DC COMICS – @DCComics
[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]
STORY: James Tynion IV
ART: Carlos D'Anda
COLORS: Gabe Eltaeb
LETTERS: Clem Robins
COVER: Paul Pope with Lovern Kindzierski
VARIANT COVER: Carlos D'Anda
32pp, Color, $3.99 U.S. (June 2017)
Rated “T” for Teen
Kamandi created by Jack Kirby
“The Wild Wondrous West”
Created by Jack Kirby, Kamandi, The Last Boy on Earth was a comic book series published by DC Comics in the 1970s. Running from 1972 to 1978, the series 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 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 fourth issue of The Kamandi Challenge is written by James Tynion IV; drawn by Carlos D'Anda; colored by Gabe Eltaeb; and lettered by Clem Robins.
The Kamandi Challenge #4 (“The Wild Wonderous West”) finds Kamandi and his friend Vila in the clutches of the Jaguar Sun Cult. The cult members are feeding the pair to the cult's god, “The Great Jaguar,” which is several stories tall. If they escape this fire, waiting for them is the Kanga Rat Murder Society in the mad, mad, mad Outback.
“The Wild Wondrous West” follows the cliffhanger that ended issue #3's “Bug in Your Ear.” The Kamandi Challenge #3 packed more punch than the second issue. However, The Kamandi Challenge #4 lacks the freewheeling fun of the third issue. After reading the second issue, I suspected that this series could end up being hit and miss, simply because each new issue presented a new creative team, itself presented with the challenge of picking up some other team's story.
I am generally a fan of comic book writer James Tynion IV, especially his work on Batman titles, but I find “The Wild Wondrous West” to be little more than rehashed ideas from the original Planet of the Apes films series. Artist Carlos D'Anda's work here is more style than storytelling, and Gabe Eltaeb's garish coloring is static in the line of communication between the reader and the story. I will admit that I do like the last few pages of this story, because this is where the creative team seems to start to sparkle, so I look forward to where this cliffhanger ends up.
Its is not easy for The Kamandi Challenge creative teams in this series to come close to Jack Kirby's original vision of this concept. The Kamandi Challenge #4 exemplifies that.
[Afterword by Jimmy Palmiotti]
6.5 out of 10
Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You'
The text is copyright © 2017 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for reprint and syndication rights and fees.
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