War Machine #2 Cover

Alright, so I’m a little late on this one. Various factors have lead to me being a little behind on comics these last few weeks. Given that, I didn’t really intend to review War Machine #2. Then I read it and decided I needed to vent.

Why the frustration? Well, when I heard that War Machine (aka James Rhodes) was getting his own title, I was pretty excited. I can’t say that I really knew much about War Machine, but I like to see a secondary character given the chance to shine in his/her own title. Then we got a little preview of what an all War Machine title would be like when Iron Man: Director of S.H.I.E.L.D was turned over to War Machine for a couple issues during Secret Invasion. And frankly, it wasn’t good. But still, I held out hope. Christos Gage wrote the Secret Invasion arc and Greg Pak would be penning the on-going, so I thought maybe Pak would speak through the character better. Just take a look and what he and Fred Van Lente have managed to do with Incredible Hercules. Unfortunately, through 2 issues, I can’t say that Pak has managed to find his voice.

I really wanted to start out with what is good about this comic. Sadly enough, I can’t think of anything that stands out as good. It reads really quick, so it doesn’t take long to get through. I guess you could call that a good thing? That’s about all I can come up with, sorry. So, we’ll just skip right to the bad. I posted this on my Twitter as soon as I read it, but I’ll repeat the same criticism here. This book reads like it is written for pre-pubescent boys who just want to see things blow up. There is literally no character or plot development in either of the first 2 issues. Yes, there is a plot, but it is extremely thin and really only leads way for more explosions. I find this to be extremely sad for 2 reasons. The first reason is that War Machine seems to be a pretty interesting character. He’s got a deep history in the Marvel Universe. On top of that, he’s mostly machine. How can you not find something to explore with that? The other reason this is sad is because War Machine is labeled as part of Dark Reign. Up until the final few pages of issue 2, there is no mention of anything to do with Dark Reign. You would think, given the immensity and complexity of Dark Reign, Pak would be able to come up with a few stories that relate directly to the on-going struggle in the Marvel U.

It would be wonderful if I could at least write that the art is good on this title. Unfortunately, Leonardo Manco does not live up to his famous Leonardo namesake (that was a reference to Da Vinci, try to keep up). So, the style is what I often refer to as “sketchy”. It’s the kind of art that I love on Daredevil and Captain America. Unfortunately for the War Machine book, the style doesn’t really fit with the story that is being told. This style really works better on the noir and detective style of comics that Daredevil and Captain America are. In addition, Manco is not really good at this style. Or, that is, he is not as good as the other artists that use this style. So, you’re left with a fairly ugly book. It’s deceiving too, cause Adi Granov does beautiful work on the covers. Seriously, Marvel, can we just have Granov do the whole book? Maybe that’ll pull this title out of the shitter, where it is currently lying.

I’m holding out hope that Pak will figure out how to write Rhodey and this book will solidify itself in the Dark Reign. Fix the art, create a deeper story and tie in with the universe and this book has a chance to win back my heart.