COMIC BOOK REVIEW: BIG BANG ADVENTURES #22: THE LAST WHIZ KIDS STORY! PART 3

 

THE LAST WHIZ KIDS STORY!: PART 3 (BIG BANG ADVENTURES #22)

Writer: Pedro Angosto

Artists: Jorge Santamaría (penciller)/Juan Moreno (inker)/Ulises Kuroshima (colors)/Adam Pruett (letters)

Editor: Gary Carlson  

Publisher: Big Bang Comics

 

Order print or digital directly from Indyplanet 

COMIC BOOK REVIEW: THE LAST WHIZ KIDS STORY, PART 2 (BIG BANG ADVENTURES #17)

 

 

THE LAST WHIZ KIDS STORY: PART 2 (BIG BANG ADVENTURES #17)

Writer: Pedro Angosto

Artists: Jorge Santamaría (penciller)/Juan Moreno (inker)/Ulises Kuroshima (colors)/Adam Pruett (letters)

Publisher: Big Bang Comics

 

Order print or digital directly from Indyplanet 

 

The final fate of Robo-Hood! A crushing betrayal and secret reveal—at the same time! A life-changing discovery and an unbearable loss!  Gender-switching! Wide-screen action! 

This comic has it all, my friends.

 

 

 

 

 

My thoughts on this comic have been brewing for 3 or 4 months and I finally have time to write them down.  But let’s get this out there before I say anything else, THE LAST WHIZ KIDS STORY Part 2 picks up after the events of Part 1 but surpasses the quality level, and Part 1 was already exceptional.  At this point in time, Big Bang Comics is matching and exceeding the quality of super-hero comics by the Big 2 when Pedro Angosto is writing and artists like Jorge Santamaria are drawing.  

 

THE LAST WHIZ KIDS STORY, with it’s thick 27 pages of story, is a loveletter to Wolfman and Pérez’s NEW TEEN TITANS circa “The Judas Contract” and “The Terror of Trigon” in terms of style but carves it’s own identity as something fresh and relevant to today.  Wolfman and Pérez worked within a paradigm of expectations for mainstream super-hero comics but managed to push the boundaries of maturity in story-telling and content as had never before been done so consistently and so well. And this is where Angosto and Santamaria are channeling the spirit of that era for this 3-parter.


From a purely visual standpoint, Santamaria is on fire.  So many double-pagers intensely dense with detail and movement.  His design sense is off the charts.  I would be recommending this comic simply for more people to see his art even if the story did not hold up. 


Thankfully, the story does hold up.  Angosto is brilliant at homaging without copying.  Which makes this story resonate, in my opinion, even if one has never read a Whiz Kids story before. There is such a deep sense of history within this story that I can’t even tell what is original to it and what is actually based on earlier extant Big Bang stories.  Angosto gives the readers everything we need to know within the comic itself.  

 

One thing I have enjoyed within all of Angosto’s stories for Big Bang is his inclusion of mythological and religious concepts and themes.  They tap into those archetypal connections within different cultures that resonate on a primal level with all of us.  It’s those recurring mystical and heroic archetypes that have evolved into the super-heroes of our popular culture today and especially resonate in comics—the art form in which they were birthed. 


The villains and heroes of this story hearken back to ancient Christendom (Robo-Hood/Galahad), Islam (The Old Man of the Mountain/Sword of Allah), Judaism (Lilith), and Norse Mythology (Valkyrie) which is a compelling choice that I loved.  Angosto’s choices for “the heroes formerly known as the Whizzards” is a diverse and interesting upgrade for that team.  Might I suggest they could be called “The Cavalry”?  But I digress…

As with Part 1, this story focuses on Galahad and his journey from sidekick to Knight Watchman to a fully realized adult hero and leader.  But along the way he is gut-punched emotionally over and over again.  If fire forges the strongest sword, then Galahad will be unbreakable when Part 3 concludes this arc.   And I do not say this lightly.  Readers should be warned that the assaults and pain that Galahad endures in this story may unsettle sensitive readers as they are bold creative story-telling choices but effective.  He is also blessed with the opportunity to step up in a very personal way to try and shepherd the darkness into the light with great potential for the future.


With so much action, Angosto and Santamaria do take the time to slow things down to focus on the personal and emotional journeys that anchor the super-heroics.  The Galahad story, of course, but also the Merlin and Robo-Hood arc.  Both are essential to the elements that make this story work so well.


Readers familiar with DC comics, and especially familiar with the characters of Dick Grayson and Damian Wayne will hear their echoes within this comic.  But I promise you it will not be anything like what you expect and that’s the best part of the whole thing.  The story flows perfectly and it surprises throughout.


I’m ready for Part 3!

*I should probably note that this comic is a bit too mature in content and language to be considered an all-ages book.  This comic is probably appropriate for, oh, 12 years-old and up.  YMMV though.

High School Art *flashback* (Part 2)

In Part 1, I tossed up some art from Jr. High on into the early years of High School.  Now, I'm going to share some stuff from the latter half of High School (and maybe some College).  Just keep in mind that I was young and still learning! 

 This first pencil drawing was of "Snowball" from ANIMAL FARM.  He's the Lenin analogue in the allegory.  I am 100% convinced that the roots of my own conservative ideology can be traced back to my eye-opening encounter with Orwell's work through my High School English class.  *Thanks Mrs. Hopper!*

Other than girls and food, the things that primarily occupied my High School mind were comics, Star Trek, and vampires.  Slow time in class produced this Dracula sketch that I never finished. 

Star Trek was in the front of my mind after the incredible experience at that age of the death of Mr. Spock in STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN -- which is where this sketch got its inspiration.  You'll note I started to lay down some inks on it and then never bothered to finish it.  Story of my life.

This ink sketch of Daredevil was done entirely using a croquill pen and india ink with no pencils at all.  Also done at school during some down time.
 Which brings me to something that I started doing in High School (and continues today occasionally when somethig gets stuck in my head).  That would be the costume redesign for popular super-heroes (something popularized online at Project: Rooftop) and original character concepts.

The original "MIMIC"

In this old, ragged X-MEN comic I had left over from when I was little, there was a story featuring a character called "The Mimic" and his mutant power was that he had all the powers of the X-Men themselves.   That means, he had wings like Angel, eye-beams like Cyclops, monkey hands and feet like Beast, ice-hurling powers like Iceman, and telekinetic abilities like Marvel Girl.

By the time I was in High School, the most popular comic book published by Marvel was The "New" X-MEN, which was primarily made up (at this time) of Cyclops, Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Sprite.  I thought, in my brilliant teenaged brain, that since the original Mimic had sacrificed his life to save the X-Men, that it was time for a "New" Mimic to show up and join the X-Men.  So, tis was my update of the original Mimic's costume with elements that demonstrated he was adapting the powers of the current line-up of characters rather than the original line-up.