin of the threat; I really felt they had been strongly hinting the boxes were from an alternate earth preparing invasion due to having wrecked their earth or something like that, maybe something more unexpected... and we get totally generic cthulhu demons who don't talk or explain themselves and we get no motive for? Lame.
I felt the McCain thing was a really weak zing political zing, on two parts. One, it's not all that much of a zing, Michael gets economics enough to be a strong figure during the economic crisis so he's well positioned to deal with both the RL and Ex Machina threats coming, and two, it clearly wasn't the original plan either since the comic started before that election.
"This is a sad story, despite appearances," yea, but it didn't feel like an earned sad story. I could've easily seen things go differently and fit that and the rest of the story better, [SPOILER - highlight to read]: and had Michael isolated from all his friends due to a combination of Kremlin's plots, what the baddies do, and his reactions to them, via realistically IC actions. Maybe have him gain the presidency even but have it totally not be worth it for what he loses along the way.
There were a lot of possibilities, and I think while it had multiple problems, the ultimate failing of the ending that was used is that it's just weak.
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Dec 10th, 2007 06:42 AM
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