Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews
Contest Of Champions #1
Marvel Comics
Ewing, Medina, Vlasco & Curiel
"Contest of Champions" opens with a thirty page, five-dollar comic book that moves some pieces into place and provides some action but falls short of being a good comic book. It's an average comic book with a premise that has been done time and time again. The comic has some very good artwork but this book is going to need to bring stronger characterization and more interesting developments if it is to have any legs. You may want to take a look at this but it might be catering to a very small audience.
The comic follows along The Outlaw, as he lives a normal life. Before long he runs into trouble and is sucked into some other place where he finds himself in the middle of a battle of sorts against other characters.
The characters thrown into the mix include the likes of the Gray Hulk aka Joe Fixit and Iron Man. They struggle to figure out what's happened as they fight other characters. Eventually they are pulled back to the puppet masters where more is revealed.
The comic has a ten page backup for a character that appears in the background of one of the panels. The story makes good use of the ten pages to tell an origin story and set things in motion.
The problem with the back up story is that it made me wonder why the Outlaw didn't also get the same treatment and then follow the two "backup" stories with a ten page battle. I'm not sure the comic was as effective by giving ten pages to tell one setup story and then doing the same thing, but as a backup. This struck me as poor construction. I wonder if part of another issue was gutted and stuck on this one to inflate the page count to justify the price hike.
The comic is very clunky. The Outlaw (also known as the British Punisher) tells his story with some narration boxes. However, the narration boxes also describe what's going on, which makes for a very awkward read. Some of the captions include, "..after that I did guns a lot. I used to be the Outlaw. The 'British Punisher'. But then I didn't." Shortly after this strange sequence, The Outlaws is sucked into some light and we get, "Time passes...and then..some kind crystal crumbling into starlight like a special effect and...dunno where I am." This kind of storytelling could either be eliminated or let the reader glean from the images that this is happening. I'm not sure why these choices were made but they do not read well.
The comic has action and thankfully the artwork shines in this area. The comic book looks great and has a tremendous presence to it. The visual storytelling might be enough to bring the reader back for more.
"Contest of Champions" delivers a very average first issue. The premise of having characters fighting either against their will or for some carrot being dangled in front of them is an old one. This issue doesn't bring anything new to the table for that idea. This comic takes a few obscure characters and focuses on them while some of the better known characters make appearances to keep things interesting. The usage of caption boxes to both provide character insight as well as describe action is awkward. The artwork is very strong for a comic that is supposed to look and feel epic. Overall this is an average comic book with some minor potential going forward. At five dollars you might want to look elsewhere.
2.5 out of 5 Geek Goggles
