My Wife: Has No Respect For Ernie Hudson's Accent In The Movie Congo

Xombi # 1
Written by John Rozum
Art by Frazer Irving
Published by DC Comics

This comic really wants to be good. I'm pretty sure that it wants to be GREAT. I'm not quite convinced it hit the mark on either.

Xombi starts off with a kind of cool Twilight Zone-y thing, where a bunch of instances are caught around the world pointing that things are not going as they "should". It's a nice set-up, but a nice set-up to a really convoluted story. If nothing else, this comic gave me the best opportunity to use the word "convoluted" that I've ever had.

It's really imaginative. I can't say that I've ever heard of any story exactly like this one before. The best way I can explain how it hit me, without recapping the whole thing in a very long-winded way, is this:

Remember when you were about five or six years old and you'd play make-believe with your friends? Maybe you played Batman and Robin or Cops & Robbers...I don't know. I can't even remember exactly what we played, there's no way I'm going to guess what you did. But you know how it was - you'd both pretend you were the character and narrate what was happening. I remember my cousin saying things like, "I'm Batman. Stop what you're doing right now or I'll have to hurt you." And then he'd switch out of Batman to say, "And you don't stop - so I come at you and kick you and flip you over." So then I'd say something like, "oh yeah - well I have a gun so now I SHOOT YOU!" And he'd say, "Well, you shoot me, but turns out my whole suit is bullet proof AND I took a stay-alive pill before I saw you - so I'm not dead." Remember that sort of make-it-up-as-you-go-along-so-it-all-goes-your-way thing? That's what I feel like this comic spent most of its time doing. The writer has made up a whole crazy story, and then they've created a whole crazy conflict to go withing the crazy story. To be topped with another crazy story, and another crazy conflict. And so on, and so on, and so on. Seriously. And so on. It's crazy? I guess it is. It seems forced to me, but I guess things can still be crazy, even if they're fake.

Maybe it's that there's so many supernatural elements that I've never heard of before? It's hard to keep up or stay interested when I can't get invested in the main character and what happened to him, because before you know it, we're off to save the world from some other crazy character with the help of about 5 other "people".  There's so many random individuals, cliched types of people, and there's all these random magic-y twists...perhaps I'm just saying that it's A LOT to digest for a first issue? A LOT. I mean the back story alone of how our main character David (a.k.a. Xombi - and yes, I will comment on the spelling shortly...) came to be this Xombi thing could have been a great first issue alone, right? But what happened to him and how it contributes to his powers (he is now made up of nanomachines - or nanomachines inhabit him and clone everything about him that previously was him...??) is definitely a lot to swallow and is just sort of glossed over and thrown out there as fact a few times.

I'm not saying this comic doesn't have potential - it has some really clever ideas and if you like sci-fiy you might just love it completely. I just need it all delivered a little bit slower.

And yeah - Xombi?  Again, I see the cleverness, but it honestly comes across kinda fem. Like, when I was in the 10th grade, all my friends decided to start changing the spelling of their names. They added Y's for I's wherever they could: Danielle became Danylle; Karyn was the new Karen and Eryka was formerly Erica. (I couldn't do it - I screwed around just signing my notes Neeanuuhh). So, this Xombi rather than Zombie? I don't know - I see it as a girly thing to do. I don't know...at least make it Xomby. The Y on the end makes it seem more masculine. Or something.

So how's the art? I mean, I'm never really comfortable critiquing art because I cannot draw. I have absolutely zero talent for it. So, if I can follow the story through the pictures, like I can here, I generally think "Bravo! Way to go!" But there's a couple of weird things. Like, what's with David's hair? I mean, yes, I get that before the nanomachines he was a typically aging guy. They show a "photo" of him with hair of a guy in his 30s or 40s ad point out it had receded and was graying. But now - this full head of hair is drawn like....like....like a beret. It's like swept to one side and I guess long and thick...but still, it looks like a hat. Weird choice. And in the first couple of pages where they show him and his friend hanging out, I think the artist was trying to show a time lapse - or some movement from room to room without re-drawing frames or something. But since those occurred just as I found out that this guy was a clone of himself, I wasn't sure what was going on, because of the drawing. Could be in two places at once, or could two versions of himself or his friend exist at once? It was weird. I just didn't really follow the art there, or the necessity to draw those panels like that.  

My general feeling is that both the artist and writer have a lot of great and innovative ideas for this comic, but they tried to jam too many of them into one issue. Hopefully they'll eke them out a little slower over the next few issues.  

Wow. I was about to make a joke and then realized how this whole piece has been a little serious. No jokes here. No jokes today. I feel like I should make a joke involving that old Cranberries song, because my husband seems to think that the height of hilarity, especially when people are trying to have private time, is to scream the lyrics to the song "Zombie". But I guess I don't have it in me this time around.

-Nina Stone, 2011

Comments

[Actual Jackson]

The example you used for girly re-spellings was replacing the letter "i" with "y." Then you suggest that adding a "y" to Xombi would make it more masculine. Congo rules.

[AComment]

Well, half the crazy stuff is actually recapping the crazy stuff that happened in the old Xombi series. The character has a whole bunch of history, not sure if his status as a resurrectee (har) was made clear?

And what's wrong with Nyna? Nine-ah!

[Jason Michelitch]

"I can't say that I've ever heard of any story exactly like this one before."

Not that there'd be any reason for you to know this, but most of the comic is incredibly derivative of Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol from the '80s. Right down to the phrasings of the "mysterious circumstances" and the whimsical, offbeat nature of the supporting characters. ("She ate some bad shrimp, and got super powers," etc.)

"It seems forced to me, but I guess things can still be crazy, even if they're fake."

I completely agree that it feels forced, particularly since they are trying really hard to imitate a specific predecessor, and John Rozum is probably not as legitimately mental as Morrison.

[Tim O'Neil]

Knee-Na
9-na
Nini
Neeners
Naynay
Ninah
Nene
Neeni
Nono
NighNah

[sidewinder missile empire]

you forgot neen's beans

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luve the artwork, did u do it?