The plot of M.A.N., such as it is, revolves on a sudden increase in island monster attacks that naturally proves to be human instigated. Soon as the story's maniacal mastermind is introduced, readers'll immediately suss much of what he's up, and, to Bernadin & Freeman's credit, they don't work overtime to mask this fact. They know what we wanna see – more giant monster attacks, not a lotta talky pages filling us in the villain's motivation.
And giant monster attacks is what we get, right down to the inevitable "mecha" monster assault by the bad guy in a giant robot. "Now that's one [expletive] with too much money," Zeke, the profanely amusing second-in-command observes. In stories like this, plot mechanics are largely secondary to the specifics of fight and flight in the face of monstrous stomping doom.
That noted, our two scripters prove as adept with snappy word balloons as they have in their current Wildstorm Highwaymen series, even if they do stint somewhat when it comes to fleshing out the secondaries. Sorat's stylized gray-scaled art blends both Jack Kirby and Mike Mignola with the somewhat more weighted art of a Paul Pope, though at times it's a little too loose and choppy to get the job down. When the giant slug crashes into a theatre showing a monster flick, for instance, it's not always clear how the sequence is supposed to work, particularly when Sorat cuts to two moviegoers blissfully unaware that the monster attack's taking place.
Still, the large panel of a humongous Harryhausen-esque cephalopod perched atop a skyscraper is as engagingly out-there as any of the giant monster comics Stan Lee & King Kirby used to serve up back in Marvel's pre-superhero days – which is as it should be. Gotta love them four (or is it five?) tentacled giant cephalopods . . .
Article comments
1 - Natalie Bennett
This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net , which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States, and to Boston.com. Nice work!