Sirk TV Comic Review: IDW Advance Previews [11-14-18]
The ideas in this batch of comics explores certain structures between ideology and tone, sometimes conflicting within each other through simple story risks that don't work or moments of enlightenment that don't truly come to fruition.
GI Joe: A Real American Hero #257 The story of GI Joe & Cobra is invariably the same except when aspects of the supernatural intrude. Like one of the reader comments brings up and an editor responds that while that may make the strikes a little bit unbelievable, it shakes up the status quo plus confuses and frustrates a character like Cobra Commander who simply wants to cause chaos. Dr. Demon is the inherent threat in this instance. Demon has gone insane as his consciousness fills that of a robot and begins to jump back and forth into different bodies. This identity crisis works well as an inherent metaphor though it is not explored as such.
Star Trek Vs. Transformers #2 Sometimes mash-ups can work like butter but other times the connections are simply too disparate despite a lot of canon elements between both. Here the crew of The Animated Series Enterprise discover the Autobots partially powered down on a planet. The Decepticons have meanwhile already made contact with the Klingons. While the matchup makes sense in certain ways, it is the tone that is off because it has to adhere both to a certain style of dialogue of one mixed with the other. The conflict for the most part is base yet it does fulfill the story requirements.
Euthanauts #4 A gang of would be superheroes in a sense based on the pursuit of death and perhaps the unsung rules of moving on definitely has potential either as an existential journey or like "Beetlejuice", a reflective surface where the ideas of one world conflict with another. Some of these possibilities are addressed through the character of Thalia who does not know what to hold onto in life. This shell of antisocial perception gives her an interesting insight though not very engaging character features, either inwardly or outwardly. Circe by the reverse is like the Harley Quinn of a funeral home but with not enough story line within this specific comic utterance to give her breath. But, per usual, the Black Crown label does explore interesting territory.
Ghostbusters: Crossing Over #8 This conclusion to the multiple dimensional cross over story line culminates with the take down of another body but it works within that structure since said malevolence is in the specter of Medusa per se. Everything they do, she indicates makes her stronger since chaos begets chaos. Granted most things get tied up in a single bow. But like anything "Ghostbusters", in the middle of all science is a human story. The aspect of Ray separated by the ghost Jenny whom he fell in love with speaks back to the 1st Ghostbusters and maybe some psychology within Dan Aykroyd, its creator himself. Also the evolving idea of Janine and her possibilities is also interesting but not as dynamic in terms of story structure.
By Tim Wassberg