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A review by adelaidemetzger_robotprophet
The Death-Defying Dr. Mirage by Jen Van Meter
3.0
Death-Defying Dr. Mirage Review
I’ve said before in my X-O Manowar: By the Sword review that ever since discovering Valiant I’ve found myself naturally attracted to their titles, characters and just plain ideas. Among the neverending mass of Marvel and DC they stand out with a design and collective urgency that aligned itself with my personalized psyche and said, “I am creative and individual and you must collect everyone of my series.”
The Death-Defying Dr. Mirage was definitely one of the ones that popped out more so than any of the others. From first impression I was all onboard with this idea: Paranormal investigator looking for her husband in the afterlife. I’m always looking for a comic book that involves romance as a plot-driver if I can help it, so I expected a message of true love to be amongst epic visuals, however, I was a bit disappointed.
The story and dialogue are great, there’s nothing to criticize because you can tell that this is some experienced writing by Jen Van Meter. I wasn’t used to the raw sketch style of Robert De La Torre, but after a while found it enchanting and suitable for this dark plot--a harmony that reminded me of Matt Wagner’s Grendel.
What bothered me throughout this volume were a couple minor things involving the characters. First off, I really didn’t like Chan’s personality. She’s actually, for me, an unlikable character and I had a hard time connecting with her and her situation. Loss is a serious thing and it changes people, but even during her flashbacks that told her life I wasn’t really feeling her as a character I could connect with. Another thing was the human threat. I was just not intimidated by those Nazi guys at all and I didn’t really understand their motives. I got that their purpose was to create a wrinkle in the plot so that Chan was in danger both on the exterior and in the after-life, but they were a miniscule problem compared to the demon warlord of tyranny that chases Chan around. The final thing was I thought that it would have made the story extremely interesting if Chan developed a friendship with the chained demon early on in the volume.
After sitting on these personal issues a while I realized that many of these problems were a different aim at making a plot. Van Meter has a very down to Earth way of thinking about a storyline and part of that technique is to make her plots and characters more realistic. While I was looking for a romanticized adventure with all the makings of the usual skeletal structure of a good story I didn’t realize that Van Meter’s approach is what more comics--and general stories--need. I love a good, old-fashioned story that I can sit down and zip through, but reading something like The Death-Defying Dr. Mirage is a good idea on how we can make science fiction closer to our real world.
I’ve said before in my X-O Manowar: By the Sword review that ever since discovering Valiant I’ve found myself naturally attracted to their titles, characters and just plain ideas. Among the neverending mass of Marvel and DC they stand out with a design and collective urgency that aligned itself with my personalized psyche and said, “I am creative and individual and you must collect everyone of my series.”
The Death-Defying Dr. Mirage was definitely one of the ones that popped out more so than any of the others. From first impression I was all onboard with this idea: Paranormal investigator looking for her husband in the afterlife. I’m always looking for a comic book that involves romance as a plot-driver if I can help it, so I expected a message of true love to be amongst epic visuals, however, I was a bit disappointed.
The story and dialogue are great, there’s nothing to criticize because you can tell that this is some experienced writing by Jen Van Meter. I wasn’t used to the raw sketch style of Robert De La Torre, but after a while found it enchanting and suitable for this dark plot--a harmony that reminded me of Matt Wagner’s Grendel.
What bothered me throughout this volume were a couple minor things involving the characters. First off, I really didn’t like Chan’s personality. She’s actually, for me, an unlikable character and I had a hard time connecting with her and her situation. Loss is a serious thing and it changes people, but even during her flashbacks that told her life I wasn’t really feeling her as a character I could connect with. Another thing was the human threat. I was just not intimidated by those Nazi guys at all and I didn’t really understand their motives. I got that their purpose was to create a wrinkle in the plot so that Chan was in danger both on the exterior and in the after-life, but they were a miniscule problem compared to the demon warlord of tyranny that chases Chan around. The final thing was I thought that it would have made the story extremely interesting if Chan developed a friendship with the chained demon early on in the volume.
After sitting on these personal issues a while I realized that many of these problems were a different aim at making a plot. Van Meter has a very down to Earth way of thinking about a storyline and part of that technique is to make her plots and characters more realistic. While I was looking for a romanticized adventure with all the makings of the usual skeletal structure of a good story I didn’t realize that Van Meter’s approach is what more comics--and general stories--need. I love a good, old-fashioned story that I can sit down and zip through, but reading something like The Death-Defying Dr. Mirage is a good idea on how we can make science fiction closer to our real world.