The Hypernaturals Vol. 1
by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning and Brad Walker
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Yawn. I had to force myself to finish this volume. This took a critical hit in my estimation due to the poor writing choices.
Some of the art was quite good. If I had to judge it based solely on its art, and erased the text, I might have given it a better rating. But unfortunately, it did have text. The text destroys what could have been a decent story.
First, it is trying too hard to invent a new world through the use of dialogue. Every “science fiction” concept and all common exclamations are replaced with “new” words. It is done with the same heavy-hand of a child’s writings just after they’d discovered the “almighty” thesaurus. This overuse of foreign terms makes the dialogue ridiculous and meaningless. And, there were times when I feel that even the author(s) didn’t know what they meant.
Second, there were several moments in the comic where I couldn’t decide what was being said due to grammar missteps. This isn’t a text-heavy comic. There shouldn’t be so many obvious errors. I kept wondering if they were intended to give the characters a distinct accent. I realize now, that it was just a failure to edit.
So, not only is the comic thick with chunky over-complicated text, but the missing structure doesn’t support it.
Its saving grace are the drawings that tell the story when the text fails to.
I probably won’t be picking up the second volume.
manga hoarder 