Shadowman: End Times #1 Discussion

[Spylocke]

This all the way. Alyssa is an uninteresting character. she needs to be more than a lovesick girl. The punk mambo is more interesting than her.

all things considered I've enjoyed the last few issues of shadow man.

I didn't consider that before but now I ship Jack/Punk Mambo. I think the issue with Alyssa is the same with a lot of female characters in that she is mainly identified via her relationship with men. She's Dox's protege and Jack's girlfriend and that seems to be it. Luckily, since so little has been revealed about her Milligan can build her character almost from scratch.

[ilzuccone]

This all the way. Alyssa is an uninteresting character. she needs to be more than a lovesick girl. The punk mambo is more interesting than her.

all things considered I've enjoyed the last few issues of shadow man.

I didn't consider that before but now I ship Jack/Punk Mambo. I think the issue with Alyssa is the same with a lot of female characters in that she is mainly identified via her relationship with men. She's Dox's protege and Jack's girlfriend and that seems to be it. Luckily, since so little has been revealed about her Milligan can build her character almost from scratch.

the issue with alyssa is the same with a lot of female characters in comics.. she's written by a guy. i hate to say it but guys tend to have a hard time writing strong interesting woman. would be great to see her built up more.

[Donovan]

This has been my favourite issue of Shadowman to date. Loved the art, colouring, pacing... Can't wait for #2.

[Chris Campbell]

I was a bit disappointed. I preferred 13-16. I felt that the concept of Josiah being alive and Jack finding out was great - but the execution not so much.

[abaddon]

I'm not sure if it was because I was about to go to sleep, but I kept dozing off every two pages. Didn't enjoy the pacing much. Still getting the second issue though because it's on my pull list.

[jmatt]

I need to go back and re-read from the beginning, because the Alyssa/Jack relationship seems really forced, and I don't recall there being any sort of hints at that at the beginning. I liked the idea that a major character in the series could be a woman who isn't a love interest.

This all the way. Alyssa is an uninteresting character. she needs to be more than a lovesick girl. The punk mambo is more interesting than her.

all things considered i've enjoyed the last few issues of shadow man.

I enjoyed the last arc, where he tried to make peace with his past (the man he crippled). And chasing down his father has potential. But in my gut I'm up and down about it as a title for reasons previously mentioned.

[Spylocke]

the issue with alyssa is the same with a lot of female characters in comics.. she's written by a guy. i hate to say it but guys tend to have a hard time writing strong interesting woman. would be great to see her built up more.

I agree with you for the most part but both Justin Jordan and Peter Milligan have written two of my favorite female characters in comics. Petra from the Luthor Strode books and well, any character Milligan wrote on his Shade The Changing Man run. Both times I heard the that these writers were attached I expected one of them to knock the ball out of the park, roll the park up into a ball and hit that into outer space.

I think one of the reasons there aren't many female comic book characters is because they tend to get saddled with high expectations they often fail to meet.

[hunter_peterson]

the issue with alyssa is the same with a lot of female characters in comics.. she's written by a guy. i hate to say it but guys tend to have a hard time writing strong interesting woman. would be great to see her built up more.

I agree with you for the most part but both Justin Jordan and Peter Milligan have written two of my favorite female characters in comics. Petra from the Luthor Strode books and well, any character Milligan wrote on his Shade The Changing Man run. Both times I heard the that these writers were attached I expected one of them to knock the ball out of the park, roll the park up into a ball and hit that into outer space.

I think one of the reasons there aren't many female comic book characters is because they tend to get saddled with high expectations they often fail to meet.

It isn't that there aren't many female characters in comics- there are huge numbers of them- it's that they're overwhelmingly the romantic interest of a male hero or villain. They aren't real characters. Alyssa is not really a real character, she has no inner life. And that's a huge problem if you want the romance with Jack to seem real.

Now, if they kill off Jack in End Times and we get a new Shadowperson to fill the void, and she's the handler the Abettors assign to them? Then that could be fascinating. She'd have guilt, love, sadness, anger, all these emotions tied up around the Shadowman legacy. How would she react to a new bearer of the burden? Would she be comfortable with them? There's a lot of room there to explore.

I think Jack dying might give Alyssa a chance to shine... especially if she were distantly related to him somehow and became Shadowoman herself. It's possible for them to be third cousins or something... I mean, wouldn't the Abettors keep all scions of Marius's legacy close? Most of the Abettors are probably related to him. One big family... why else bring her in as the apprentice of their top mage? To receive the training that all Shadowmen are raised with, to boot.

...clearly I am tired and getting carried away with speculation here.

[Sir Sandrick]

I think that Jack should be mortally wounded in the last issue and the loa takes control and buries him to heal him over time like back in the old X-O. Maybe he wakes up years later and has gone crazy. Maybe he is no longer the main hero. Maybe while Jack is away Darque becomes a central villain for others to deal with in in the Valiant universe - hey I am up for whatever at this point lol. Totally not feeling Shadowman atm, the last issue was a step in the right direction but it has been meandering for a while now, not really bringing those cool moments. It is voodoo creepy cool man... it should be much more X-files, Grimm, Hannibal, whatever... and less what it has been. Issue 0 was great writing. It set a high mark that it has not been able to recapture since.

[Sir Sandrick]

also, I think that it would be great if Darque somehow finds a way of tapping all of his personal Necromantic energy to bridge the way back to our world but as a result loses all of his power. Then he has reason to create atrocities over here in order to get his power back. Maybe Harada senses his energy and sends a team to investigate and bam! he eats them for dinner or something lol

[lorddunlow]

Well, that was not as good as I expected. Milligan was hitting it out of the park for me so far with this series, but this issue just wasn't that good. I'll give this one to him, though. I hated A&A #3 and #5 but I'm glad I stuck with it as it's consistently at the top of my VEI pile.

Needed more RDLT for sure.

[Spylocke]

This may be a bit out of nowhere but does anyone else think that The Abbettors might have had a hand in the breeding of the Boniface family? They have a creepy, slave-owner feel to them so there might be distant relatives to Jack out there.

[hunter_peterson]

This may be a bit out of nowhere but does anyone else think that The Abbettors might have had a hand in the breeding of the Boniface family? They have a creepy, slave-owner feel to them so there might be distant relatives to Jack out there.

I kind of said that. I think the Abettors are actually filled with many relatives of Jack, as potential backups. Which makes it more literally his family, but also pretty creepy.

[Elveen]

I had low expectations for this book.

It surpassed them. My interest for SMET #2 is there.

[jmatt]

She's Dox's protege ...

I think you guys are minimizing this too much. She's been way more than an Anne Alafair. She's one of the Abettors and been pretty much involved in everything that's gone on.

And speaking of strong female leads, Sandria.

[leonmallett]

Pluses and minuses for me.

In the plus column:
The story seemed more clearly expounded than previous Milligan issues; each of them had head scratching parts for me with cerytain scene changes etc.
Seeing more Loa and therefore focusing on the Shadowman's purpose.
The art was fine, and worked very well in places.
The changes in the relation ship between Jack and Alyssa felt a natural progression of where things were at in the last arc.
The Josiah revelation was a nice beat in my opinion.

The minuses:
Punk Mambo; really don't care for this character. Previously I felt she was a tiresome mess of cliches that felt like they had been done a lot in the 90's, now we add increasingly unlikable to the mix.
The Abettors; I am finding them quite tiresome also, especially in light of my reading of Milligan's indication that the Shadow Loa always seems to darken the soul and personality of the host; basically Dox and Alyssa aside, and the glimpse very early on, they have seemed antagonists with little clear purpose who seem to change their motivation very quickly, or do no adhere to a clear motivation consistently enough - I just don't see then as well written as a collective.
I really see no in-story or character related reason for the mini. If the title is going to be a series of minis from now on, then fine, then please just be honest about it VEI. If it reverts to the core title and numbering (seems increasingly doubtful), then breaking this into a mini makes no sense, unless this is a bridge to a relaunched book at some point.

[Bone-A-Fach-ee]

I guess if you've never read an issue of Shadowman before this one, it gives you an incredible amount of backstory. Great for new readers, which I believe is the intended target. However, for a NEW #1, it seemed like an entire issue of rehash to me. I've really really wanted to like this title, as it was one of my favorite VH1 titles, but I just can't get into it. I'll keep reading it in hopes that it'll convert me though.
Sorry to be negative, but this is one title that I just haven't been able to crack. Soon!

[MoonChild]

[leonmallett]

Care to elaborate?