Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Flimsy, Silly, Gorgeous, Stupid, May 15, 2006
The first thing to note about this book is that it contains two very different stories with two very different artistic portrayals, sharing Warren Ellis as the author. Thus you have to evaluate the two stories on their own merits, which is sort of hard to do in a combined review.
Fortunately for the review (and unfortunately for my brain), Wildstorm decided to make that easier by packing two of the worst things Ellis has ever written into one slim volume.
First, the story that prompted me to seek out this book, we have Tokyo Storm Warning. I cannot advise people enough: do not read this piece of execrable trash. DO NOT READ IT. The so-called narrative in Tokyo Storm Warning is bad enough that I suspect it could lead to lesions on the brain, and with repeat absorption, liquefy your frontal lobes entirely. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
The art, on the other hand, is superb, if a bit busy. Giant robot action is very well handled by James Raiz and Andrew Currie, and the coloring work is also quite nice.
Tokyo Storm Warning reminds me of the early days of pornography in the United States; after the Supreme Court declared that something couldn't be considered entirely obscene, on a federal level, if it had 'literary' value, you saw magazines like Playboy spring ex nihilo onto the national landscape, with the requisite amount of fiction, interview, commentary, jokes, etc, by as many known authors as they could get their hands on. It was a flimsy legal excuse to peddle nude pictures, but it worked. Tokyo Storm Warning feels like it went through a similar creative process, whereby Wildstorm found itself in possession of some artists who could do giant robot/mechanical art very well, and needed a story, however tissue paper thin, from a known author, in order to peddle the art. Thus Warren Ellis, presumably in withdrawal from nicotine or some such, scribbled out, in crayon or bodily fluid, what almost has to be the single worst thing he's ever written (short of perhaps grade school "What I Did This Summer" essays), it was put to glossy paper, and sold to unsuspecting victims around the world. Blech.
If you can just look at the pretty pictures, or don't read English, it would come across a *lot* better.
Red is the second story, which while being better in the same way that a quick death is better than being eaten by pit bulls, still taxes reason in a way dangerous to the moral fiber of a nation. A mish-mash of every posturing, man's-man action movie trope you can imagine, it could pass for a very bad screenplay from an early Arnold Schwarzenegger movie if you squint at it sideways. It's basically the story of a super-killer CIA agent who comes out of retirement to seek revenge on a namby-pampy, liberal cypher appointed CIA Director who, upon seeing all the horrible things he did in the Service of His Nation, orders him killed. Blah. Campaign of violence. Blah, Blah. Elaborate revenge plot. Blah, Blah, Blah. Speech about being a 'real man'. Etc. It's the fictional equivalent of steroid abuse, i.e., too much mental testosterone.
The art in Red complements the marginally better story by being bland, unappealing and dull. Thus it *almost* manages to tie with Tokyo Storm Warning as a sequential-art abortion. But not quite, because TSW serves as the high water mark for what a great artist/writer team can do when they're completely phoning it in. In some future textbook it will serve as a cautionary tale about relying too much on raw, unmotivated skill.
In short: avoid this book at all costs, except for the pretty giant robot pictures.
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good and bad, June 27, 2004
Red is the best of Ellis's 3-parter blitz. It promises much early and delivers late. As to why it was paired with TSW, easily the worst of the 3-parters, i can only assume there's a surfeit of whisky going around at Wildstorm HQ. TSW's plot key is a clever idea, but it's just not enough to hold up the messy story, and the art is muddled and just too busy. A rare Ellis misstep.Red is the story of a retired CIA assassin brought back into activity by a misguided bureaucrat. Tokyo Storm Warning is Battling Seizure Robots with a twist.
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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Graphic SF Reader, September 2, 2007
Red is the story of a retired spy, and more particularly a very talented wetwork sort of guy, who had a deal to retire quietly, keep to himself, and he would be left alone. Management changes at the CIA, and they decide to get rid of him. Big mistake for those involved with this decision.
Tokyo Storm Warning is a crazy Japanese style giant robot slugfest, where one poor little human woman has to try and avoid getting stomped on. Ok, she is a pilot type, so she isn't your average female.
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by Warren Ellis
by Warren Ellis
by Warren Ellis
by Warren Ellis
by Warren Ellis
