Written by Daniel Freedman
Art by Sina Grace
Burn the
Orphanage comes with a very interesting concept: taking the style and
story of classic beat-em-ups like Final Fight and Streets of Rage,
and translating them into a comic. It was fascinating enough to get
me to pick up the book, but there's something here that's lacking.
After his
orphanage was burned down when he was a kid, Rock has been looking
for the person who did it, and beating up everybody in his way. And
he always has his friends, Lex and Bear, to help with beating up
people. Along with getting revenge, the other stories in Born to
Lose feature Rock getting swept up in other-dimensional tournaments
and other planets.
Part of the
problem here for me is that these other stories begin to take away
from the feel of the book, becoming more generalized with its video
game influences. The first story is a fine one-shot, but the others
begin to drag the concept down some. Rock isn't quite an interesting
enough character to really care about what he's doing, and in
general, the humor just isn't funny enough. There's a few moments
that made me laugh, and some of the ideas here are spot-on (Bear is a
big, hairy gay man...who, for good measure, also has the heart of a
bear), but it doesn't happen quite enough at times. Having a whole
plot reference to Mortal Kombat in the second issue means that there
isn't much room for Freedman to stretch on the writing, and in spots,
it feels like he's filling in space. A big example is a long scene
in the 3rd issue where Bear and Lex discuss their
different feelings on relationships. It doesn't really add anything
to the book or to the characters. I'm also halfway on Grace's art.
It's rather vivid, violent when it needs to be, and adds quite a bit
to the world. On the other hand, characters tend to have weird
proportions and just look...off. This may just be my interpretation
of it, though.
Overall, Burn the
Orphanage proves that a good concept can't hold a book up, especially
when the concept is almost instantly thrown out.
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