FRESHMEN VOL.1
Written by Hugh Sterbakov and Drawn by Leonard Kirk
Published by Image Comics/Top Cow

An assortment of fourteen freaks and geeks winds up with bizarre superpowers in this amusing, but fluffy effort from Hollywood grinder Sterbakov. The group, who has been denied traditional housing thanks to over-booking in the dorms, winds up living in the Science building at D.W. Freese University, and if you know your superhero tropes, you can bet that an explosion involving an experimental machine can’t be far behind. However, instead of everyone getting a great power, they get powers revolving around whatever they were thinking or doing at the time. That means that Annalee, who wonders what is in people’s heads, can suddenly put herself in them. Good stuff. But it also means that Ray, who is distressed by the smallness of his penis, winds up with one that’s fifteen feet long.

You read that right. Fifteen feet. Whoops. And that doesn’t even begin to explain the pet beaver who can suddenly speak and has an IQ in the Hawking range.

As will happen in comics (and movies), the group of freshmen decides to band together and attempt to do some good for their community by putting on masks. The one kid who didn’t get powers, Kenneth the comic collector, decides to compensate for being robbed of his grand opportunity by donning his own costume and leading his colleagues on their missions. The irony of Kenneth’s situation makes for many of the honest and compelling moments that FRESHMEN does deliver along the way; Annalee (her likeness is based on Sterbakov and co-creator Seth Green’s good friend, actress Mila Kunis) provides the others. The rest of the cast of characters never quite comes together, though not for trying. Paula, a hopeless romantic who gains the power to seduce anyone she wants, comes close, but her internal torment never quite feels as serious as it needs to.

The sure sign of a creator finding their way in comics is a proliferation of good ideas that don’t quite play out the way they should. One of the kids gains the power to pass on his own intoxication to others by burping on them. Funny? Sure. But it’s never played for much more than that. The vegetarian gains the power to talk to plants, but he discovers that plants are needy, jealous creatures, and they don’t like being eaten. Clever? You bet. But his starvation sort of fades into the background, like Sterbakov tired of the concept or didn’t know how to write the character out of his dilemma. With time and experience, Sterbakov will get past these rough spots, but in this initial volume, they can’t be hidden or ignored.

Maybe the best thing about FRESHMEN is the art by Leonard Kirk. I’ve always liked his art, and he delivers the goods here. He excels at drawing varying body types and facial expressions, which is particularly useful when dealing with comedic material, which FRESHMEN is full of. While the book as a whole is slowed down by, well, freshmen mistakes, that doesn’t mean it isn’t readable or fun. It certainly is both. But I do expect better from the recently announced sequel. Let’s hope Sterbakov delivers ALIENS, not GREASE 2.

SIBAM?

While this book’s creators are deeply entrenched in Tinseltown, I think that adapting FRESHMEN would prove to be somewhat difficult. This would be extremely expensive to film, and the last film that featured a team of so-called superheroes not well known to the public was MYSTERY MEN; a colossal failure. So unless a movie like MY SUPER EX-GIRLFRIEND delivers huge box office, a film this expensive is a huge, huge risk. Plus, there’s the whole thing with the talking beaver and the guy with the fifteen-foot cock. I’m guessing we won’t see this one on the screen anytime soon.

A FIST FULL OF DYNAMITE

ARMY OF DARKNESS #4-6 (written by James Kuhoric and drawn by Sanford Greene and Kevin Sharpe) complete one story and begin another. Issue four finds Ash squaring off against the Re-animator in a horror movie crossover. It’s almost pure action and gore, and delivers an okay ending, nothing special. But issues five and six are much better, sending Ash back to the cabin where it all began in THE EVIL DEAD and creating some genuine character moments and turmoil. There’s still an amusingly morbid sensibility at play, especially when Ash’s lost hand takes a crack at kicking his ass, and the change of artists to Sharpe makes the book look a lot more attractive. My one complaint about the ARMY OF DARKNESS books overall is that, while there’s an abundance of gore and ludicrous cheesecake, the swearing is obscured by symbols. It feels stupidly immature, particularly when coming from an adaptation of an R-rated horror flick.

Mike Oeming writes, and Mel Rubi draws, RED SONJA #8-9. Frankly, I was more than a little dubious about these going into them; Oeming is a terrific artist and storyteller, but the material I’ve seen from him as a writer has been mediocre at best, and mostly poor. So I was surprised to find that SONJA is very readable. The story finds the warrior taking a young girl under her wing who went through the same violation and horror that Sonja did in her childhood. While teaching the girl how to fight and how to prepare herself to take revenge, we learn more about what truly led to Sonja choosing her path, and it gives her a bit more depth. Plus, the young girl slides into the role of the reader and asks questions we all wonder about, such as why the hell Sonja, a victim of sexual assault, runs around in a chain mail bikini flaunting her assets. Her response is honestly written, but you can’t imagine that the character will change clothes anytime soon, because putting her in a parka and snow boots would sell a lot fewer alternate covers.

On the other hand, RED SONJA VS. THULSA DOOM #2-3 are absolutely bad. Written by the (usually) great Peter David and Luke Lieberman and drawn by Will Conrad, I was left flabbergasted and shaking my head by the time I was done with them. Though, to be fair, the culprit was more issue two than issue three; Sonja spends the majority of her screentime battling a man who has shown up while she’s bathing nude in a river. It’s written and drawn so exploitive that you feel dirty reading it… and not in the good way. I was so put off by issue two that it was difficult to give any sort of real consideration to issue three, though it is at least not so exploitive. Still, Sonja is written as not being very bright in it, and you wonder how she could have survived so long as the story progresses. SONJA VS THULSA is proof that trying to tap the fanbase’s wallets with an extra book is more than an ethical slippery slope; it’s a quality issue as well. Not good. Not good at all.

CONGRATULATIONS

See you in seven.

Review materials may be sent to: Marc Mason, P.O. Box 26732, Tempe, AZ 85285. You can also find me at Happy Nonsense and The Comics Waiting Room

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