Every month the staff at 8th Dimension Comics helps us select the best comics that come out. Check out Part 1.
Star Wars #3 I finally got a chance to catch up with the new Star Wars series being done at Marvel by Jason Aaron, and I haven't loved an expanded universe story so much since Shadows of the Empire.
The book takes place shortly after the Battle of Yavin, with the rebels starting to press their advantage. The normal gang is all here, but Luke is still a very novice Jedi with only a fraction of his eventual skills. He, Leia and Han go on a mission to destroy a huge weapons factory where everything promptly goes wrong.
Darth Vader is the true star of the book, being an unstoppable force that singlehandedly takes out an Imperial walker and commands his troops with an iron fist. He's terrifying to watch in action, and really gives a feel for how one-sided the war truly was. It's hard in a prequel to make you feel afraid for your hero because you know for a fact he or she makes it, but the danger to Skywalker isn't physical. It's how much of a toll fighting this bloody conflict will take on him.
Rating: 7 of 10
The Fly: Outbreak #1 Though I'm not sure if the world ever really cried out for a continuation of the Fly franchise, I'm right glad someone decided to do it anyway. No less a genius than Brandon Seifert, the mind behind the impossibly good Witch Doctor, picks up the tale.
The story follows The Fly II, with Martin Brundle continuing the telepod experiments of his father. He continues to work on his former boss, Anton Bartok, who he mutated in revenge for manipulating his life from birth. In the course of this, a possible contagious element to the mutation process is introduced, putting the whole world at risk.
Brundle is a brilliantly complex and strange character. In keeping with the timeline of the film, he can't be more than ten years old despite having the body of a man in his late twenties. He's cold and odd, given to sexual masochism and heartless proclamations, but he's endlessly compelling for it. Maybe the world needed another Fly more than we knew.
Rating: 7 of 10
Jem and the Holograms #1 I watched every single episode of Jem and the Holograms growing up. It was a great show, but it was also a great show for a little kid raised on MTV glam metal and sparkle pop. How does a new comic read with a 33-year-old man?
The nostalgia isn't there, that's for sure. You can't really re-create something so centered in a decade outside of that decade. Even if you ape the tropes perfectly, the world moves on and you can't feel the same way about something in the context of a different world.
That said, it's a fine all-ages book that I think will resonate well with a new generation. The themes of personal awkwardness and shyness being overcome are still relevant in this day and age. It's easy to forget that Jerrica's greatest weakness was her own lack of confidence in who she was. That plays well in this new series, even if trying to make everything as Day-Glo as the original cartoon comes across a little heavyhanded. I think going in a direction closer to what Sia does would have been truly, truly outrageous, but it's still a solid effort.
Rating: 6 of 10
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