Marvel Nemesis: The Imperfects Digest [Paperback]

This story is awesome! It tells what happened before the video game started! (which is called Marvel Nemesis Rise of the Imperfects!) It says stuff that usually apears in a Blockbuster movie. My only problem is that you think it's the book based on the video game. But that's ok because it's cool! Just don't buy it for your kids if they aren't aloud to hear swear words because it does that alot! Any way it's an awesome book, you should totally buy it, and you'll like it if you like violence or comedy (which I forgot it does appear in the book some times.) It's the best book I ever read! It's awesome!

I should know since the old Questprobe days not to buy comics (or graphic novels) based on video games. Except that I didn't really cop to the fact that this title was tied to a video game. Or maybe I'm kidding myself; maybe all comics are tied in to video games.

Some bald scientist-type named Roekel flies his spaceship to Earth to field-test his new weapon--a weird serum that, when injected into life forms, turns them into killing machines. He tests it on prisoners Spider-Man, Wolverine, Storm, The Thing, Elektra, and the Human Torch.

I don't understand why the story jumps ahead two thousand years near the start (this is a longterm experiment...isn't a two thousand year trial-and-error experiment more officially a failure?) I also don't get why (a) He picks superheroes to experiment on, who fight spectacularly without enhancement, and most of whom have been able to work themselves into a fury where necessary anyway, and (b) why he then places them all in a room to kill each other; aren't they of any value to him? And I can't even see what effect the serum has on them because they don't seem any different to me.

Suddenly all the heroes throw off the effects of the serum in succession (I would say that it is NOW time to abandon this hopeless experiment, Roekel), and even more laughably, once they go back to their regular lives a lot of them wish they had it back in their system. This seems completely ridiculous to me--do you fight off the effects of some formula making you perfect, and then decide you want it back? Or are you gonna reject it again?

By the time other heroes like Iron Man and Mr. Fantastic are involved, Roekel has reassessed what kind of test subjects he wants, and selects life's unfortunates. I thought the whole point of his capturing them was to give them the serum, but he has to give them all superpowers first...and now I'm wondering what the point of the serum is at all! We all end up in the Brazilian rainforest because some green, armored aliens who are sworn enemies of Roekel are there, trying to acquire some weird crystal (although, a minute ago, I thought they were on Earth to attack Roekel). I don't recall the crystal having any relevance to what happens next. I DO recall the green meanies fighting Roekel's new batch of "Imperfects", but this is where a comment on the art comes in...

The art is fuzzy and dark. It's hard to make out details in any panel. Sometimes I can't tell who's arm or leg I'm looking at during a melee. The Imperfects--with uninspired names like Solara, Brigade, and The Wink--don't look very impressive in design, and I couldn't even see what some of their powers are. Panels of art don't flow naturally together to tell the story (what exactly happened when the Imperfects got clobbered), and by the time the big-name heroes were back in the fray, I had given up on this one.

Yikes.

› Go to Amazon.com to see both reviews  3.5 out of 5 stars