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Number Crunching: Kevin Smith's Green Hornet #1

Published Tue, 02 Mar 2010 18:47:34 -0600

Last updated Tue, 02 Mar 2010 18:56:31 -0600

What's it called? Green Hornet

Who's it by? Kevin Smith, Phil Hester, Jonathan Lau, Ivn Nunes

And it's on time? And it's on time. Being based on Kevin Smith's already-written-but-unproduced movie script must have helped.

Cost: $3.99

Story page count: 24

Splash pages: 1

Price per page: 17c

When's it out? Tomorrow in the US, Thursday in the UK, from Dynamite.

Trepidation about reading a comic featuring a well known character – who you have never read? 50%

How much easier was it when you finally sat down to read, when you just thought of Hornet as Batman in disguise. 200%

Moments of bad anatomy: 8

Moments of really bad anatomy where the Hornet's leg is twice the length of the rest of his body: 1

Moments of really cool panels – posters dividing, building exploding, butt cheeks baring: 4

Panels where you just want people to stop talking and shoot the Hornet: 4

Panels where it's implied that the Hornet won't get getting any sex tonight: 2

Moments when you's pulled out of the comic and realise that, yes, it iss Kevin Smith writing this comic? 6 included the two above.

Appearances by Jay And Silent Bob? ) that I could see? 0

Panels where racism rears its ugly head: 2

Really weak puns that Stan Lee would be embarrassed about: 1

Times that pun is laboured: 2

Gratuitous naked butt shots: 1

Surprise percantage that it's a guy's: 100%

Number of scenes where you can tell how it might have possibly worked in a film but that just doesn't work as shown on the comic page? 3

For example? A Japanese gangster criticises an American gangster by saying he had a poor American public school education. When the American's second steps up reeling off sultural context and analysis, you needed some kind of reaction shots from the Japanese gangsters before he says "I went to private school" for the line work as a punchline. Easily done with an edit suite, two seconds is all that's needed. Here, space is a premium, and their abscence makes this kind of scene jar.

Times you have to read that scene before you understand what was originally intended: 3

Is it worth it as a comic though? Yes.

Really? Really. It's fun, it's frantic, it's pretty, and anything that grates can be quickly skipped past and it looks like a proper planned "legacy" superhero concept along the lines of Batman Beyond. Which was good.

Would you get more of it it you'd ever seen a Green Hornet thing, ever? Probably. But what you don;t know can't hurt you. Unless it's a nuke heading for your house.

And a glimpse of a future Number Crunching to come… Blackest Night#8 will have an extra ten story pages on top for your $3.99…