The Eastern Edge

HERCULES: THE KNIVES OF KUSH #4 (of 5)

Synopsis:
The electrifying battle you’ve been waiting for! Hercules, son of the Thunder God, Zeus, versus Khadis, Lord of Lightning! When Autolycus and Iolaus return from a vital reconnaissance mission, King Seti rallies his troops for an all-out assault on Amenmessu’s forces. While the Egyptian King gathers his army, Hercules and his companions continue their search for the traitor within the palace walls. But when the thunder and lighting rain down upon the battlefield, Hercules must summon the strength of his father and defeat the Lord of Lightning – no matter what the cost.

Writer: Steve Moore
Artist : Cris Bolson
Colorist: Doug Sirois
Letterer: Todd Klein

Featuring covers by Clint Langley and J.P. Targete.

28 pages, Full Colour, $2.99

"Hercules: The Knives of Kush" series url @ Radical Comics

Eastern Edge review:

This is going to be a string of firsts. This is my first ever review, my first comic from Radical Publishing, and the first comic I've ever read starring Hercules.

I should say right off the bat that I am picking this up at issue number 4 and jumping in not knowing much about the characters and the story they are telling. So, instead of scouring the internet to get up to speed and faking my way thorugh this by gauging things through blurbs and other people’s opinions, I'm doing this from the stand point of someone who just happened to see this on a comic book store shelf and picked it up. Truth be told, the Clint Langley cover probably would have made me do just that. It’s fantastic!

Both covers are awesome but, awesome covers aside, in cases like this the question is whether or not this comic would grab my attention enough to make want to go find the back issues and read the conclusion.

Well, first things first. Art! Comics are a visual medium and art always has the biggest impact on my first impression, particularly in cases where I'm going in knowing nothing about the story or creative team and have no preconceived notions. While I've heard of Steve Moore from his Marvel UK work, I don't think I've ever read any of his comics, and this is also the first time I've come across Cris Bolson.

While the art is solid and dynamic in the action scenes, and I really like Doug Sirois' colours, I found the layouts a little difficult to follow in one or two places. I had to glance back a panel or two occasionally to get my bearings. There is also a hiccup or two where the art and writing seem slightly out of sync, but overall the art is very solid. There is a lot going on in only 28 pages and I think Bolson did an admirable job with the space he had. I'm also a big fan of the painted look and I love the amount of detail in each panel, especially in the backgrounds. I really appreciate the attention paid to giving us the full visual experience of the time and place in which the story is set, especially when the places and cultures are ones that actually existed. Full marks to Bolson, colourist Doug Sirois, et al for that!

It’s hard to talk much about the story because I’m not up to speed yet, having only read this issue, but one common difficultly with many period pieces is striking a balance between modern speech and ‘periodish’ language to create atmosphere. I found some of the speech patterns in the dialogue a bit muddled in a couple places, and the use of ‘highness' and ‘majesty’ interchangeably was odd, but that didn’t distract enough to take away from the overall feel. I liked the narration and the overall storytelling - in particular, one scene that juxtaposes dialogue from a pre-battle strategy meeting with captions of Hercules reminiscing about the good old days when they didn’t bother with meetings and just got straight to bashing faces in. I would have liked more scenes written in that style, but not having read the rest of the series yet I don’t know that there isn’t a lot more where that came from. Steve Moore has each page covering quite a bit of ground as he moves the story along toward the final conflict, but doesn’t appear that he's sacrificed depth for the sake of speeding things up to fit everything into five issues.
The story seems well researched and I like the cultural nuances and differences that are mixed in to add depth, while not appearing to make any underlying judgments. The story also made me interested in looking a little into the actual history of Kush and the cultures portrayed in this story. Combine that with the artistic detail I mentioned earlier, and you have a comic that pulls you into it’s world and makes the whole experience a lot more fun.

But in the end, the action is really what it's all about, isn't it?
And there is no lack of action here! Action sequences are dynamic and Bolson doesn't shy away from showing us the kind of damage an arrow through the head would do. But the art is also stylized enough so that it doesn’t take itself too seriously either. It's a nice balance between realism and cartoony creative license that comic books should have.

Maybe it's just me and my personal preferences, but while I liked everything overall, I did find a slight lack of dramatic tension and build up to the big battle at the end. I like a little more build up to a major battle, especially when it's the one that everything has been leading up to. I also didn’t get a real sense of the passage of time when the battle began, so when the tables turn suddenly a couple of times, these massive armies seemed to rout and then rally much too quickly. In fairness though, you can only spend so much time building up and transitioning from one event the next, especially in a limited series. The armies, after all, are merely window dressing to set up the scene where Khadis starts to own the battlefield with lightening strikes and Hercules steps up to even the score. The art, especially the colours, really takes over here and in the end it was probably a good thing that build up was sacrificed so as not to short change the money scene.

My first thought about Hercules vs. Khadis was that using lightening against the son of Zeus ‘the thunderbolt thrower’ didn’t seem like a very good idea. I was sure Herc would own this fight easily. But Herc is half human after all, right?! The issue ends with a nice cliffhanger.

I didn't get to see Herc throw-down with the giant club he mentions in the dialouge and that's pictured on the cover variant, but the lightening battle was cool and I'm sure Herc will get plenty busy in the conclusion.

So, did this comic catch my attention? Yes, it did! I like this new take on the Hercules character. It was a fun read with solid art and it made me want to check out the back issues for the full story before the conclusion in issue #5.

I’m looking forward to that and more comics from Radical.

Hercules: The Knives of Kush #4 was released today and it's definitely worth checking out.
Btw, Comicbook Resources has a review and a nine page preview of issue 4, and you can get all the other details from Radical's series website

Preview copy of “Hercules: The Knives of Kush #4” provided courtesy of Radical Publishing.