Variant covers have gotten completely out of control. Seems like a whole industry has pooped, I mean popped up over the buying and selling of variant covers and I find it completely ridiculous. Look, you want to celebrate the release of a new title or series with a bunch of artists contributing to create several alternate covers, which, cost the same, then fine. But if you’re asking a retailer to buy hundreds if not thousands of issues to possibly get one cover and if said cover rockets to triple figures on ebay in less than a day, then I call BS. It’s artificial scarcity. Just like oil. Hey, let’s put a rope around this entire oil area and call it off limits, oh no, not enough oil, it be pricy now. Doesn’t mean the cover is great just means that they’ve only made a few of them.
Also, I find it demeaning to me and my enormous collection of comics that a piddly cover created a week ago is worth more than a comic I bought 40 years ago. My raggedy Hulk #225 which I cherish is worth more than your Herbie Schnurbie Emerald City Augmented Reality Cover which counts as a pokemon go monster. Are people really buying these covers and this artificial scam? I bring this up only because usually a Jae Lee cover is a variant cover and it usually is a pain in the ass to procure.
So when I saw that he was actually drawing an entire limited series I thought ‘well damn, you can’t make variant story pages can you?’ Maybe that’s the next tweak, variant interiors! You can have this new Batman Ultra Mega Wow series drawn by our intern for $4.99 or by Banksy for $15,400 or by an AI Artist which is trying to copy Neal Adams for a monthly fee of $29.99 which gets you Hulu Premium since nobody buys Hulu premium unless it’s bundled with something else, am I right? Of course I am.
Seven Sons is all Jae Lee art and, well, I like it! It’s got this scruffy detailed feel that a Sean Murphy drawn comic has which I really love. As for the story? I had zero idea what I was in for and when I realized I was dealing with a Jesus in the modern age type thingamajiggy I went ‘Oy vey’.
It’s 1998, 7 dudes have been born to Virgins all over the world and the crowning of the new Savior is happening in Vegas. Man, that’s a whole lot to unpack for a variant cover fix. Here’s the thing about Virgin births. I mean, were chicks around the time of Jesus pulling the ‘I didn’t have sex, it’s a Virgin Birth’ card. Like if some teen named Miriam was dating some douchebag named Amos who knocked her up and Miriam’s Dad started to freak out on Miriam couldn’t she go ‘Poppa, I never had sex, God put this baby in me’ How was this not a thing? I would think with all the adultery and lack of a Kama Sutra the excuse that ‘God did it’ would be as common as ‘what the fuck happened to my crops?’
The first issue of this series was good, not great. Seems like an actual dude who looks like the other dudes has risen from the dead from the rubble of a building. Meanwhile most of the Virgin Birth Dudes are being picked off one by one by ‘Allah’s Watchmen’ a Radical Muslim cult of killers that need to knock off the Jesi. Oh, they call the 7 dudes the Jesi, which to me just sounds like a nickname you’d call someone named Jessica. In this issue it’s revealed that the guy who predicted this whole phenomenon and who wrote a book on it in the 70s is the ringleader of the Jessicas and knows they’re not saviors, at least that’s what I got from it.
The big kicker of the issue is that two of the Jessicas decide to leave the confines of the Vegas Arena they’re being kept in and hit up a VIP table at a popular nightclub in town. Now, one of the Jessicas has done this before and is hooking up with some fine babes at the club while his brother, who’s shy, has not. In order to get in undetected they both wear wigs that look a lot like their original hair, just a different color. Now here’s where I call BS. I’ve dealt with wigs before, especially in my Prince show. They’re not easy AND it’s tough to get something that’s custom made. So you telling me these Jessicas who have no contact with the outside world are gonna get some perfectly coiffed wigs that fit their holy Jessica heads and don’t fall off? No way. Somebody didn’t do his Wig Research!
So the Jessicas are getting bottle service and one is hooking up with two hotties while the other is getting comfy with a sexy Redhead when the Evil Muslims come in a firing and ruin the night. Okay, more BS. This is a Vegas club which means those Muslim Males with ZERO chicks on their arms would not be let in at all. Did they bribe the doorman? Probably not. They’d be stuck outside for hours. Allah could show up and unless he’s got Hera or Buddha in a dress with him he ain’t getting into a Vegas club.
I get that the villains of the late 90s and 2000s were the evil Muslims but I’m not sure we want to rehash that whole vibe in today’s world. It feels a bit tone deaf. Overall the comic gives you the Jae Lee experience which you want but not necessarily the story that you need. You’re probably going along for the ride. Let’s hope the remaining Jessicas get a better hairstylist and go on a trip to a casino. That’ll be the real test to see if they’re our new saviors; if they can beat that Asian dealer at the Pai Gow table then Praise be the Jessicas!
Rating: 8.1
Verdict: Pull
No comments:
Post a Comment