Written by Steve Horton
Artist: Dave Ahn
Publisher: Image Comics
Price: $2.95
Release date: 28th February
It’s always difficult to set up a new story, regardless of how it’s being told. TV shows need pilot episodes, novels spend their first few chapters setting up the world and characters and computer games tend, increasingly, to have a full motion video opening and a first level designed to ease you into the world. Likewise comics usually spend their first few issues, or even first complete arc setting up their world.,/p>
Strongarm takes a different approach. The very first thing we see is our hero, Rob, (Whose name we don’t learn for half the book) running for his life from a muscular thug with arms which look like a cross between Tetsuo in the final few moments of Akira and an explosion in a scissor factory. The fight is fast, brutal and against all odds, Rob actually wins. Which, it soon turns out, may not be a good thing. The arms of his attacker bond themselves to him instead, a bio mechanical horror wrapped around his arms and seemingly taking control of his body.
As Rob carves a path of destruction across the city we cut to a raid being carried out, apparently by his older brother and friends and then to a flashback. Here, Rob helps a friend come to terms with the break up of her relationship and the potential consequences of the break up for both her boyfriend and her father, who works for the ‘Overlord’ as a police officer. It’s a welcome break from the action and provides some background for Rob as well as establishing his relationship with the girl who, as of the end of issue one, still doesn’t have a name.
Strongarm doesn’t hit the ground running, it hits the ground sprinting and that’s not necessarily a good thing. The way the world is sketched out works quite well, with the clear implication that the entire city the characters live in is run by the Overlord proving particularly interesting. However, so much time is spent on the action that the characters ultimately exist in something close to a vacuum. We don’t know why Rob has been jumped by the guy with the arms, we don’t know what his brother (Possibly) and friends are attacking the Overlord for and we don’t know why Rob’s friend is so worried for her ex-boyfriend and father, let alone her name. The action is impressive, certainly, but that’s very nearly all there is here.
Which isn’t to say that Strongarm isn’t fun. Dave Ahnart’s art is superb, mixing clean anime-style lines and characters with a real sense of the kinetic and a visual audacity that’s impossible not to like. Likewise, Horton’s script has a nice ear for dialogue, some good ideas and is paced like an action movie. This has promise, it just needs to slow down a beat or two and let it’s readers catch up.
Alasdair started writing when he was nine, powered by a hefty diet of '80s cartoons, Doctor Who and Icepops. He's quite tired by this stage but has written a lot of things for a lot of people, including Fortean Times, Neo and Surreal.