Customer Reviews

DNAgents Industrial Strength Edition

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Though not as famous, the DNAgents deserve to be ranked among Clarmont's X-Men and Wolfman's Teen Titans as one of the great superhero books of the 80s. Mark Evanier's writing drips with soap opera and intrigues, Will Meugniot's art is sexy but realistic.

At first glance you'll see a pretty typical team of 5, we have the hotheaded guy, the big guy with a heart of gold, the short insecure guy who comes through in the end, the cute trusting girl and the hot smart girl. And that about sums it up, but veteran writer Evanier is able to deliver entertaining stories building on this classic mix. He has them fail early on and builds that failure into later story arcs.

The DNAgents' origin as artificial life grown by a corporation is a cliche now, but at the time it was innovative. More interestingly for this entire 400+ page book they remain good corporate soldiers obeying orders for the evil CEO. There's friction and it's clear a confrontations will come but Evanier avoided the obvious cliche and built slowly.

The book is filled with extras, sketches, behind the scenes stories and other fun tidbits. Even in black and white the art is gorgeous, it's been restored and in some places redrawn by Meugniot himself.

As with most comics from the 80s, the DNAgents are still products of their times. There are dated references, and comic book cliches. While the DNAgents were generally more realistic than other books it still has terrorist armies dressed in Halloween costumes and industrial spies with more gadgets than James Bond. But the stories are solid and the characters grow on you quickly. Plus Meugniot delivers at least one scene of girl lounging in their underwear per issue! For $25 this is a solid entertainment value for your money, I hope there will be a volume 2.