From Image Comics comes a celebrity comic book. Phenomx #1 is co-written by John Leguizamo, Aram Rappaport, Joe Miciak, and Damian Slattery.
John Leguizamo, for people like me who are unfamiliar with the name, is a Bogota Columbian-born actor, best known for playing Luigi in Super Mario Bros, and a bunch of other movies including Spawn, John Wick, and so on, to a total of 75 films. Plus appearances in Broadway and on television, voice acting, etc. Quite the resumé. And judging from his appearance on a recent episode of the Kelly and Ryan morning talk show, there is some cash behind the PR machine for this comic. Ah, those celebs, right?
Anyway, back to the comic, and whether it’s worth your SEVEN dollars (!!).
Here’s the setup: Max Gomez has been genetically altered, in a prison lab. It was either that or stick around in jail for ever, for a crime that he didn’t commit. Hard times for him either way: between a rock or a hard shape. So, Gomez goes for it and becomes Phenomx, the shape-shifting commando.
The narrative is super elongated. The triple-writer-team here goes wayyy overboard with the dialogue, not realizing perhaps that comic books need brevity. But look at that writing team, along with John, there is Aram Rappaport, director and actor; and Joe Miciak, film development assistant.
Scenes could be edited out, or accelerated; balloon after balloon dialogue could be cut, still leaving loads of opportunity to explore the humour, rage, and passion that exist in the story.
The visuals are tightly rendered and solid. Chris Batista imposes heavy panel borders, dynamic poses, and brings forth many highly detailed figures and environments. It’s inked with a strong clean line by Sabrina Cintron, with colour by Christopher Sotomayor, letters by AndWorld Design. The total art package is top-notch, very well executed, with an amazing amount of drawing and colour detail. The art is riveting.
In addition to the story content, there are bonus ‘deleted scenes’ (how Hollywood is that!), and the uninked pencil drawings from several pages. There are also several variant covers available, including one by Todd McFarlane.
Image Comics, Phenomx #1, $6.99 for 42 pages of story content.
Newsdesk