DCU Comic Book Reviews

MAGOG #1

Lethal Force

November 2009

Written by Keith Giffen

Pencils by Howard Porter

Inks by John Dell

Covers by Howard Porter and Glenn Fabry

Synopsis

In Africa, David Reid (aka Magog) rescues a small village from soldiers trafficking in Wonder Tech, stuff left around once the heroes saved the day.  Later, Alan Scott visits Magog to check up on him.  Magog tells Alan what he found.  In West Virginia, Magog visits with Axel Baines to see if he was able to come up with more.  While he waits, Magog teaches a young woman self-defense to protect herself against her abusive husband.  In Los Angeles, a business man demonstrates the lethal abilities of the next generation of ordinance to an unknown client.  Meanwhile, Axel still hasn’t come up with anything.  In El Paso, Magog deals with the drug dealers.  Nearby, the business man watches and informs others of the unfortunate timing of Magog’s interference.

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

I have often said that execution is just as important as creativity.  As much as I would like to see a creative team take risks with storytelling techniques, I also want a creative team to be able to tell a good story, even if the plot or characters are standard tropes.  So what if the plot and story are typical or even predictable, if it is told with competence, than it will still be enjoyable.  In many ways, this issue of Magog manages to blow that theory out of the water.  It is competently done, with Porter’s art and storytelling technique fitting the tone of the script.  It is crisp and clear and does its job well.  Giffen’s writing is the same, crisp, clear and does its job well.  This is a typical first issue, introducing the main character, the supporting characters, and the conflicts that will form the basis of the series.  It does what it needs to do.  Yet, none of this is remotely interesting.  It lacks vitality.  Giffen is writing a standard character, you could pretty much insert any violent hero into the story and you wouldn’t have to change much.  The problem is that that is exactly how it comes across; there is nothing that sets Magog apart from other violent-type heroes.  It is very bland.  Yes, this issue is competently done by professionals, but it doesn’t help to overcome a typical, predictable story. 

Well, okay, I do have one complaint.  The use of narration boxes.  There were a lot of them, too many if you ask me.  For many panels, it blocks out Porter’s art and because of the denseness of the words on the page, it took a long time to get through the issue.  I understand the need to get to know Magog better and provide enough detail to set up the Wonder Tech story.  I also think Giffen does a good job with both of those aspects, but it still felt like too much. 

I think the most interesting aspect of Magog is the odd relationship with Gog.  I am not saying Gog should be resurrected, but I am saying that someone who was connected to a God the way Magog was, that connection should have a profound effect on him.  There were bits and pieces of that in this issue, but not enough to make me think Giffen is going to explore the idea more than he has already. 

For at least a month prior to its release, DC had been running a brief couple pages of this issue in the back of their other books as a preview.  One of those pages was page 2, which also happened to contain the credits with Keith Giffen’s name spelled incorrectly (as “Kieth”).  At the very least, props to DC for fixing it before the official book came out, but man there are about 20 or 30 books out there with a really bad typo.