I wish the stories were as enjoyable as the covers.
Space Ghost #3
DC Comics (March, 2005)
“Reprisals”
WRITER: Joe Kelly
ARTIST: Ariel Olivetti
LETTERER: Richard Starkings
EDITOR: Joey Cavalieri
Thaddeus begins his attack on the Wrath. The first member he destroys the home of, but the villain dies trying to get to his loot. The second offs herself not only to avoid prison but to put proverbial “blood” on Thad’s hands. Temple knows he wants to make them feel fear, the only thing that drives them being the lack of it…though it’s working on the psychic of the team, who can feel Thad’s pain. Thad goes after them next, evading Temple’s trap but then they all end up in trouble when bug-like humanoids invade the planet…lead by Zorak!
The usual “got right/got wrong” format doesn’t quite work here. Instead this issue has me using…
As A Story: The story itself is fine. You get the pain of Thad going between his pain and his moral code. None of the kills are really his doing. The bugs add a new variable and I’m curious to see what happens. The painted art style is actually done a lot better here and I wouldn’t hate the style as much if more comics who use it look like this. Olivetti isn’t trying to do paintings, he’s doing sequential art.
As A SPACE GHOST Story: It’s terrible. I don’t like seeing a childhood or Saturday Morning hero acting or in a story this dark. The energy blasts from the power bands look more like he’s using Force Lightning from Star Wars and it’s just the one setting. Zorak looks nothing like his namesake and despite the devouring jokes used on Space Ghost Coast To Coast and Cartoon Planet (a humorous callback to praying mantis’ more cannibalistic actions) that was never his character in the original Space Ghost cartoon or any story he featured in after. (See my review of the Comico graphic novel for one good example. Zorak never appeared in Space Stars, the anthology show Space Ghost and crew were part of.)
What I think overall: As a story it’s actually pretty good. As something respecting the source material I put it slightly over Thundercats: The Return and that’s not good company to be around. If you’re a Space Ghost fan this might not be the series for you unless you like dark and gritty remakes of childhood favorites. There’s a reason I’m calling him “Thaddeus” in this story and not “Space Ghost”.
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