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Friday, September 3, 2010
Review spotlight: AK Comics
AK Comics started up in 2002 as a way to integrate Western-style superhero comics into a Middle Eastern setting. Since that time, they’ve received a great deal of mainstream media coverage worldwide for their efforts. In recent years, the publisher’s line of comics has arrived in America, translated from the Arabic into English, to compete directly with the likes of Spider-Man and Superman.
I took the opportunity to sample all four AK titles. All of the books reviewed here are issue twos, all priced at $2.99. In alphabetical order:
Aya, Princess of Darkness
by Todd Vicino & Allan Goldman
Law student whose mother was wrongly convicted of her father’s murder gets recruited by underground anti-crime network and becomes a costumed vigilante. In the first story arc, she goes after the ringleader of a human cloning organization with designs on one of her friends. Aya appears to be crafted in the Huntress/Black Canary mold, and the origin capsule in the inside front cover kinda makes her sound as if she’s gonna be a real bad-ass. In the opening scene of issue two, she actually manages to track down the bad guy in his secret lair. After the usual explanation of the bad guy’s scheme and how he feels he’s justified in doing what he’s doing, though, his goons get the jump on Aya, blindfold her, and dump her back on the street without any kind of resistance! Huh? It’s not like she’s still in her rookie phase – the origin capsule says she’s already built a rep as a major crimebuster. So why does she let Mourad dispose of her so easily? And then she encounters Mourad again in her civilian identity. Now Aya doesn’t wear a mask. She has a cloak with a hood and wears some kind of war paint on her face, but that’s it. So we’re supposed to believe Mourad doesn’t recognize her? Oh wait – she wore her hair up in a ponytail! That must be the reason why – Aya doesn’t wear HER hair in a ponytail! What a brilliant disguise!
Aya is perhaps the most conventional of the four AK titles. There’s some obligatory lip service paid towards the ethics of human cloning, but otherwise it reads very much like a simplistic, cliched long underwear yarn. Aya doesn’t come across as much of a detective, and Mourad quickly descends into mad-scientist shtick – when he activates his cloning thingamajig at the end of the issue you really do expect him to say “Throw the switch, Igor!” (Especially after Aya calls him Dr. Frankenstein earlier.)
The artist needs help with his layouts. The way the overlapping panels are arranged leave too much negative space in places you don’t want the eye to be led to. Theoretically, the letterer should compensate by placing the word balloons in places that will help direct the eye across and down the page, but we don’t really get that here either. It looks as if the pages are laid out this way because it’s the cool thing to do (Todd McFarlane has much to answer for), but without any understanding of how it’s gonna read, it’s not worth doing. Skip this and read Birds of Prey or Catwoman instead. C
Jalila, Protector of the City of All Faiths
by Dr. Ayman Kandeel, Felipe Ferreira, Rafael Albuquerque & Diogenes Neves
The survivor of a sabotaged nuclear reactor, thanks to her protection within a safe room, the young protagonist gains the ability to generate nuclear radiation on her own. In this issue, after a training period, she goes after the saboteur, who also survived and gained superpowers. Jalila (Arabic for “glorious”) is riddled with plot-induced stupidity and nonsensical or unexplained motivations. Why do the terrorists want to sabotage the reactor anyway? Their politics are a complete mystery. Why is Ansam’s father such an ignorant and irresponsible dick? He won’t put on a radiation suit, claiming there’s no threat to the reactor that he knows about, yet the origin capsule says there are not one but two dissident factions “continuously clashing and conspiring to gain sole control of the city.” Answer: the plot requires him to maintain this unbelievable stance so we can have our meltdown and Ansam can get her powers. Why does the Xenox Brigade leader let Aton run off on his own after the latter has clearly displayed an insubordinate attitude towards him? A certain level of discipline in the ranks would be required in order for them to pull off this scheme, wouldn’t you think? But that would run counter to the plot, which requires Aton to cause the meltdown and survive to fight Ansam after she becomes Jalila.
The whole plot feels choppy and rushed, as do the layouts. When Jalila confronts Aton on board a helicopter, she zaps one of the waste barrels behind Aton but we don’t see that waste spilled on him until later, after she takes out the chopper pilots (which is also implied, not shown). And oh yeah, all of a sudden she can fly the chopper now? You’re telling me that was part of her training, too? Well, gee, that was fortuitous – knowing in advance she’d need to fly a chopper in her first mission! Not that it helps much: she crashes the helicopter and somehow survives without a scratch, waking up in a room with a bunch of adoring urchins (I am not making this up). Aton is presumed dead, but where’s the body? I didn’t get a sense based on the way this was presented that he was either conclusively dead or just conveniently missing so that he can turn up again later. It looked rushed.
The art is good, though the inking feels a bit slapdash and unfocused in places. Still, that’s not enough to save a horribly paced and utterly illogical origin story. D
Rakan, The Lone Warrior
by Felipe Ferreira & Rafael Albuquerque
An orphan raised in the desert by a sabretooth, and later by an old mystic sheik, the titular character’s goal is to find his mentor’s kidnapped daughter. In this issue he hooks up with an old friend, not knowing that his friend is the target of an assassin. Rakan is the only one of the four AK titles set in the past. Maybe that’s why I found it fairly decent. Swiping elements from Tarzan and Conan and putting them in a Middle Eastern setting, the result feels less like a superhero book and more like a sword-and-sorcery adventure piece. It’s paced nicely; the character’s relationships to each other are well-defined (notice how Rakan’s attitude changes when Jamal’s daughter Samira first walks in the room), and the action sequences look great. Credit should be given to artist Rafael Albuquerque for his mastery of facial expressions, posture and gestures to really sell these characters and help make them believable. His style is reminiscent of Butch Guice and Stuart Immonen – and I should add, it looks much better when he’s inking it (as opposed to his work on Jalila). I was drawn into this story much more than I was with any of the other AK books.
The writing is acceptable, but every so often it feels a little too contemporary (like when Jamal uses the phrase “rain check,” which is completely out of place for this time period). I’m still not convinced Rakan is a winner yet, but it’s got definite potential. B-
Zein, The Last Pharaoh
by Dr. Ayman Kandeel, Todd Vicino & (?) Ortiz
When an ancient Wakanda-like civilization is threatened with destruction by a meteor, the Pharaoh has stasis chambers built for his children to survive in, including the title character, who attempts to uphold the ideals and retain the legacy of his father and their culture in the 21st century. In this issue, he confronts his renegade brother, looking to acquire a powerful relic from their time. Strong concept is undermined by mediocre writing (Zein actually says “Take that!” when fighting bad guys) and very weak artwork. I like an animated look to superhero comics, as you know by now, but the art here is stiff, with a dull ink line. I’d love to see this exact same concept in the hands of a better writer, one who could bring out a greater degree of emotional drama and deeper characterization – Kurt Busiek, say, or Ron Marz – because I think there are lots of ways this book could go.
Consider some of the story elements: the task of rebuilding a civilization dead for millennia; Zein’s siblings scattered all over the globe, presumably living in secret, and most of whom aren’t interested in rebuilding; the culture clash between the ancient and the modern world and how Zein works to bridge the two. All of these concepts, if done properly, could add a tremendous amount of depth and complexity. Unfortunately, the creators have chosen the path of least resistance and served up what amounts to another brain-dead superhero book that’s not even visually appealing. D
Some more thoughts: I am greatly disappointed that the titles do not reflect the diversity of the Middle Eastern people. On the surface, they all look like typical whitebread American characters, with the possible exception of Jalila, who is kinda sorta colored a bit darker than the other heroes. In all four books I read, the only character with blatantly obvious Negroid features is the mummy at the end of Aya #2 (and maybe Ho-raa in Zein #2, though it kinda comes and goes with him), and that, to me, is inexcusable for a company that’s supposed to represent Africa.
All four books inhabit a kind of idealized Middle East, and while it certainly cannot be confused for Metropolis, there’s not enough suggestion of local culture in these books. This is a part of the world that Westerners in general know little about outside of watching the nightly news, and if the AK heroes are to be “global ambassadors spreading peace and good will,” as it says in the inside front cover, then why not show us some of this society? We do get to see some scenes of everyday life in these books, but it doesn’t feel genuine, and in some cases it’s even generic. In Zein, the opening scene takes place in the “National Museum.” Aya attends “Alexia University.” It’s similar to the CrossGen books’ habit of recreating time periods from different parts of the world (Victorian England, feudal Japan, 1950’s America) but placing them on different planets and changing the names. Even if these are fictitious cities, I’d like to see more detail in the settings that conclusively say that this is a specific culture from a specific part of the world.
These books were a great letdown. I’m convinced we do not need more superhero comics in general, but if we have to have more, then they need to blow Marvel and DC out of the water, or at the least be able to provide a new twist to the superhero genre that distinguishes it from Marvel and DC. If AK Comics were to embrace its cultural heritage more fully, they might have a chance. As it is now, they’re poised to get dumped in the quarter bins with Malibu, Defiant, Tekno, and a dozen other wanna-bes.
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April 22, 2008:
February 4, 2008:
November 20, 2006:
A Comic-Con without the Captain
