Review: THE KAMANDI CHALLENGE #2

THE KAMANDI CHALLENGE #2 (OF 12)
DC COMICS – @DCComics

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

STORY: Peter J. Tomasi
ART: Neal Adams
COLORS: Hi-Fi
LETTERS: Clem Robins
COVER: Kenneth Rocafort
VARIANT COVER: Neal Adams with Tim Shinn
32pp, Color, $3.99 U.S. (April 2017)

Rated “T” for Teen

Kamandi created by Jack Kirby

“Nuclear Roar!”

Kamandi, The Last Boy on Earth was a comic book created by writer-artist Jack Kirby and published by DC Comics. The series ran from 1972 to 1978, and starred Kamandi, a teenaged boy in a post-apocalyptic future.  In this time, humans have been reduced back to savagery in a world ruled by intelligent, highly evolved animals.

Kamandi, The Last Boy on Earth #1 (cover dated: October 1972) opens some time after a huge event called “The Great Disaster,” which wiped out human civilization.  In “Earth A.D.” (After Disaster), many animals have become humanoid, bipedal, and sentient, and also possess the power of speech. These newly intelligent animal species have equipped themselves with weapons and technology salvaged from the ruins of human civilization and are constantly at war in a struggle for territory.

The world of Kamandi returns in the new DC Comics miniseries, The Kamandi Challenge, bringing together 14 teams of writers and artists.  Each issue will end with an cliffhanger.  The next creative team will resolve that cliffhanger left behind by the previous creative team, before creating their own story and cliffhanger, which the next creative team after them will have to resolve... and so on.  The second issue of The Kamandi Challenge is written by Peter J. Tomasi; drawn by Neal Adams; colored by Hi-Fi; and lettered by Clem Robins.

The Kamandi Challenge #2 (“Nuclear Roar”) finds Kamandi in Tiger City, where the great leader, Lord Caesar, is apparently about to activate a nuclear warhead.  None of the man-animals seem interested in Kamandi's warnings about the weapon, but no one expects a kind of Trojan horse.  Also, a unique Kirby creation makes an appearance, and it still (shockingly) works.

“Nuclear War” follows the cliffhanger that ended issue #1's “K -- is for 'Kill'!”  Simply put, The Kamandi Challenge #2 is a fun read, but lacks the punch of either of the two stories published in The Kamandi Challenge #1.  I like Neal Adams' art here; it is the best of his recent work that I have seen.  The compositions are big and capture the craziness and epic scale of Jack Kirby in his 1970s prime.

The story, however, reflects the weakness of a gimmick series like The Kamandi Challenge.  In coming up with a new chapter by starting from some other writer's previous chapter can be treacherous.  Even if a writer comes up with a way to resolve the previous writer's cliffhanger, the rest of his own story can meander or seem like filler as the writer tries to do his “own thing.”  That is what happens with “Nuclear Roar;” much of it seems like filler on the way to a cliffhanger ending.

I'm still going to keep reading, though.

B

[Afterword by Dan Abnett]

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


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