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sherpawhale's review against another edition
4.0
Some deliciously good space pulp. This volume is a bit disjointed (I suspect the second volume will tie everything together a bit more neatly), but it has a killer ending.
Heh.
Heh.
lukemosher's review
Forgot to log this, but I read the first half of the Fear Agent series over spring break (how young I was, how little I knew). I love Rick Remender but didn't really care for this series. It's a throwback to 50s sci-fi adventures, with a Texan cowboy protagonist, and I like about half of that premise. I like Texas but don't much care for Texan caricatures; it's just overdone.
rovertoak's review
5.0
There are a few comics out there that I’ve read and purchased for the library because of the sheer brilliance, fun, originality, and devotion to the weird that some comic readers, teen and/or adult, either truly appreciate or need to read: Billy the Kid’s Old Timey Oddities, Busiek & Nord’s Conan books, Niles’ Cal McDonald books, etc. Each one, a Dark Horse property. And now, they’ve given us Fear Agent!
Hard drinking Fear Agent Heath Houston (think Bruce Campbell and Spaceballs‘ Capt. Lone Starr all-in-one) is on a job: retreive a bunch of spaceship parts from a planet inhabited by a bunch of neo-neanderthals. No problem, until Heath runs into the class-A lifeform, a huge brain (forget Krang) in a jelly sac controlling the proto-primates. Let the fistfights, lasers, frag grenades and one-liners fly! If this sounds pretty cool, then you’ll enjoy the next 70 pages after this intro to one of the most fun comics I’ve read this year!
Hard drinking Fear Agent Heath Houston (think Bruce Campbell and Spaceballs‘ Capt. Lone Starr all-in-one) is on a job: retreive a bunch of spaceship parts from a planet inhabited by a bunch of neo-neanderthals. No problem, until Heath runs into the class-A lifeform, a huge brain (forget Krang) in a jelly sac controlling the proto-primates. Let the fistfights, lasers, frag grenades and one-liners fly! If this sounds pretty cool, then you’ll enjoy the next 70 pages after this intro to one of the most fun comics I’ve read this year!
theartolater's review
5.0
This is one of the most fun comics I've had the pleasure of reading in some time. Not more than a few days after I had been complaining to myself about wanting to read a good sci-fi comic, here comes Fear Agent, which is pretty much the love child of Firefly and "Sparks Nevada: Marshal on Mars."
To try and explain the plot would be folly. Needless to say, it's spaceships, it's a wisecracking hero, it's a little bit of political intrigue and action throughout. I hated that it was such a short arc, and where it ended left me wanting a lot, lot more. I can't ask for much more than that.
Definitely look out for this. I know a new hardcover set came out, hopefully the local library grabs it...
To try and explain the plot would be folly. Needless to say, it's spaceships, it's a wisecracking hero, it's a little bit of political intrigue and action throughout. I hated that it was such a short arc, and where it ended left me wanting a lot, lot more. I can't ask for much more than that.
Definitely look out for this. I know a new hardcover set came out, hopefully the local library grabs it...
tashalostinbooks's review against another edition
4.0
Damn, now I need to get the rest of this series.
librarimans's review
5.0
Full of pulpy sci-fi goodness, there's a lot to like in Fear Agent. Creative team Rick Remender and Tony Moore craft a fantastic world full of ray guns, jet packs, and killer robots and it manages to still feel fresh and never derivative.
the_graylien's review
3.0
I've had my eye on this book for years and with the advent of ComiXology Unlimited, I was finally able to easily read it.
Heath Huston is the last of what are called Fear Agents. He is basically a bounty hunter of threatening alien life forms.
This book is pulp/noir/western wrapped in a science fiction wrapper. I have to say I'm intrigued by the end, but intrigued enough to wait and see if ComiXology Unlimited gets more volumes, not enough to run out and buy it.
A middle-of-the-road-leaning-towards-favorable book to this reader.
Heath Huston is the last of what are called Fear Agents. He is basically a bounty hunter of threatening alien life forms.
This book is pulp/noir/western wrapped in a science fiction wrapper. I have to say I'm intrigued by the end, but intrigued enough to wait and see if ComiXology Unlimited gets more volumes, not enough to run out and buy it.
A middle-of-the-road-leaning-towards-favorable book to this reader.
jgkeely's review
3.0
When I first saw the cover of this book, it reminded me of the thing I like most in sci fi comics: Wallace Wood, and apparently for good reason. Series author Remender tells us in his introduction that it was his intention to evoke Wallace and the rest of the EC sci fi comics crew.
Remender wants to take back sci fi from the religious ecstasy of Star Wars or the political allegory of Trek, and return to the nuts and bolt: the strange, the adventurous, the RIPPED FROM THE PAGES OF 'INCREDIBLE SCIENCE FICTION'! Like Mieville did to Lovecraft, or Moore did to Doc Savage, or Ellis did to Doc Savage, too, or Busiek did to Conan and the Silver Age, Remender wants to recast pulp for a modern audience.
It's not really that novel of an idea just now, but it's certainly not a bad idea. Remender does have the panache to get the ball rolling, but lacks the fine hand of his contemporaries, often leaving his exposition stilted, redundant, and overly-specific. He also brings a mad, gonzo flair to the whole thing that really negates the purity of his pulp homage.
But again, it's not the worst thing. After all, Mieville and Ellis hardly keep their homages uncluttered. I'm excited to see where the story goes; Remender is fearless, which is always great in a writer as long as he isn't incompetent (I'm looking at you, Millar). Remender also seems to be capable of reigning in his madcap antics when they might interfere with the story, so he's got one up on Morrison, too.
If I'm still waiting for the author to prove himself, the same can't be said of the artist. I still remember my disappointment upon opening The Walking Dead, issue seven, to see that Tony Moore had been replaced with the workmanlike Adlard. Not coincidentally, my interest in that book soon waned, so I decided to follow Tony wherever he might go.
Which lead me here, to Fear Agent. Moore is exemplary as always, and I appreciate the way he plays with Wood's classic designs and sci fi tropes. Wallace Wood was either one of the best inkers ever, or one of the worst, depending on your definition. No matter which artist had drawn a book, once Wood touched brush to paper, it was all His.
Some say he obliterated the original artwork, others that he transformed it, unearthed it, renewed it, elevated it, annihilated then resurrected it in a new body, with a new soul, forever opening its eschatological third eye, the eye that has seen death, and hence, becomes Death. Well, they probably didn't say that, but I will.
You might imagine my disappointment when, in Fear Agent, something like the opposite of this occurred. Moore's art, which in The Walking dead was so dead-on, so evocative, even accompanied by only a slight gray wash, felt muddled, reduced, and to some degree, lost beneath the ink and color in Fear Agent.
It's not that the inker or colorist are unskilled butchers, it's a much more precise and common problem than that: they don't seem to be able to bring out Moore's idiomatic sense of gesture and depth in a thickly-inked, full color book. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of great panels, but there are also some pretty rudimentary errors and bits of inelegance that I'm sad to see.
Now, maybe I'm wrong, maybe Moore's just overworked and isn't lavishing every panel with the same love that first drew me into the world of The Walking Dead--before it became a redundant, grimdark melodrama--but I sorta doubt it.
Perhaps the ink and color team could have taken some more looks at Wally and EC, who made a mark for themselves with crisp, expressive inking, not letting it become overpowered by lavish color. Then again, to sell a book these days, it helps to smack some pyrotechnics on it.
If that was their intent, then I'd suggest going to Metal Hurlant for inspiration, because Remender seems to have forgotten that some guys already reinvented the EC short-form sci fi adventures as complex, sexy, gritty, many-colored modern comics: the Franco-Belgians, and most notably, Moebius.
Then again, it might just take a few issues before the team really meshes. It's not that it's bad, it's a pretty book, it's just that I'd really like to see Moore's art shine out, as I know it's capable of doing. Here's to hoping the future of Fear Agent looks more like Wally Wood, or more like Metal Hurlant, or both. It's a strong start, and I think they could do it, which surprises me.
My Suggested Reading In Comics
Remender wants to take back sci fi from the religious ecstasy of Star Wars or the political allegory of Trek, and return to the nuts and bolt: the strange, the adventurous, the RIPPED FROM THE PAGES OF 'INCREDIBLE SCIENCE FICTION'! Like Mieville did to Lovecraft, or Moore did to Doc Savage, or Ellis did to Doc Savage, too, or Busiek did to Conan and the Silver Age, Remender wants to recast pulp for a modern audience.
It's not really that novel of an idea just now, but it's certainly not a bad idea. Remender does have the panache to get the ball rolling, but lacks the fine hand of his contemporaries, often leaving his exposition stilted, redundant, and overly-specific. He also brings a mad, gonzo flair to the whole thing that really negates the purity of his pulp homage.
But again, it's not the worst thing. After all, Mieville and Ellis hardly keep their homages uncluttered. I'm excited to see where the story goes; Remender is fearless, which is always great in a writer as long as he isn't incompetent (I'm looking at you, Millar). Remender also seems to be capable of reigning in his madcap antics when they might interfere with the story, so he's got one up on Morrison, too.
If I'm still waiting for the author to prove himself, the same can't be said of the artist. I still remember my disappointment upon opening The Walking Dead, issue seven, to see that Tony Moore had been replaced with the workmanlike Adlard. Not coincidentally, my interest in that book soon waned, so I decided to follow Tony wherever he might go.
Which lead me here, to Fear Agent. Moore is exemplary as always, and I appreciate the way he plays with Wood's classic designs and sci fi tropes. Wallace Wood was either one of the best inkers ever, or one of the worst, depending on your definition. No matter which artist had drawn a book, once Wood touched brush to paper, it was all His.
Some say he obliterated the original artwork, others that he transformed it, unearthed it, renewed it, elevated it, annihilated then resurrected it in a new body, with a new soul, forever opening its eschatological third eye, the eye that has seen death, and hence, becomes Death. Well, they probably didn't say that, but I will.
You might imagine my disappointment when, in Fear Agent, something like the opposite of this occurred. Moore's art, which in The Walking dead was so dead-on, so evocative, even accompanied by only a slight gray wash, felt muddled, reduced, and to some degree, lost beneath the ink and color in Fear Agent.
It's not that the inker or colorist are unskilled butchers, it's a much more precise and common problem than that: they don't seem to be able to bring out Moore's idiomatic sense of gesture and depth in a thickly-inked, full color book. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of great panels, but there are also some pretty rudimentary errors and bits of inelegance that I'm sad to see.
Now, maybe I'm wrong, maybe Moore's just overworked and isn't lavishing every panel with the same love that first drew me into the world of The Walking Dead--before it became a redundant, grimdark melodrama--but I sorta doubt it.
Perhaps the ink and color team could have taken some more looks at Wally and EC, who made a mark for themselves with crisp, expressive inking, not letting it become overpowered by lavish color. Then again, to sell a book these days, it helps to smack some pyrotechnics on it.
If that was their intent, then I'd suggest going to Metal Hurlant for inspiration, because Remender seems to have forgotten that some guys already reinvented the EC short-form sci fi adventures as complex, sexy, gritty, many-colored modern comics: the Franco-Belgians, and most notably, Moebius.
Then again, it might just take a few issues before the team really meshes. It's not that it's bad, it's a pretty book, it's just that I'd really like to see Moore's art shine out, as I know it's capable of doing. Here's to hoping the future of Fear Agent looks more like Wally Wood, or more like Metal Hurlant, or both. It's a strong start, and I think they could do it, which surprises me.
My Suggested Reading In Comics
annaonthepage's review
2.0
I was sold this as "good old fashioned pulp". I'm sure the misogyny is meant as parody but it's so unpleasant and predominant. The male hero is still a brute who saves the cowering young woman. The two female characters exist to be an annoying nag, a care-giver, T&A and dopey-eyed shut-down fear. It's also littered with typos, and the writing has some funny moments but is predominantly clunky. I'm told the sexism is developed in a positive way but I'm not going to be continuing with the series just to see that happen. Do any women like this book?
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