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A review by jayisthebird
Lady Mechanika, Vol. 1: The Mystery of the Mechanical Corpse by Joe Benítez
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
Sometimes effectively uses the trapping of Steampunk, but unsuccessful in panel-to-panel clarity and characterization.
At its best Benitez, brings out the elements of steam punk that are most fun; a sense of Final Fantasy scale conjoined to the vicious hierarchy of Victorian England's ruling classes. There are giant airships, man-machine monsters, and industrial bosses with nefarious scams. Fun stuff. The basic idea of the plot is also interesting, the hero finds what is essentially mistaken as her own dead body and has to solve the mystery.
Benitez's art uses the tools of the 90s independent guys like Lee. Typically, a big anchor image of one of the leads or a big bad, detailed line work, extreme zooms ins on eyebrows, and of course beautiful women in the Marston Dikto school of fetishistic made heroic. Like a lot of the image guys, the storytelling can be unclear. Two telling examples; I double-checked the opening two issue two's date several times ultimately deciding it must be a typo. The lead character is so close in look to the mystery character that I mistook this as a flashback (despite the clear date!). Number two, there is one page in which a subordinate goes to save Lady Mechanika and the layout was so similiar I couldn't decide if this was a clever homage to her successful infiltration or a self-swipe.
The contemporary comic often relies on the square thought balloon to develop interiority and Benitez misses here. Contra writers like King who develop a sort of lyricism with interior struggle or the teen heroes of the present like Spider-Gwen where we can heighten the melodrama, Benitez's thoughts are overly-long and more often function as exposition vessels. So too, the prose suffers with dialog. Benitez wants to capture the Victorian verbosity, a clear challenge in a medium which tends to require brevity and lyrical speech. This too fails with uninteresting banters (save the fun scenes where an incredulous little girl doesn't believe Lady Mechanika matches up to the hype) and tedious expositions. It almost feels like a silver age comic.
The characters themselves fall short of the interesting premises. The amnesiac hero, fighting against a tabloid press, and big industry seems like it should work; these are establishes tentpoles of some of comics greatest heroes like Wolverine and Spidey. So too the bad ass woman with support, riffs off the 90s trends in an interesting way. The villains suffer from the fact that Mechanika punks them two easily maiming her two antagonists who seek revenge.
Overall, disappointing storytelling and characterization despite very impressive designs and individual panels.
At its best Benitez, brings out the elements of steam punk that are most fun; a sense of Final Fantasy scale conjoined to the vicious hierarchy of Victorian England's ruling classes. There are giant airships, man-machine monsters, and industrial bosses with nefarious scams. Fun stuff. The basic idea of the plot is also interesting, the hero finds what is essentially mistaken as her own dead body and has to solve the mystery.
Benitez's art uses the tools of the 90s independent guys like Lee. Typically, a big anchor image of one of the leads or a big bad, detailed line work, extreme zooms ins on eyebrows, and of course beautiful women in the Marston Dikto school of fetishistic made heroic. Like a lot of the image guys, the storytelling can be unclear. Two telling examples; I double-checked the opening two issue two's date several times ultimately deciding it must be a typo. The lead character is so close in look to the mystery character that I mistook this as a flashback (despite the clear date!). Number two, there is one page in which a subordinate goes to save Lady Mechanika and the layout was so similiar I couldn't decide if this was a clever homage to her successful infiltration or a self-swipe.
The contemporary comic often relies on the square thought balloon to develop interiority and Benitez misses here. Contra writers like King who develop a sort of lyricism with interior struggle or the teen heroes of the present like Spider-Gwen where we can heighten the melodrama, Benitez's thoughts are overly-long and more often function as exposition vessels. So too, the prose suffers with dialog. Benitez wants to capture the Victorian verbosity, a clear challenge in a medium which tends to require brevity and lyrical speech. This too fails with uninteresting banters (save the fun scenes where an incredulous little girl doesn't believe Lady Mechanika matches up to the hype) and tedious expositions. It almost feels like a silver age comic.
The characters themselves fall short of the interesting premises. The amnesiac hero, fighting against a tabloid press, and big industry seems like it should work; these are establishes tentpoles of some of comics greatest heroes like Wolverine and Spidey. So too the bad ass woman with support, riffs off the 90s trends in an interesting way. The villains suffer from the fact that Mechanika punks them two easily maiming her two antagonists who seek revenge.
Overall, disappointing storytelling and characterization despite very impressive designs and individual panels.