I realized, a few pages in to Mike W. Barr and Brad Rader’s Mark story, Rader’s a good artist. He’s at the beginning of his career, but he’s good. He does these Eisner-homage close-ups. Nice stuff. But The Mark looked bad at the start—because the character’s design is ludicrous.
It takes place in a pseudo-Nazi Germany or something. The writing’s generally okay, but the comics’s all about those close-ups.
Dorkin and Thompson finish their Predator story next and, wow, does Thompson get lazy. Dorkin’s script is dumb—his high humor is a dying guy making dumb jokes about being Ford-tough, but the art hammers in the nail.
Naifeh’s good on The Thing story, which really does seem to avoid any previous comic appearances. There’s some excellent writing… too bad it’s lines directly from the movie and not from Martin.
Besides Predator, it’s not bad.
