Rocketeer Adventures #4
Reviewed by David O' Leary
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Story by: Dave Gibbons, John Arcudi & Joe Pruett
Art by: Brendan McCarthy Tony Harris & Scott Hampton
Colours by: Jamie Grant & JD Mettler
Letters by: Shawn Lee
Cover by: Alex Ross
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Cover Price: $3.99
Cover Date: August 2011
Book Summary:
A trio of stories by a trio of brilliant creative teams! A spectacular adventure with Cliff and a prowling Japanese submarine could spell the end of the Rocketeer, while a day at the beach becomes anything but relaxing for Cliff, Betty and Peevy. Plus a story of a sexy Nazi saboteur hell-bent on acquiring Cliff's jetpack!
Reviewer's Comments:
The Rocketeer, from his debut in comics to the movie and back to comics once more has become a massive cult hit with its audience. Lingering in obscuriety until IDW took it aboard for years it is back in a big way. IDW are in the midsts of releasing several Rocketeer related projects ranging from this mini series to The Rocketeer: The Complete Adventures Saga, an oversized expensive tome collecting 144 pages of Rocketeer goodness. Within the pages of this book though are creators giving their take on the much loved character with three great stories.
The first story is a gem written by Dave Gibbons which sees Betty and Cliff off to Long Beach for some down time but typically they run into some trouble with an important island artifact that bears a remarkable resemblence to a surf board. The story was a fun romp that opened the book nicely. Scott Hampton's art was absolutely beautiful, so much so that I am making a concentrated effort to find previous work of his.
The talking point of the second story written by Joe Pruett wasn't the story itself, which again was another fun tale of Cliff yet again failing to get some downtime with Betty, but of Tony Harris on art. This is the first work I have seen of Harris since he finished work on Ex Machina, not to say that he hasn't done anything in between, and the exaggerated style he uses here which is so much more fitting with the era in which the story is told and is a nice nod with his work to the artists of the time while still retaining his own unique style.
The third tale is writtten by John Arcudi and art by the great Brendan McCarthy. The story which deals with a German plant in the midsts of Cliff and co. looked amazing. McCarthy's art which along with Jamie Grant's superb use of the color palette made this story a visual feast.
At the back of the issue are two pin ups by Ashley Wood, both of whom are fully apinted and look great.
This issue was golden as has been this mini to date. I can't get enough of the new Rocketeer at IDW and if you haven't picked up any of the new stories yet, I wholly encourage you to do so.
Rating the Issue
| Story Story: Overall 9 Concept - 9 out of 10 Plot - 9 out of 10 Dialogue - 9 out of 10 |
Art Art: Overall 9 Style - 9 out of 10 Storytelling - 9 out of 10 Colour/Tones - 9 out of 10 |
Importance Importance: Overall 9 To the Title - 9 out of 10 To the Company - 9 out of 10 To the Medium - 9 out of 10 |
Reviewer Bio
Name: David O' Leary
Email: idwfan@yahoo.co.uk
Bio: David has been with CR since June 2008 and started out as a reviewer and has expanded to do a couple of columns for the site also; starting with 28 Words Later with artist Declan Shalvey and later 5 Minutes With... where he talks with the industries best and brightest from Kubert to Moore.
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