Nicholas Cage Made (Sold) A Comic and I Don’t Hate It…

I got Nicholas Cage’s Voodoo Child from Virgin Comics.  He created the character with his son Wes Cage.  Fortunately, they did not write this series.  It was written by the very talented author of Lucifer, Mike Carey.  If you haven’t read that series go get it because it is great.  But this book?  Well, Carey wrote some great dialog but ultimately he had to deal with the character created by the Cages — a New Orleans mulatto with a story tied to mysticism hoodoo voodoo and the underground railroad.  The story is set in the wake of Katrina and sets NOLA as a corrupt and wicked place, which is pretty accurate.  Not a bad comic series, even though the subject seemed a little overdone.  Maybe I have just read too many voodoo stories.

The interesting thing is that I picked the book up for 1 dollar plus shipping.  Nicholas Cage really scared me off.  I was really excited about Ghost Rider, but Cage was terrible in that.  He has also been really disappointing me as an actor.  Don’t get me wrong, he has done some good movies.  They put his name on there to sell the book, but I think it does the reverse for me.  A hollywood writer or actor writing comics, or creating them or putting their name on them like this, usually means I won’t like it.  Carey is the one who really sells it with his dialog, but the character is not anything particularly revolutionary.  This distrust, at least for me, comes from a suspision that the use of a hollywood star’s name is often used to mask an inferior product by giving it a wider market.  That suspision is not always well founded though.  Look at My Chemical Romance’s Gerard Way and Umbrella Academy.  That is really good stuff.  Look at Tyrese Gibson’s comic, not so good.  That being said, I do really look forward to Lobo by Scott Ian — mainly because that is a good combination.  I liked Kevin Smith’s Daredevil as well.  But, I would be very suspicious of a Diablo Cody comic, or better yet something by Megan Fox.

As far as Carey’s work goes it is a sold piece.  Not the genius of Lucifer but much better than I was expecting.  Carey is the sellion point and his name should be on the cover in 48 pt font, but alas Nicky Cage is the commodity while Carey is the talent here.

Resident Evil: Fire and Ice

I had a chance to read this over the weekend.  Well, it was unusual.  This collects some Resident Evil stories that were published by Wildstorm.  Most of these stories deal with the mutant monsters and not the zombies.  There is basically a 4 issue mini, plus several backup and one shot stories.  Some of them follow the plot lines of the Outbreak File games.  It even went so far as to have the characters picking up keys and making puzzle points.  This did  not make for a strong story.  Ultimatly the book is disappointing, and even though I was familiar with the Outbreak File #1 and #2 games, I had little idea who the characters were or why I should really care about them.  I also think that the zombie elements are the more interesting parts of the Resident Evil material, not the mutants.  Bonus points for working H. P. Lovecraft’s Night Gaunts into a story though.