Mister Terrific
Written by Eric Wallace
Art by Gianluca Gugliotta
Off The Rack Review by Dave Borders
He wants to Play! He loves county Fairs! He’s Michael Holt AKA Mister Terrific! I decided to give this title a shot as well, since, to be honest, I’ve read enough Batman and Batman related titles over the years. Here was a guy that I wasn’t even sure I’d read before. Turns out I had, but still, not much. Should be exciting. Might possibly even be Terrific!
It wasn’t.
This issue was pretty clunky, contrived and … sorry, I can’t think of another “c” word that it was. It just came up rather short. Which is too bad really, because at the base of it, this story has all the elements needed to be pretty good. I did like the cliff hanger ending, and I wonder a bit what’s going on with the piercing noise out there that is making people crazy but … There was too much going on quite frankly. We open with a super exciting shot of Mister Terrific in action! Yeah! Unfortunately, that opening scene smacked immediately of being convoluted. If you have to try that hard to make it exciting, it probably isn’t. Also, the artist needs to pay a little more attention to every line he draws. By failing to finish two lines, he actually drew an image of our hero getting shot in the butt by a laser on page one. I thought for minute that DC had decided to cancel the title on the very first page.
The art is very inconsistent throughout the book. Our hero is supposed to be pretty muscular, hunkified hunkness I would assume. He often looks like a 40-50 year old pudge-sicle inside. Perhaps the new and improved Mister Terrific is a shape shifter. Why he’d used that power to suddenly transform himself into Ralph Kramden is his business.
The terrific Mister Terrific tricks the bad guy into following him to the London Eye with the sole intention of getting in a few Doctor Who quips. Get it? It’s science baby. I love that kind of stuff in comics, but they blew it. Michael says that he can fit everything he knows aboutLondon into a two-part Doctor Who episode. Hmm, at ½ an hour each, I bet the BBC could cram a ton of info into a documentary-style episode in that amount of time. He should have said, “Everything I know aboutLondon came from watching a single episode of Doctor Who.” I don’t know if it’s another Doctor Who moment but he does make himself a mental note to buy “Jamaal Season Five on Blu-Ray”. I don’t even know what that means, but I did enjoy that part. It’s cool to imagine that while he’s floating around on his terrific balls that he’s making a mental shopping list.
After defeating this lame bad guy in Londonhas a flashback to the moment he became Terrific. Wait no, the moment he stopped believing in God. He loved this girl see, and she died. Man that’s rough. This must have been the first bad thing that ever happened to the guy. In fact, I’m pretty sure it was. He had “more degrees than half the faculty of Harvard and Yale combined”. That is some serious math right there. First combine the total number of degrees…then yes, carry the two…and then cut that number in half, no wait, what if he meant only half of the faculty combined? I wish he would have written it out in long form for me. If a train is leavingBoston with half the combined staff…ah never mind.
He had several degrees. Seriously though, the number he is suggested to have would be too outlandish even for a comic book. How many degrees does Steven Hawking have? I’m guessing less than ten. Google it, I don’t know, I’m just guessing.
He had an Olympic Medal also and a combined net worth of over a billion dollars. Dude, seriously, you have all of that, and you stop believing in God just because your wife died? She was a gold-digger anyway! Call Beyonce, she’ll help you mourn.
Suffice to say, I thought that part of his back story was a little weak.
Next he does what any rational person who is gifted athletically, has a billion dollars and more smarticles than half the faculty of Harvard and Yale combined would do: he tries to kill himself. Instead, he is visited by the son he has never had. Ooooookay.
As an aside, wouldn’t this possibly restore his faith in God? He’s down, ready to die, and yet somehow, someone or something intercedes and gives him hope for the future? Just a tingle? Maybe?
Anyway, it doesn’t. He’s happy to know that somehow he did manage to have a son. Presumably, he also figures out that this son is the fruit of his dead wife’s loins as well, but that isn’t enough to heal his wounded heart. Neither is the blonde bombshell wearing nothing but a t-shirt who is on his couch the next time we see him. He’s parading around sans shirt and yet, we soon discover that these two are “just friends”. Hey, that’s cool. It’s all very When Harry Met Sally, except that her name is Karen.
Next a strange noise invades a Fantasy Footballer’s ear and he begins to speak only the harsh reality of truth to those around him – till they DIE!!!!!
The funniest part about this is, it’s passed of as him receiving ‘knowledge from beyond’ but how hard is it to guess that a skinny blonde waitress came toL.A.to start her acting career? This evil monstrosity of a man then kills a random homeless dude with his bare hands proving to all the world that … he votes Republican.
The cops catch him and they call Mister Terrific. But, “Just how did they get his phone number you ask?” Well, I’m glad you did, and so is Eric Wallace because he took the time to explain it. Try to catch it hidden here so discreetly: “You did the right thing. This is exactly the kind of situation I envisioned when I provided the LAPD with a way to contact me securely.” Did you catch that???
We started are travels inLondon, moved quickly toL.A.and now we’ll cruise over to Santa Barbara for a swinging party hosted or catered by Wolfgang. Yowza! Someone should have reminded the artist that Wolfgang’s wares where the main draw to this shindig. As it stands there’s champagne everywhere but on the tables you can only find a single salad bowl.
Well, nothing bad could happen at a party, right? So, we’ll just skip…wait! There’s another Republican! And he’s after your vote! He’s only pretending to like science! Fortunately, Michael gets an earful of that magic dog whistle noise that somehow (very scientifically I’m sure) only affects one person at a time and prepares to deal out some two-fisted justice! Can he kill him? Yes he can!
But first! Karen and some black lady get into a racially tense cat-fight. In case you are wondering who the black lady is, that’s easy, she’s the one who won’t let underaged Jamaal drink any champagne. Jamaal? Oops. We forgot to introduce a couple of characters didn’t we? That’s okay, we can always go back and read the first issue to…What? This is the first issue?
Sigh.
No prospects for this one to gain any value. Title won’t reach 20 issues.
Based on the uniqueness of this character I award a bonus point bringing the grand total up to a total of 2out of 5 possible.
