Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Axiom, Comics, Ed Benes, entertainment, legendary, mark waid

When The Mighty Fall – A Review Of Axiom

Published Wed, 31 Aug 2016 17:00:33 -0500

Legendary Comics has put out their first superhero story, Axiom by Mark Waid and Ed Benes. I just finished reading it and it reminded me a lot of a DC Elseworlds story. It would be a very good one because of the twist. I want to be able to talk about the twist… but what I'll do is review it without spoilers then mention it at the bottom for those who have already read the story.

Axiom is about two aliens that come to Earth… Axiom and Thena… and become the planet's protectors. It's about how humans react to their presence and the basic flaws of humanity. And when a tragedy occurs followed by heartbreak… the once heroic figure turns terrifying.

The book starts slow. Waid has to lay out a lot of backstory to get us to the actual story he wants to tell. It feels a little forced and the narration tells us basically that it's all going to fall apart anyway, so it's almost uncomfortable reading it. That is the only negative I have about the book. The story itself is worth the setup time… but the setup time is the weak part. Once we get to the now, the story moves quickly and is very good. Waid has an interesting story to tell here and he does it well as you'd expect.

The art for the book is by Ed Benes with colors by Dinei Ribeiro and the book looks sharp. The cover has an almost Neil Adams feel to it and the character designs are simple but effective. Legendary has done a good job putting out a top level looking product.

Overall, the book is well worth picking up. And even though it's a self-contained story, there is a door to a sequel that I hope Waid and Benes decide to walk through.

Here are some pages from the book… the spoiler-ish thought below that.

Okay… spoiler-ish thoughts below. You've been warned.

The reason I referenced the DC Elseworlds is that about half way through the book there is a reveal that clicked everything into place. If you pick up this book and read it, in your mind think of it as a J'onn J'onzz story instead. Once I thought of that, it made me think how well this book would have worked as an Elseworlds.

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