Wednesday, March 11, 2009

The Rejects Zuda review/ please continue to kick ass

The Rejects is a Zuda comic by kingofsnake, and slidestudios.
Here is the synopsis: When Ultra-man, the world’s greatest superhero, is diagnosed with terminal cancer the government launches a secret black ops program designed to create a new generation of superheroes from abducted children. The program is soon scrapped as, “a terrible idea in the first place” and the children they’d been experimenting on are deposited back in their homes with no memory of the ordeal. Chris and Eric are two of these rejects. Chris quickly discovers he has some invulnerability and super strength. Unfortunately he has no control over whether or not his powers will work. Eric wakes up with control over electricity but using it drains his mental and physical energy like a battery, leaving him to pass out from exhaustion. Eric has been a fanboy his whole life and is eager to try to become a hero himself. All Chris ever wanted was to blend into the crowd, and suddenly it’s like trouble is just following him around. Now being normal seems to be out of the question, and being a superhero is a lot harder than they ever thought it would be. Chris and Eric find themselves thrust deeper into the world of heroes and villains they’d only ever read about. As they discover more about their powers and super heroism in general, it seems only a matter of time before they begin to run into other rejects. For better or for worse.

It's a fun young kids learning to use their powers super-hero story. Their are also some nice comic fanboy acknowledgments throughout. We have at this point the expected shout out to the "with great powers" line. The most interesting part of the story for me however was the various Superman-esque subplots established on screen 1. Ultra-man who gets his powers from the sun has been diagnosed with terminal skin cancer. The Lex Luthor stand-in Max Mercer sees his company stock prices skyrocket, on the news. The expected to be funny (and it was) inept super-hero face off was very good, but the wee bit of foreshadowing on screen 1 was what really got my attention to seeing where this story goes. Screen 1 also had the worst layout of the whole comic, but Slide improved on that by leaps and bounds (vague early Superman reference) by the end of the 8 screens.

The villains are suitably stupid, and I thought the dialogue amongst them was very well written, kudos Nate kudos. That being said Shemp is my favorite stooge, so watch that shit, 'ya hear me??? I loved the heroes big reveal was done standing on a stack of DVD's. I also liked the villains laughter at them. What was most impressive was the pace of the story and how these two creators worked so much into the story, the jumping around through time element was nice too. The art for the fight scenes was fantastic, I loved the use of sound effects throughout.

Some nifty examples from the comic to show you what I mean:

I loved the running joke of Punch-boy assuming everyone is just going to think he his Ultra-man's kid and the way you set it up on screen 4. I enjoyed all the dialogue between the not so dynamic duo, and the screen composition here.
The way 'electrify' was handled on screen 5 was very good, art and colors equally impressive.
Smack!!! down goes the Duracell kid!!! nice Green Giant reference on screen 6 too.
I loved the sound effects in the last panel here, to show Pea-boy's inept series of punches.
The action scene on 7 was well done all the way across the line.
Screen 8 really did have me laughing out loud, it was a nice kicker to end on. It also reminded me off all the bullshit summer blockbuster mega event ret-con's Marvel and DC have used to try to to con me out of my money since the early 90's. I'm just surprised you didn't have one of the badguy's think he was a Ultra-man clone...

Have I mentioned how much I freaking love the lettering.

But not in a unethical or immoral kind of way.
I always card'em first and everything is completely consensual.
King/Slide whichever one of you did the letters it really added to the enjoyment of the comic for me.
I enjoyed everything about this comic, even the humor was cool as hell, hence a 4/5 star rating and a fav.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks. DOOOOM to the first page.

    Nate and I went back and forth for days about what font to use and size. But really the credit goes to Nate for the lettering. When I saw the 'ELECTRIFY', I was like that is awesome.

    I did the SFX.

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