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dantastic's review against another edition
4.0
When Paul Patton Jr dons the costume of The Fox, he becomes a magnet for all sorts of strangeness. When the Queen of Diamonds shows up, what kind of trouble will the Fox wind up in?
Prior to this volume, I recognized The Fox as one of the Archie Red Circle characters but that's about it. When Archie Comics was doing their sale, I nabbed this for a cool $3.99.
The Fox looks like a Black Panther ripoff at first glance but that is not the case. Despite his resemblance to the monarch from Wakanda, he's more roof-running, wisecracking hero like Spider-Man or Daredevil before he became the angstiest super hero of them all. According to the dialog, he originally started wearing the costume to make the news come to him.
Anyway, The Fox ends up way out of his depth in an adventure that crosses time and space. Each installment stands well on its own. Each also starts en medias res, in the midst of the action, before backtracking to where the previous issue left off. It's a fun technique and I'm surprised it isn't used more often.
Mark Waid is hit or miss for me but his writing was pretty great this time. The story felt like an homage to some kooky Silver Age comics but with modern sensibilities. Dean Haspiel's artwork was fantastic, retro in an Alex Toth sort of way. The way he uses the Fox's eyes and ears to make his face expressive even though his face is fully covered is masterful. How have I never heard of him before?
If The Fox: Freak Magnet has a weakness, it's that I felt like The Fox's life previous to this adventure should have been touched on more. Not everyone has issues of Blue Ribbon Comics from 1984 lying around.
All comics should be as much fun as The Fox: Freak Magnet. Four out of five time traveling druids.
Prior to this volume, I recognized The Fox as one of the Archie Red Circle characters but that's about it. When Archie Comics was doing their sale, I nabbed this for a cool $3.99.
The Fox looks like a Black Panther ripoff at first glance but that is not the case. Despite his resemblance to the monarch from Wakanda, he's more roof-running, wisecracking hero like Spider-Man or Daredevil before he became the angstiest super hero of them all. According to the dialog, he originally started wearing the costume to make the news come to him.
Anyway, The Fox ends up way out of his depth in an adventure that crosses time and space. Each installment stands well on its own. Each also starts en medias res, in the midst of the action, before backtracking to where the previous issue left off. It's a fun technique and I'm surprised it isn't used more often.
Mark Waid is hit or miss for me but his writing was pretty great this time. The story felt like an homage to some kooky Silver Age comics but with modern sensibilities. Dean Haspiel's artwork was fantastic, retro in an Alex Toth sort of way. The way he uses the Fox's eyes and ears to make his face expressive even though his face is fully covered is masterful. How have I never heard of him before?
If The Fox: Freak Magnet has a weakness, it's that I felt like The Fox's life previous to this adventure should have been touched on more. Not everyone has issues of Blue Ribbon Comics from 1984 lying around.
All comics should be as much fun as The Fox: Freak Magnet. Four out of five time traveling druids.
trike's review against another edition
1.0
Mark Waid mashes together an old comic book character, reimagined as a poor man's Spider-Man, with Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos (spoilers, sorry), and makes something completely uninteresting.
The humor falls flat, the story is unevenly paced and none of the characters are interesting in any way.
I'm not up on my Archie Comics history, so I don't know if The Fox is one of the original characters from that era of crazy superhero creation between Superman's debut and the entrance of the US into WWII, but The Shield definitely is.
But I've been trying to force myself to read this for months, which is ridiculous, so I just went ahead and finished it today. It should be fun, but it's just dumb.
I've mentioned in other reviews of Waid's stuff that his work is binary: he's either on or off, hit or miss. And this, I'm sorry to say, is a gigantic miss.
The humor falls flat, the story is unevenly paced and none of the characters are interesting in any way.
I'm not up on my Archie Comics history, so I don't know if The Fox is one of the original characters from that era of crazy superhero creation between Superman's debut and the entrance of the US into WWII, but The Shield definitely is.
But I've been trying to force myself to read this for months, which is ridiculous, so I just went ahead and finished it today. It should be fun, but it's just dumb.
I've mentioned in other reviews of Waid's stuff that his work is binary: he's either on or off, hit or miss. And this, I'm sorry to say, is a gigantic miss.
dogunderwater's review against another edition
4.0
Cute & wacky, especially if you like sad sacks (I love sad sacks).
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