Some love for Milligan's Shadowman

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Shadowman99
Clinkin' bottles with Aram
Clinkin' bottles with Aram
Posts: 2847
Joined: Mon Nov 26, 2012 6:08:01 am
Valiant fan since: 2012
Favorite title: XO Manowar
Favorite artist: Clayton Crain
Location: England
Re: Some love for Milligan's Shadowman

Post by Shadowman99 »

The Dirt Gang wrote:When Jordan wrote about the Darque family it was great but it just seemed like they didn't know quite what do to with Jack. Maybe an apropos tagline would have been, "You don't know Jack" hehe :D
Okay, that's actually quite funny :clap:

Well, I've made clear enough my enthusiasm for all things 'Shadowman' during my time on the boards here, across all VH1, Acclaim and VEI, but as much as I hate to say it, VEI's Shadowman is becoming less and less interesting to me.

When I'm reading consistently amazing books like XO, Unity, Bloodshot and Armour Hunters month by month, Shadowman just isn't matching up. I think for me it's just that the most recent two arcs haven't really been all that interesting. There was too much emphasis on and constant re-telling/recapping of the 'dream fight' thing, that to me just wasn't that interesting, and slowed the pace of the book down. I'd much rather this book emphasise supernatural elements of story rather than Jack's internal struggle. I'd find that more interesting.

Also, I didn't really understand Jack's desperate *need* to kill his father in End Times. Sure, any person might be pretty *SQUEE* to find that their not-actually-dead dad had just run away and abandoned the family, but really, the answer is to kill him? That's not a normal, rational line of thought I'm sure. I'm not even sure that the internal struggle with the Loa justifies this either, but hey ho, it's what we got. As for the ending of end times with resurrecting Darque... Well, weird way to end the arc if you ask me. Can't say as I much liked the ending or thought it made much sense, but I suppose we'll have to see where it goes from here.

Kind of starting to get to the point now where I'm wondering if a from-scratch reboot is needed for the series. Whatever it is precisely, VEI don't seem to have hit a winning formula for this comic yet, and whilst I once had faith that they'd manage to get the book up to the kind of quality of the others, it's yet to happen.

Like a few other people have said, the feeling that I'm getting from Milligan's run is that a lot of it has seemed rather forced. To be fair, he's picked up a comic equivalent of a leaky row boat and has probably done his best to patch it up, but I can only continue to hope that Milligan's first work here will have created some kind of foundation for the book to continue on from and improve upon.
Kurt Busiek wrote:Bull$#!t


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