Clandestine #1
by Davis, Farmer and Brown
Marvel
UK Release Date: 7th February 2008

They Say:
Alan Davis' freaky family returns! They've existed, hidden among mankind for centuries, a mysterious bloodline of superhumans, eternal and apart. And all they've desired is to be left alone, to pursue their individual interests in peace. But now, the existence of their hidden clan is threatened with exposure by the activities of one of their youngest siblings, Rory Destine, who aspires to be the costumed crimefighter called the Crimson Crusader! And now that the cat's been let out of the bag, who or what is going to come calling at the Destine family's Ravenscroft doorway?

Captain Opinion Say's:

Ah Alan Davis. For me, he's right up there in the love/hate relationship with Chris Claremont!

Moments of brilliance, admittedly mostly in the past, mixed with moments of the dullest claptrap imaginable.

Though granted, Davis is multi talented and both writes and draws this book and we would all like to be able do that wouldn't we? I just wish he would either stick to writing or drawing and become really good at it, rather than mediocre at both!

So what do I make of this?

Well, I remember Clandestine from a few years back, a quirky team of Immortals, based in the UK.

To be honest, that's pretty much what they still are!

To summarise, the Clan are living together and trying to raise the two youngest members Roy and Pandora Destine, who are twins and whose powers only work when they are near each other, as normally as they possible can. This, of course, means sending them to school, where Roy keeps falling asleep and dreaming of being a hero.

At home, the various members of the family wind each other up, bicker and, usefully for us, have many conversations about their past and abilities! But all is not as it seems and there is a seemingly evil Guild lurking in the background who appear to have discovered our hero's secrets!!! How will they survive???!!!

Now don't get me wrong, there is nothing that's actually really bad about this book, it's just there is nothing that is really great either. The art is average, as is the story, dialogue, pacing etc, etc.

I don't think anyone will be truly disappointed by it, especially if they are a Davis fan, but I can not see anyone being blown away by it either.

It's the kind of book where if you are having a week where you don't have a lot of comics, you can pick it up, read it and you won't feel like you've wasted your money, but you wont feel like you absolutely must buy the rest of the series either.

Gives you something to pick up in the future if you have another quite week I guess…

6/10

Project Superpowers #0
By Krueger, Klauba, Sadowski and Ross
Dynamite
On Sale now!

They Say:
From the dawn of the 20th Century came a new chapter in mankind's history, unleashed during a time of great war and destruction. It was the beginning of the Age of the SUPERPOWERS, yet with the closing of the Second World War, this new spark seemingly flickered and died. Until now...

Now the story can be told of the great lost SUPERPOWERS -- men and women with incredible abilities who changed the course of mankind forever... and who had been thought lost ... Until now...

Now, DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT and Alex Ross unleash the SUPERPOWERS! This explosive #0 issue features a story crafted by Justice collaborators Alex Ross and Jim Kruger, joined by artists Stephen Sadowksi, Doug Klauba and additional art by Alex Ross. The story of SUPERPOWERS begins here, in the present day with the Fighting Yank, coming to terms with the ghosts of his past and present! As our story unfolds, we journey to the heights and depths of the Second World War and come face-to-face with the great forgotten heroes of the ages, and solve the mystery of where these legends disappeared to after the great war.

This is THE event of 2007, and it leads directly into the SUPERPOWERS series! Issue #0 is where it all begins and features 28 pages of story and art PLUS a full SUPERPOWERS colour sketchbook by Ross and original Ross interconnecting covers - all for just a buck!

Captain Opinion Say's:

Well, an interesting project this one it must be said.

First of all, let's get the obvious out of the way. Much like he did with Astro City, Alex Ross designs or re-designs all the heroes who appear within the book as well as supplying some fantastic painted pages. So if you're a fan of his, buy it!

Plus it retails for only $1 as apposed to the now industry standard $2.99, so it truly is a bargain (ok, subsequent issues will rise to $3.50, but still)!!!

What we have here is the reintroduction of some of the Golden Ages all but forgotten heroes, like the Fighting Yank, The Green Lama and many more, in an attempt to explain what happened to them and, one would imagine, reintroduce them to the modern world.

This book feels a bit like Astro City as well. It has that feeling of familiarity that was present there, but rather than in Astro City you recognise them as Busiek's reworking of classic Marvel/DC characters, here the feeling comes from half remembered images and character names that you have stumbled across somewhere in the distant past!

The story revolves around the Fighting Yank (how great is that name? Wonder if his main foe is the Suicidal Jap? Only for one issue though… Kamikaze!!!) and his efforts to rid the world of the evil that was released by Hitler when he opened Pandora's Box (yes, THE Pandora, THE Box) to start his rise to power in Germany.

Unfortunately, when the evil was released from the box, so was an element of trapped hope. Hope which took the form of the Golden Age Superheroes. Hope, which must be returned to the box if the Fighting Yank is to have any hope of trapping the evil…. or so he believes.

This is a truly excellent first issue.

It handles the existing characters with a great level of respect and gives you enough information to get the gist of the characters you may be unfamiliar with, with out spoon feeding you all the information about them in one clumsy, slight stodgy, lump!

Klauba's and Sadowski's art is very good and well suited to the style and pace of the book. A mention must also go to the colourist, Captain Moreno (hey, another Cap - Cap!) who somehow manages to deliver the bright primary coloured heroes in a dirty, gritty way, which wonderfully reflects the time they were living in.

If Dynamite can maintain the high standards that they have set with this 0 issue we might already be looking at the best mini series winner in the Whatever Comics 2008 awards!

8.5/10

The Hunter
Hamdy and Golding
Dare Comics
On Sale now!

They Say:
After the United States suffers coordinated terror attacks, the Hunter - a CIA operative with extraordinary powers - learns that all is not what it seems. In a world where science has created the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the most dangerous enemy might not even be human.

Captain Opinion Say's:

First of all, I have to mention the fact that for a mere £2.95 you get 64 pages of comic. That's almost 3 times the number of story pages you get in an average DC/Marvel book for a fractional increase in price and NO ADVERTS!!!

BARGIN!

Dare Comics is a division of Dare pictures and The Hunter is their first comic book release, which will be published quarterly. So £2.95, every three months for 64 pages…. What are you waiting for?

……

Oh, right. A review!

The first thing that strikes you about this book is that is seriously old school. The art, the story, even the characters remind you of older comics.

But, what they manage to do exceptionally well, is capture everything that was good about old school super hero comics and avoid nearly all the bad, mix in some modern politics and sentiment and deliver a great little superhero comic. I have no idea if Hamdy and Golding were going for that kind if vibe, but if not they should defiantly claim that they were!

The book starts with terrorist attacks launched in LA, New York, Boston and Houston to great effect. Well, great if you are terrorists, not so great if you happened to be in one of those places at the time.

With a nice little nod to recent natural disasters in America, the Government is caught completely flatfooted and are unable to effectively coordinate their relief efforts. When the President asks how the evacuation of LA is going he is told that it hasn't started as they can not get their instructions down to the ground crews!

With all this going on we cut to Afghanistan (and another nice little political reference) where we are introduced to some of the super powered beings I suspect we are going to become very well acquainted with in coming issues.

Interestingly enough, it would seem from the first issue that the majority of the super population on this world are of a villainous persuasion, with only the books title character the Hunter, appearing to be both super powered and on the side of the angles at this time.

The artwork is very solid and a special mention should go to the flashback scenes. On any page where a flashback occurs the art is published in a way to appear to have been printed on a dot matrix printer, which is the comic equivalent of a movie flashback being in black and white. This very effectively lets you know you are in the past without any clumsy dialogue referring to it. Genius!

All in all I thoroughly enjoyed this book as it manages to capture the quintessential "essence" of earlier super hero comics whilst still delivering the modern day politics and twists that readers demand. Looking forward to future issues!

7/10