There’s a lot of talent in this one shot of Dark Reign: Rick Remender, Matt Fraction, and my favorite writer of the moment, Jonathan Hickman.  It’s a shame they were all wasted on this completely unnecessary issue.  Nothing of import happens.  No exciting twist is revealed.  And, while these are all supposed to be character studies of Osborn’s Illuminaughty, there is not a single personality trait or motivation revealed that wasn’t readily apparent in any other issue they’ve appeared in.

The art, at least, is a mixed bag.  I only finished the first segment of the book (despite being the Hickman section) because of Adi Granov’s art.  It looks like a really tight Olivetti book; one where he did a lot of touching up of details, and focused on making smoothly expressive faces. 

Acuna’s section is not my style.  The hyper-gloss, pseudo-noir doesn’t jive with mainstream superhero stories for me, unless there’s a specific feel the writer is going for.  I suppose, if you’re looking for a glossy mind in the Marvel U, Emma Frost’s diamond frosted brain is the place for it, but it just didn’t work for me.   

Fiumara’s Hood story looked visually interesting, but I had already checked out of the book at that point, and the art wasn’t quite good enough to draw me back in.

Di Guandimenico’s Atlantis is filled with air bubbles that look likt the fucken snow that marvel is blizzarding all over every title this spring.  It’s completely unnecessary here.  Yea, yea, they’re in Atlantis.  There’s bubbles and floaty bits in water, I get it.  Otherwise, his pecils look like early Bacchalo, from before he’d properly mastered his style.

Zonjic’s art on the Loki story is just flat out bad.  His Doom face is inconsistent (though it does look good in the final panel), and his Loki face has absolutely no definition.  It appears to be a stylistic choice, and not an inability to draw lines, but it just looks unfinished.

Instead of spending four bucks on this, save your money and go buy a tchoctchke or a cupcake for the person behind the counter who’s going to set you up with free comics this Saturday.  It’ll be money better spent.