DCU Comic Book Reviews

CHECKMATE #28

Chimera, Part Three:  Soul Of Fire

September 2008

Written by Bruce Jones

Pencils by Manuel Garcia

Inks by Travis Lanham

Cover by Manuel Garcia

Synopsis

In the Arctic Circle, Akhlut the Beast attacks Weather Ship Tango.  On board, Chimera the perfect solider approaches the beast, but gets knocked around.  Chimera then shifts into a shaman and blasts the beast into the water.  Chimera then turns into a beast and follows Akhlut.  The two battle in the waters, causing strange weather patterns around the world.  Meanwhile, Adam Sharp’s girlfriend arrives for her appointment to discuss Adam, but is stopped at the door due to the emergency.  There she watches on television as Chimera kills Akhlut the Beast.  As she watches, she realizes Chimera is Adam.   

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

I think I have said it before in previous reviews of Jones’ issues of this title, but this is not a Checkmate book.  It is an interesting story and certainly the writing and the story are well done, but the story doesn’t really belong in Checkmate.  The scenes at the Checkmate castle are not specific enough to the characters or the setting; one could easily swap in different characters and it would be roughly the same.  To make things worse, the one bit of intrigue we saw from the previous issue (the death of Pawn 6) is completely ignored.  As far as fight issues, this one works and certainly gets across the adaptability of Chimera (although what was the deal with the punch in the nose), but to sound like a broken record, this title is not about the fights. 

The character on board the ship, the one who keeps telling his mate that Chimera is awesome and is about to do something awesome, only to have Chimera do nothing was annoying.  It actually was overkill having a character talk about how awesome Chimera only to see him fail.  Then, Jones took in the other direction, having a character crying that Chimera was dead.  We knew Chimera wasn’t dead (if only because the girlfriend still hadn’t realized what happened to Adam) so whatever Jones was attempting with this character, just wasn’t working.

ïPREVIOUS	Main		Page	NEXTð

Home ●  Blog ● Who Are We? ● Site News
Alive and Well since April 16, 2006

 DC Universe Reviews.  All Rights Reserved
  Characters, trademarks, brands are property of DC Comics

For problems or questions regarding this website, please contact our kindly webmaster.
Last updated: 08/06/11.