Customer Reviews

DV8: Neighborhood Threat

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

What would a group of super-powered teen-agers REALLY be like? Certainly not fresh-faced do-gooders, as Gen13 or Generation X would have us believe. But I'd hope they wouldn't be QUITE as bad as The Deviants, the protagonists of DV8: Neighborhood Threat. As portrayed by Writer Warren Ellis, The Deviants are foul-mouthed, immoral, murderous, horny, incestuous, lazy, greedy punks, at the mercy of their handler, Ivana Baiul, and her crony, the crazed Sideways Bob. Ivana has her own mysterious agenda, often sending the kids on suicide missions just because she can. As bad as The Deviants are, though, the people they come up against are even worse, and it does provide a vicarious thrill to see The Deviants dish out a well deserved serving of comeuppance to these baddies.

Ellis' stories are compelling, and the characters are all nicely developed by the end of the collection. The art (By Humberto Ramos) is nice, but at times it's hard to make out what's going on in a panel. (This is some of his earlier work.) The book also includes a new introduction by Ellis, and a cover gallery of the reprinted issues (#'s 1-6, and the special Wizard #1/2 issue), including the "Seven Deadly Sins" variant covers for issue #1.

Overall, it's a fun read for people with strong stomachs. Here's hoping DC collects the rest of Ellis' DV8 run.

I read this trade in anticipation of Brian Wood and Rebekah Isaacs' Dv8: Gods and Monsters mini-series coming out in April. Wood has stated that the only reference he pulled from was this initial Dv8 run by Warren Ellis and Humberto Ramos. As much as I usually like Warren Ellis' stuff, I have to say I wasn't that impressed with this run.

I never followed Dv8 when the series was running. I have issue one but I probably picked it up because it's the "Sloth" Variant by Jim Lee. As I reread it, it must not have impressed me back then because I never followed the series after that. I think back then I was still focusing more on the artists than the writer. So the fact that Ellis wrote this wasn't enough to keep me on the title. Add that to the fact I was never a big Humberto Ramos fan and it's easy to see why I didn't follow this series.

Ellis has a little introduction to the trade that makes it hard to decipher how he actually felt about the book. He says that initially he didn't want it but it wasn't until Jim Lee compared it to the film "Kids" that he agreed to do it. "Kids" was definitely a messed up movie and that seems to be the theme of this arc. I guess what I miss here that Ellis usually does is give us an over-arcing story. These issues are very much stand-alone and therefore seem disjointed a little. There is a thin thread of a storyline in that the kids are kind of coming to depend on one another (some of them anyway). But that's quickly dropped on the last issue, almost as if Ellis realized what he was doing and decided he had to drop that idea quickly before he left the book.

The fact that these characters are messed up was not enough to make me want to read about them. It was the idea that despite the fact they're messed up, they can still come to rely on each other, even if it's while still committing evil. That kind of conflict is interesting because you know that they weren't born evil, so there's a part of them deep down that struggles with what they do. On the flip side, there are some like Ivana and Bliss who no longer have anything deep down inside to struggle with and are more self-absorbed which in turn fuels their evil acts to satisfy their own desires.

Overall, I'd say it was a decent read but it's not one of Ellis' best. But I am excited to see what Wood does with these characters because they do have potential and it'll be cool to see where he takes them.

It would be real boring to read comics about do-gooders only , no?
Dv8 is some kinda sarcasm pointed to nice guy comic teams like Gen13 or Teen Titans.

Maybe they are what Claremont would write if he had been born some 20 years later? Remember how first version of X-men were team of people some of which were problematic, like all time angry Wolverine, frustrated and too responsible Cyclops, Jean Grey who got corrupted by too much power and little help by Mastermind?

Here we have a guy who lives for weightlifting and watching sports, otherwise he is dull person, deviantly Bliss who uses her pleasure-center stimulation powers on literally EVERYONE she wants to manipulate, feral Evo who is some kinda meaner Wolverine with no morale and less guts, alcoholic Powerhaus who makes himself numb in order not to absorb surrounding emotions, and worst of all, their boss Ivana who manipulates kids because she know each of them has dirty secrets she can use against them.

I got Dv8 in spanish, lost it and got complete run except some annuals and crossovers. I think first 12 Dv8 issues are GREAT, although only first eight were written by Warren Ellis. I think this comic has more 'heart' then Authority and Stowmwatch and more humour, although maybe it is not so critically acclaimed.

It's a decent/interesting concept. Definitely a bit darker than many of your average comics/graphic-novels. The characters have good depth. I've only read the first TP, and the storyline is a little choppy; I'm hoping they get a more consistent story-arc further into the series. I'm not a fan of the artwork, but that's very subjective. The proportions just seem off, not unlike anime. Why are the women's boots size 13 and hands the 3 sizes too big? I enjoyed it enough to buy the next one, but we'll see from there...

Gen 13 was a story about 5 attractive superpowered teenagers adopted by a fatherly and goodnatured Government agent. Sexy Highjinks ensue.

DV8 is the story of 5 emotionally damaged superpowered teenagers hired to undertake bloody and dangerous missions for an evil manipulative government agent. Moodyness and desperation ensues.

It's important to understand that this comic came out before it was trendy to collect books ito trades adn sell them in bookstores. It was never meant to tell one long story.

What it does, it does well and it's one of my favorite stories of all time.

There are certain traits in Warren's work. But soon enough, it all becomes one big cloud, a singular recognizable style that, seemingly, never plays nice, never puts more words on the page than is required... If that is right, then, certainly, the first trade paperback of DV8: Neighborhood Threat represents the odd, protruding head out of the `crowd' of Warren's body of work, because, while it certainly doesn't play nice with sporadic images of machete struck through a skull, knives through dead, hung monkeys and the like, it has a different plotting dynamic from things like Ocean and Global Frequency. Plus, Warren Ellis saw fit to write with his funny `voice', as seen best with dialogue like "Our love is like a DEAD DOG, yes, garbage love, never moving and smelling real sweet." Certainly, if Watchmen was the pinnacle of realistic superheroes, Neighborhood is an, albeit, flawed masterpiece of morally deviant superheroes, faithful to the Wildstorm universe and done up with some of the funniest characters and writing since, perhaps, Wildstorm's own Gen13.

The characters are as Warren himself aptly described: "a bunch of severely damaged teenagers with no visible lives." But these guys have superpowers, and these aren't even the typical, friendly ones. Bliss dishes out tremendous pain (and pleasure) through sensory touch. Copycat has the ability to possess a person and make them do whatever she does. Evo is a ferocious beast of a werewolf. Freestyle has the ability to psionically view multiple possible timelines and subconsciously chooses the best course of action for herself from these possibilities, but she gets increasingly aged as she uses her powers. Frostbite is a thermal reactive capacitor. Sublime has the, well, sublime ability of changing her body frame's density, and Threshold, the supposed leader of the group, has the tendency to make brains explode with telekinetic energy. If, at first glance, this list doesn't cause one to salivate with comic book gawkiness, the person, most likely, won't appreciate much of what's going on here.

That is because Warren's all about the characters in this book, writing as close to character as a writer can get. And when one sees such rotten and inhuman superheroes for protagonists, a feeling of disgust and almost in surprising correlation, a feeling of sympathy and understanding for them is felt. Before the reader reaches the third issue or so, the characters would have already grown on the reader so much they would feel an ache the moment they finish the damned thing. Perhaps humor would be too general a term to describe this cleverly plotted story. Satire would be much more appropriate. The shenanigans of the group, while they waste their lives away with drink, are sheer reminders of their moral bankruptcies. Warren knew this well, played to that dynamic and that's why the book felt fun and free of pretense.

Threshold is never around, Evo is the same pervert he is when he turns, the characters have their own motivations and the story runs along those motivations. This is an interesting push-and-pull style of plotting that Warren has employed here and it succeeds in an uncanny manner, surprisingly.

Where it doesn't succeed is the looseness of that plotting where story lines like Ivana's schemes, trying to turn Threshold to her twisted schemes, get thrown aside for seemingly less-pertinent story lines, where another of Wildstorm teams, Stormwatch, got a nonsensical mention. It's a thing like this that made the story feel cheap and that is when readers will get that radical Jim-Lee-style déjà-vu. It lends that silver age X-men feel to it though, but obviously this must have been nothing but a byproduct of the book's demographic and overall dynamic.

With a new DV8 series out now, written by Brian Wood and illustrated by Rebecca Issacs, this book is all you need to get started on the characters and their wicked, twisted psyches, just as long as you mind not Ivana's smooching session with Threshold. Get your mind checked while you are at it.

A covert organisation puts together a superhuman strikeforce by empowering and training a group of youths. They keep them keen by allowing them a rockstar lifestyle, even if closely watched.

The missions they are ordered to undertake do eventually lead them to ask questions, especially when bad things happen to more than one of their number.

Don't let the fact that Warren Ellis wrote this series fool you into buying the trade. DV8: NEIGHBORHOOD THREAT is nothing like his work on Stormwatch or Authority. It's his earliest Wildstorm work, and it shows. DV8 is a group of super-powered youngsters who are no squeaky-clean Teen Titans. Instead, these characters are despicable rotten no-goodniks who belong in detention. Granted, there could be some promise here, provided it is handled with care. If only!

Instead of conveying the bad nature of these characters through a sensible storyline or subtle characterization, Ellis takes the easy way out, filling these stories with short bits consisting of bad attitudes, casual drug use, cursing, kinky sex/incest, and a disregard for life. Agreed, these elements have been used in his other books, but not to the point of substituting for plot. For good measure, Ellis inserts a few more devices from the Quentin Tarrantino School of Writing: inbred rednecks, torture, and, in the worst case of filler I've ever seen, an issue devoted solely to seeing which team member can tell the worst gross-out story. Add to this the tired, faux-manga art of Humberto Ramos, and you've got a book that represents the worst of Wildstorm studios, or of any publisher in general.