Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews
Future Imperfect #1
Marvel Comics
David, Land, Leisten & Woodard
The original "Future Imperfect" is one of the best Hulk stories ever told. It featured a future world run by a corrupt and old Hulk. Present-day Hulk finds himself trying to stop this madman Hulk known as the Maestro. It was a classic. Peter David dusts off his creation for a Secret Wars spin-off comic called "Future Imperfect." The debut issue is a good one but doesn't capture the same magic of the original and doesn't appear to bring anything terribly new to the table. Overall, if you like the characters involved you will probably be entertained but if you are looking for something a little more related to Secret Wars then you can skip this one.
Ruby Summers finds Odin while wandering the desert. She brings the old man back to the base of their rebellion in hopes of nursing him back to health so that he can assist them in overthrowing the Maestro. Ruby seems to have multiple mutant powers as do other characters in the comic. Before you can blink a bad guy shows up and spoils all the fun. It's a fast read that only touches on the personality and the world that the Maestro rules over.
The book spends a good deal of time telling the reader about the Maestro and his world but in more of a recap kind of manner. This doesn't really allow the reader to make any connection with the character. It feels like the Maestro should have been summed up on the actual recap page and something else been explored in the dialogue, such as what the rebellion is up to.
The comic has a lot of action and that helps make up for the lukewarm story. The characters have interesting characteristics but don't seem to have terribly unique personalities. It appears this opening issue was meant to grab the reader with action rather than story. It does have a pretty great cliffhanger.
Land on art is exactly what you expect with the exception of his history of over using previous photo references. There are many pages that contain characters that appear to be yelling, whether the dialogue commands that or not. There are plenty of panels where characters are showing their teeth in a creepy smile kind of way. But the book contains a couple of nice splash pages that definitely help to make the comic shine. Generally the artwork is not to my taste but it does an adequate job.
"Future Imperfect" is a comic book that caters to the long-time Hulk fan. There really isn't a strong tie to Secret Wars and there isn't a ton of characters that overlap with the regular Marvel Universe (however that could change). The comic has a decent enough story that sets up the identities of the main players but doesn't really explore any of their personalities. The artwork has a lot of odd facial expressions but provides a couple of nice splash pages. Generally this is a decent comic book that is worth a look through.
3 out of 5 Geek Goggles
