Kong Goes Boom!

Kong of Skull Island is a series of comics from Boom Studios. They are reasonably well crafted and certainly a big improvement over a similar series of stories from Markosia Comics. They purport to tell the "secret origin" of King Kong or more properly his ancestors. In the opening of this tale, we encounter two tribes which live apart but appear to have once been the same people. One group has been ascendant for some generations at the cost of the other. Both sides of this equation train for battle and sport giant apes called "Kong". These beasts were bred using techniques which are pretty advanced and specific to these tribes who eventually call themselves the Tagu-Atu.

The story we follow (and truth told it's difficult to keep up with) concerns a young and beautiful trainer of a Kong who is secretly married to a prince of the other tribe. When a volcano erupts there is immediate need to find a safe land and the ascendant tribe feels it necessary to use the ships which the weaker tribe has built.

It's a complicated affair but while romance and political intrigue rumbles along, the two tribes (or more properly the survivors of the two tribes) seek shelter on another island known as "Skull Island" for the particular rock formation which dominates its landscape. They find on this island a great deal of danger in the form of dinosaurs of all sorts, some quite intelligent.

The Kongs are crucial to keep the people safe as they simultaneously build a fortification and fight against the marauding dinosaurs. All the while the a murder puts all the attempts to create one people at risk and personal agendas get in the way of the greater good.

All this rigamarole is probably what I'm supposed to care about, but despite the clear craftsmanship by artist Carols Magnos I have such a difficult time telling the people apart that half the time I'm confused who is in any given scene. I hate to say it this way, but they all look alike and the use of a pretty restrained color pallet doesn't help things at all. Even the Kongs look alike and only when a name is used can I tell one from another and even not then really.

It's weird to compliment the appearance of this series and the same time complain about the storytelling but that's where I'm at. This was supposed to be a six-issue limited series but was changed to an ongoing and ended with twelve issues. 

The artwork is lush and in places quite stunning, doing a decent job of moving between human scale and monster scale. But as I've said, once again the character designs are so muddled that keeping track of individuals is downright difficult to do. 

I do like where this story ends up and it does a dandy job of getting the pieces into position as it is based on Joe DeVito's more recent origin of King Kong. 

These are not bad comics by any means but a little confusing and that's a shame. But they have no apologies to issue regarding the covers for all twelve issues which are uniformly outstanding. 

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The Skull Island Saga!

When I first started my visit to Skull Island it was only supposed to be a six-issue cruise, but then Boom Studios expanded the story of how King Kong came to be the center of a cult on a lost island of forgotten natives. And Kong of Skull Island does move the story line along very neatly, getting to a logical end point by its twelfth and seemingly final issue. I first thought I wouldn't follow along on this extended journey after being less than completely gobsmacked by the first half dozen issues (go here for my review) but I found I didn't want to miss these details and allow inertia to let the issues collect up. Now I've taken them and read them through, and once again it 's a mixed bag. The artwork is lush and in places quite stunning, doing a decent job of moving between human scale and monster scale. But also once again the character designs are so muddled that keeping track of individuals is downright difficult to do. A lack of captioning undermines storytelling which seems to rely on subtle clues to the detriment of clarity. So at many points in the story you're not sure who someone is and what they are trying to do. Even the Kong's getting confusing in places, and yes there are multiple Kongs. I  do like whee this story ends up and it does a dandy job of getting the pieces into position as it is based on Joe DeVito's more recent origin of King Kong. These are not bad comics by any means but a little confusing and that's a shame.

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The Secret Orign Of King Kong!

Kong of Skull Island is a series of comics which have been coming out pretty regularly from Boom Studios. They are reasonably well crafted and certainly a big improvement over a similar series of stories from Markosia Comics some years ago. They purport to tell the "secret origin" of King Kong or more properly his ancestors.

In the opening of this tale we encounter two tribes which live apart but appear to have once been the same people. One group has been ascendant for some generations at the cost of the other. Both sides of this equation train for battle and sport giant apes called "Kong". These beasts were bred using techniques which are pretty advanced and specific to these tribes who eventually call themselves the Tagu-Atu.

The story we follow (and truth told it's difficult to keep up with) concerns a young and beautiful trainer of a Kong who is secretly married to a prince of the other tribe. When a volcano erupts there is immediate need to find a safe land and the ascendant tribe feels it necessary to use the ships which the weaker tribe has built.

It's a complicated affair but while romance and political intrigue rumbles along, the two tribes (or more properly the survivors of the two tribes) seek shelter on another island known as "Skull Island" for the particular rock formation which dominates its landscape. They find on this island a great deal of danger in the form of dinosaurs of all sorts, some quite intelligent.

The Kongs are crucial to keep the people safe as they simultaneously build a fortification and fight against the marauding dinosaurs. All the while the a murder puts all the attempts to create one people at risk and personal agendas get in the way of the greater good.

All this rigamarole is probably what I'm supposed to care about, but despite the clear craftsmanship by artist Carols Magnos I have such a difficult time telling the people apart that half the time I'm confused who is in any given scene. I hate to say it this way, but they all look alike and the use of a pretty restrained color pallet doesn't help things at all. Even the Kongs look alike and only when a name is used can I tell one from another and even not then really.

It's weird to compliment the appearance of this series and the same time complain about the storytelling but that's where I'm at. This was supposed to be a six-issue limited series but has been changed to an ongoing. So I'm left with a decision to make about whether I continue. And frankly I think this story will be best enjoyed by reading it in trade. So I suspect this one is going off my list for now.

Love the covers though! Oustanding!

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Apes Rule!

It's been a great month for Apes here at the Dojo. Last month featured a month-long look at many things related to the Planet of the Apes and this month I find on the stands waiting for me, two new comics which both showcase other famous apes quite prominently.

Boom Studios has released Kong of Skull Island, a comic which seems to pick up on the threads of a proposed King Kong back story first established by Joe DeVito in his expansive work Kong: King of Skull Island. This story seems to be the until now secret origin of the Kong, as the species first arrives on Skull Island along with some of the humans who will play an important role in their early development. This is the story of Skull Island before the great wall.

The debut issue features a bombastically illustrated story which delivers on impact with several full-page and double-page spreads to accommodate the larger than life cast which includes a number of "Kongs" as well as some giant dinosaurs. I found the story itself, the writing spare, so much so that I had a difficult time deciphering just exactly what was going on at all times. Modern comic book writers seem to want to not bore a reader with too much explanation and that's admirable to a point, but you cannot excise so much exposition that a situation comes across as vague. At least this debut issue needed a bit more verbage to help my get the players straight.

But I'll learn more as I go as I'm sure to stick with the remainder of this six-issue limited series.

Also on the stands this month is the second issue of the highly entertaining revival of the Hanna-Barbera hero universe in Future Quest. This book's conceit is that nearly all of H-B's action heroes are gathered together to combat a threat to life on Earth and beyond.

This time we learn more about how Space Ghost and more importantly his allies Jan and Jayce arrive on Earth only to be discovered and assisted by Jonny Quest and Hadji. We also see Birdman and the Herculoids in action with lots of neat hints about what comes next.

Featured on the cover are some of the "Beasts" of the various teams with Bandit leading the way for Herculoids Gloop and Gleep, Zok the Dragon, and the twin ape terrors Blip the Monkey and the awesome Igoo the Rock Age.

Igoo is probably my favorite of the various Herculoids, though I confess having a very hard time picking one. They are an amazing and varied group of heroic critters, all of whom are distinctive and charming.

But overall  the Apes rule!

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