Review - Cyclops #2


Been reading more Cyclops lately. Still kind of diggin' it. I'm impressed with the choreography of the action. The pacing is slow- so you can really take in the experience of being in a war. After all, war is a lot more than sitting around behind pieces of cover arguing what to do next followed by a burst of activity, than gigantic, over-the-top battle scenes. But it's the whole war as 'reality TV' complete with media icons that the media begins to idealize that's really starting to stir the tension in this series I think, as evidenced by Cyclops #2.

Personally, I think reality TV is kind of a sickness. I mean, as a guy who writes about comic books part time during the week, I'm the last one who should complain about indulgences. But I really think half the people on it haven't really thought through what their "stardom" is going to be like. You think they'll look back when they're forty and fifty and be super proud at some of their least cognizant, sober moments happening all over national television?

Now, let's imagine a guy who's starting to think twice about his life as a mercenary for hire. How's he going to react to the fan-love? Is it going to eat him up, to be adored for things that he might regret? The nice twist that not everything happening IS being broadcast to the public sets the whole thing up for tragedy in a big way.

I have to say, one thing you really do have to take with a grain of salt in this book is the translation. I really get the sense that there are subtleties to the language that we're just missing- like the words were translated into their literal meaning, but the flavor of the dialogue might have been better captured if someone fluent in both languages had taken the time to think through some of it?

So, if I have a complaint, it might be that I just don't see the personality of the book's protagonist, or his stay-at-home wife yet. I haven't quite wrapped my head around who he is and what exactly motivates him (or his wife who seems, so far, sort of surprisingly meager and under-assertive about her husband running off to risk his life on prime time TV). Some of this might be purposeful but I regret that there might be a few aspects of the story that you can't quite take in if you aren't reading the original source material. In fact, it's hard for me to really feel the characters feelings when they talk.

Still, overall Cyclops #2 has great art by Luc Jacamon, great dramatic tension courtesy of Matz and lots of suspense so far. Still wondering where it's going...





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