Written by
John Layman
Art by John
McCrea
Mars
Attacks is one of my favorite Tim Burton movies. Oh, it’s definitely unpolished, to be
sure. It’s also hilarious, star-studded,
and just all-around dark fun. And I was
excited for the announcement of a new comic series with Chew writer John Layman
at the helm. And the results are…well, a
little unpolished, but interesting, to be sure.
The
Martian invasion begins in this volume when in the 60s, Zar and a small group
of Martians land near a small town and Zar gets taken to the county fair, where
he’s scarred. When the other Martians
try to rescue him, it explodes into a massacre, with Zar being the only Martian
survivor. Now, Zar is General Zar and is
at the head of the Martian fleet that only has one purpose: wipe out humanity.
One
of the more interesting things this comic does is actually making the Martians
kind of sympathetic. The movie and, as
far as I know, the original trading cards, just had the Martians being
destructive for destruction’s sake. They
almost seem misunderstood in the movie…and then they return to killing. Here, it’s clearly shown that the Martians
have a reason for thinking of humanity as nothing more than an aggressive race,
and we find out that the Martians have visited Earth several times before and
just been killed. It gives them just a
little more depth, and the narration gives us some insight into the vengeful
Zar not necessarily being the pinnacle of the Martians. On the other hand, this kind of leaves the
humans out of it. We get our heroic
group of humans, but I didn’t really have much reason to care about them. It looks like the next arc (and I’ll say my
reason for “looks like” in a bit) is going to be more focused in that aspect.
What
this series really does well is gore. If
you don’t care for gore, this is not the series for you. If you do, then John McCrea’s art is going to
appeal to you. Full of people being
blasted, Martians getting stabbed, giant insects decapitating people. It leans towards more dark-humor-gore, but it’s
still a violent series. The art also
does some nice nods to the original trading cards. Throughout, some of the panels will be the
cards, complete with a number and a caption like “The Martians Invade!” It adds a nice bit of fun to this series.
Which
I guess is my biggest problem with the book.
It doesn’t go into full fun. It
flirts with it, and there’s some dark humor throughout, but I guess it doesn’t
have the wackiness/campiness that I was expecting after the Tim Burton
film. I still enjoyed the series, but it
just wasn’t as hilarious as I was expecting.
And on another note, my review copy contained the first 5-issue arc…along
with the 6th issue, which starts a new arc. I’ve never read a collection before that just
leaves something hanging like that, and I can only assume it was a mix-up in
the review copy.
Mars
Attacks isn’t great, but it is an interesting start to the new series,
especially for those who revel in violence and destruction. I’ll keep reading it, but I hope things get
kicked up in the future.
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