“the merger”. Bit Lifetime. Be specific. Something is wrong with a merger? Don’t introduce conflict that is irrelevant.
I assume he’s talking about Isom.
“in proprietor persona” never heard this phrase in my life. Lose it.
He needs to know “how” Isom took out his except? Is he asking if Isom is an Except? The mystery is more labored at every mention. Why would he even care? I assume Excepts getting taken out all of time.
Abraham lincoln appears and says he allowed this meeting to happen. Lincoln punches darren. Then he apologizes to isom’s sister for allowing it to happen. Why did he allow it to happen?
“In casual conversation…” Lol, no. Come on! Dialog has major issues.
WHY can’t Darren push him around?
YEARS AGO. used it correctly this time
“what you’re wearing a”. not clear. Finish the joke when making a joke.
“that was the most chaotic thing I’VE ever seen.” bad editing
Why does Chadran look at them running away twice?
The monster kills the comicon girl for no reason. He just wants to kill people I guess?
Isom quits being a hero because a monster killed a random girl and he failed to stop it. Not a good or heroic reason to quit. heroes usually quit because someone they love dies and they are responsible in some way. Or through an existential crisis. A big emotional moment. A random person dying happens in basically every super hero encounter.
now isom is back at the ranch and there are monkey demons who attacked his friend Sam
“He will see you soon?” Are they talking about Satan?
“I don’t know what this is, but it looks bad.” It’s hard to criticize any single line, but this is an example of the kind of lines that plague the book. Each line should say something. How “bad” is this? They don’t seem very shook by it.
“The coyotes should know better.” A rancher would know that coyotes don’t attack humans. Bad editing.
The fireman Goodyng isn’t necessary. It does nothing to the story and takes 2 pages.
Now we’re at Alphacore HQ. Should probably be “Alpha Corp” but whatever.
The dialog is very coy. It never says what they’re talking about, so it’s exhausting to read and it doesn’t escalate the tension or engage emotionally. It’s like trying to pull information out of the story. They don’t even use characters’ names. The story relies on the names being printed on the page like name tags. Say exactly what you mean and then add character to it.
Now Alphacore is arguing about the logistics of their data collection. Not engaging. There’s no clear explanation of Yaira’s threat. She’s not dangerous to alphacore. That’s all we are told. They only mention Isom getting thrown out of the sky. There’s no lived in world before or beyond that moment. It’s weird and takes you out of the story.
And that’s it for the alphacore. Now back to the fireman guy. Everyone is lamenting Isom’s arm being in danger, but it doens’t look to be in danger.
“The obvious quesiton is who sent them and what do they want.” Yes. More of this.
Now they’re talking about the camera equipment and why he has old cameras instead of new ones. Because of cloud storage subscriptions? Guy has a fireman subscription, but a data storage subscription is too much? It didn’t need to be brought up in the first place. Unnecessary dialog.
Typo on the next page.
“Goodying Services” then “Goodyng Services”
Seems like a lot of wasted space to describe a private investigator
The sister called about Darren. Shouldn’t be a surprise that he showed up. And then it immediately cuts to something else. NOTHING is ever allowed to happen in this story. BUT the dialog is also extremely inefficient.
Now there’s a wrestling event and some Stone Cold rip off is going into the ring. Takes 6 pages for this. Absolutely no point.
This blonde woman is crossing the Abraham Lincoln guy in the parking lot. I have no idea who these people are. There’s just random characters showing up and it’s impossible to establish a frame of reference. Was the Stone Cold guy just a random wrestling promo?
“Have you accepted our offer?” SAY WHAT THE OFFER IS FOR. Something. Everything in this book reads like a Lifetime movie. There’s no specifics ever. It’s just jobs and offers and management and companies and consulting.
“you’re a respectable man, but that doesn’t mean much to the disrespectul” desperate need of a re-write the dialog is extremely stilted.
Lincoln’s assistant betrays him. And he confesses to the betrayal for no reason. That’s not something a normal person would do, let alone a bad person. That’s why it feels weird. It’s unearned. Then Lincoln crashes the car and flies through the windsheild himself? And that’s how he escapes? And the assistant dies?
So this IS a detective story, but Goodyng is the detective. Why wasn’t Goodyng called first instead of Isom? He’s only $50.
The woman faints because her husband is missing? Is that physically possible? Why even have her be there? Just have her crying or adding more urgency.
Goodyng discovers demon DNA. And Isom’s arm is healed but Goodyng is shocked at this. The “does he have superpowers” bit is not necessary. Every single person is shocked by something Isom does. It makes them look stupid.
In two panels, Goodyng describes some sort of Texas cessation and war that also birthed the arrival of super natural creatures. This is the kind of exposition that should be in every panel. It should have been in the first panel.
Isom wants to rush in and do something. I don’t know what. They’re arguing about it. I’m not sure why Goodyng is involved. Is this part of the $49/mo subscription?
“There’s a resource about an hour west near the mountains.” What does that mean? Now Isom has to travel to some woman to tell her what’s going on because Goodyng told him to.
Isom is talking about responsibility of being a hero, but he quit in the most pathetic way possible. It rings hollow.
He rips this lady’s fence down for no reason. That’s breaking and entering. And probably a 10k fence repair. And now criminals and animals can get in or out. Great job.
He’s like Bayou Billy now
Wtf happened to Jasmine at this point?
“There’s only one hell.” what does that mean? The demons are from hell, but not THE hell?
“Every culture has hell, it’s a firey place where bad people reside.” defintiely no, all cultures do not have that very specific version of hell.
Isom asks if this “hell” is different universes, but no it’s “different dimensions”. Seems like this dialog only exists to reconcile the writer’s belief in christianity with their need to not have “multiple universes”. so they’re multiple dimensions instead. The entire page is pointless and does not progress the story. The urgency is a dying friend who Isom keeps calling his “employee”.
they’re going to “hell”, a place isom just learned about, because this random woman is sure Sam is there. there’s no explanation for why she’s going or why she is sure. She’s just going to hell because she is compelled to by this missing stranger. Ordinarily, this would be the actions of a villain.
They get to a demon monkey cave. they just happen to land on it. And then the woman wants to immediately retreat. What a stupid plan. But now Isom fights a gang of them when before he couldn’t beat 2.
The “is he a super hero bit” strikes again. This time from the woman sorceress. Superfluous.
The woman says she’s on a deadline and that’s why she is attacking “up close”, but we have no idea what the deadline is. Superfluous.
Now there is like thousands of the hell monkeys. The woman says she’s leaving because she got what she came for. I have no idea what that was. But then she follows Isom back in for no reason. Now they’re getting attacked by a thousand monkeys.
They find Sam with a bunch of dead people in a prison that is obvious and they see it immediately. Then they escape.
I THINK Isom used a super power here as kind of a super fart to get away from the last monkey who was going to kill him
And that’s the end.
Oh no wait, there’s a giant demon who “underestimated” Isom
DIALOG
The dialog needs a lot of work. Every character sounds exactly the same. They also say a LOT of superfluous things. This might be how normal people talk, but every line should say something to advance the story or the plot or give information on the characters or their world. If a situation is bad, how bad is it? We have no idea, but the characters should. They should not be bickering about generalities so often. That’s what made the Star Wars prequels so bad. Be specific.
It’s possible the dialog is like this because the plot jumps around so much to seemingly random scenes and the motivation isn’t clear. The Alphacore scene does nothing and is executed poorly as foreshadowing. The Darren scenes do nothing, but make Darren look silly. The Abraham Lincoln clone and the Sally lady do nothing to advance the main plot. If all of these introductions are necessary for spin-offs, they should at least contribute to the main plot. The plot is to save Jasmine. At least explain why Jasmine is in trouble!
PLOT
We’ve abandoned Jasmine. There’s only a single mention of her. That’s jarring. The new plot seems to be the rescue of Sam who is in hell. There are no challenges or obstacles in the rescue of Sam. Isom proceeds from his suit to Goodyng, who helps him for no reason, to Blood Ruth who helps him for no reason, to the hell monkey caves, which they find without effort and ransack without obstacle. Pages of punching are not obstacles. Nothing was learned or overcome in this story. It will not connect with readers in any deep or meaningful way because of this. There was an opportunity to connect Isom’s retirement with his rebirth in the hell monkey cave, but this was squandered. Maybe have him quit because he abandoned someone for personal glory, and then in the cave, he passes on person glory to save Sam, thus making his eventually victory more impactful. Instead it’s presented as logistical and that the rescue was more or less a foregone conclusion.
CHARACTERS
Isom quit being a superhero because a random girl died who he couldn’t save. It is confusing why Isom is a super hero at all because that sort of thing should be what calls a hero to action, random people suffering and dying at the hands of evil men.
Heroes usually quit because their actions endanger their loved ones or they are disillusioned with who is “good” and “bad” or some other event that is deeply personal to them. Maybe they are beaten so badly it shakes their confidence. Isom wasn’t strong enough to save a girl, so he quit. It seems fragile and ego driven.
From what we see in the comic, Isom is violent, highly insecure, obsessed with personal grudges and feelings of impotence. The characters around him are a reflection of this. They exist only to propel him into adventures that he doesn’t deserve to be on, and make sacrafices that are not believable and are unappreciated. The side characters around Isom compulsively do good, unselfish things or the opposite. It’s an unsophisticated worldview and a difficult character for an audience to relate to.
Goodyng and Blood Ruth have no reason to help or risk their lives to save Sam. There’s ample space for them to explain why they would. There are hints that the writers know this is missing, but the exposition is simply not there. Characters need to be more than their occupation and their clothes.
SETTING
We’ve gone from the country, to the city, to hell, and then back to the country. And there are aliens. And there was a war where Texas seceeded from the US. And things seem to be just fine. Judge Dredd has a similar world, but it’s very lived-in and has consequences on every character. The characters are built by the world, not the other way around. Isom’s characters seem like normal people in our world, but their surroundings are completely the opposite, so the world doesn’t feel lived it. It feels fake and forced.
OVERALL
It’s impossible to expect any of the threads in this story to develop. The character and plot development is either non-existant or moves at a snails pace, and many pages and panels are wasted on self-indulgent non-sequiturs. The supervillains in the club from the first book are gone. We have no new information of Isom’s Except status except for maybe the Super Fart at the end of this book. We know there are demons after him. We know there is a Janus project that has something to do with Abraham Lincoln, but at this pace it seems impossible for any of this to develop. We are never told WHY. I would expect that over the next couple of books, aliens might show up, or the Alphacore will have another logistics meeting, or something about Yaira, but ultimately Isom will be bullied from task to task by characters who are unrealistically good to deal with characters who are compulsively bad with no reason or rationale and with no obstacles, sacrifice or personal growth.
Focusing on one story would be more effective. Also, concentrating on the effects of the world on the characters themselves. They should be profound and would be more engaging to the audience than a 6-page Stone Cold Steve Austin promo.