Reviews: Gears of War #1 and The Ferryman #1

Gears of War #1 takes a grab bag of war and post-apocalyptic comic/movie clichés and slaps the appropriate branding on top. I’m not quite sure what the point of comic adaptations of video games are supposed to be if they don’t feature Cammie or Chun-Li. Why would anyone choose to read read static “stories” when they could plug in their 360 and actually shoot at the bad guys themselves? Liam Sharp does his always-nice work, but the book itself is nothing but a hollow echo of a thousand 2000 AD stories that he coud have worked on instead.

Ferryman #1 is “presented” by Joel Silver and Dark Castle Comics (the latter is a sub-division of Silver’s own Dark Castle Entertainment) and pretty much reads like what you’d expect: the first ten or so minutes of a high-concept horror/action movie. Mark (Manhunter) Andreyko’s quip-filed and self-aware script is serviceable and keeps the pages turning, even if there’s a distinct air of familiarity about the whole thing that kept me from being completely sold. Jonathan Wayshak’s art looks like Billy the Sink and Klaus Janson had a son hidden away in the Andes, just waiting for their big debut, and is easily my favorite thing about the book. May well be worth looking at in collected form, depending on how the usually-reliable Andreyko steers this particular ship.