Writer/Artist: Alan Davis, Mark Farmer(i), Gregory Wright(c)
Publisher: Marvel
Alan Davis is responsible artistically for the outstanding Elseworld series JLA: The Nail, Batman: Full Circle and a pair of Detective Comics that earned a place in The World's Greatest Joker's Stories Ever Told. He is the artist behind Excalibur and Clandestine. This man should be working full-time on Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman in their so-called DC Universe titles. He should be drawing the icons. This man's talent should not be directed to what amounts to a Disney-version of gay porn. What crime did Alan Davis commit to be exiled on this miserable nostalgia title? Being condemned to work on The Thundercats would have been more merciful and more meaningful.
Reading Killraven is like having one's brain sucked out through a straw by an industrial strength vacuum cleaner. The book is utterly worthless which in reality captures the value of Killraven's original run in Amazing Adventures. If the original title was not twenty-five cents like its constituent titles, Killraven never would have been a remote memory.
We open this issue as John Raven--the kill will be added later--is offered a spot lit glass of water and a burger from the Science Elite from the Doctor Who classic "Genesis of the Daleks." Well, you just know this is a trap because the guy's eyes are shadowed pinpricks. The only good people with eyes that are shadowed pinpricks are Batman and Hawkman. Marvel doesn't own these characters. So, you know Keeper Whitman is the type of character who has ominous music following him around. Sure enough, Raven reaches for the water, and three more boys steps out of the shadows to beat the tar out of him. This obviously segues into a barely legal, sadomasochistic gay porn bout in which the boys now clad in their abbreviated leather shorts and suspenders smack each other around for the amusement of Keeper Whitman and allegedly the Martian masters.
Jumping ahead, it seems Keeper Whitman is now interested in seeing grown men wearing abbreviated leather shorts, suspenders and--this is the most important part--the added addition of knee high boots smack each other around. To get the now grown John Raven in the proper mood for his fetish and keep heterosexual and lesbian readers awake, he introduces him to a Siren. Immediately, we know she is up to no good since she has shadowed pinpricks for eyes. It is this goofy lady who introduces the Kill in Killraven. So touched by the gift, John Raven adopts the Kill as a sobriquet. He should be portrayed by a blonde-dyed Steven Seagal should ever Joel Schumacher decide to make a movie out of this mess.
We jump forward to the arena where it's raining bloody men. Killraven and some nameless soon to be dead guy are the only men wearing leather suspenders, briefs and knee high boots standing. Killraven we learn isn't a violent man. Well, he is, but you see the "Why Can't We Be Friends" song isn't going to work in this goofy hell with a budget as low as say Blood Waters of Dr. Z. Like every good bad movie that has pretensions of greatness, Killraven includes a dramatic soliloquy that certainly had me in tears but not in the way the creators likely expected:
Killraven stares at the big orb where his Martian Master watches.
"Why must I kill to Live? Why?"
Personally, I thought he would burst into song.
Killraven stares at the big orb where his Martian Master watches.
"Doooooon't cry for me Argentina!"
Things start picking up--loosely speaking--on page--wait a minute--one, two, three....nine. Nine, I think. Marvel tends not to number its pages. They clearly think that critics are lazy. No more than the next person, but let me tell you, vengeance will make us count. Things start picking up--loosely speaking--when this book's only asset reveals itself--the hot green chick Mint Julep. She is why this book earns exactly one bullet.
Killraven is stoic, stupid and repulsive. Mint Julep is fun, smart and sexy. Why isn't the book about her? She does get her own chapter, but it's marred by some jaw-dropping plot twists and elephants. She travels in a railcar suspended by an airship pulled by magenta elephants. Let me explain why this scene is not as cool as the writer and artist intends. If this were a bad movie and not a bad comic book, the alleged auteur may have filmed the scene on a real railcar at the train yards, digitally captured the images, slapped a cgi of an airship over the railcar and then paste it into a stock footage scene of elephants moving across the veldt. Change the veldt into ruins, but oh, wait the elephants themselves are too normal. I know, I'll make them a different color! Why on earth would the elephants remain absolutely the same except for a pigment change?
On the railcar, Mint Julep tries to seduce our idiot to the dark side--or rather the green side, but this green has nothing to do with hybrid cars. Here we discover Killraven's super-power is to stay flaccid. These leather briefs of his leave nothing to the imagination, and that's how much reaction he has to a hot, green chick staying within the distance it takes one to breathe on another. It's porn but it just doesn't want to go those extra inches.
As with many a bad movies of its ilk, Killraven features one scene that surprises the reader though not because the reader is rapt in the proceedings or cares about the characters. It's more like a what-where-the-hell-did-that-come-from-scene. Killraven meets another seriously hot chick, covered in of all things, oil. This leads to her taking a shower--sadly with her clothes on, and yet still the man does not move! Is he gay or is he obscenely dense? We discover in the next chapter the seriously hot chick is a pyrokinetic named Volcana Ash. She sets the world on fire until Minty shoots her with a "Zok, Zok" gun. Okay. It's not officially named the "Zok, Zok" gun, but that's the sound it makes I swear! Perhaps this was the letterer's way of alluding more overtly to The Herculoids. Killraven does sort of look like Zander, yet there are important differences. Zander knew exactly what to do with a woman. His son is evidence of that. Zander was also smarter than Killraven, and The Herculoids was enjoyable. Killraven is excruciatingly painful.
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