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 Supernatural: Origins #6 (of 6)
Written by Peter Johnson
Art by Matthew Dow Smith, JD Mettler, and Greg Thompson
Reviewed by Kenne
In my last review for Supernatural: Origins #5, I spoke of my hesitation and reluctance to pick up a comic based on a movie or television series. In general, my feeling is this. When you're used to watching a popular show like Supernatural, you get used to the feel and looks of the show. There are many things that a show can do that doesn't look right in a comic, and there are characters that you grow used to seeing as the actors that play them, and it's incredibly hard to find an artist that can get the comic character to look like the actor. Of course, one reason that characters often don't look like the actors is because an artist has to have permission from the actor to portray them in a visual form, or at least that's what I've been told. But, either way, there were many Buffy comics that became quite popular. I didn't purchase them because I couldn't deal with the jolt of how different seeing the characters on paper were to seeing them on the television screen.
Then after reading Origins #6, the last issue of this mini-series designed to give a brief glimpse into the life of the characters years before the show began, I came to another reason why I don't usually follow media tie-ins like this. After six issues, I can't really think of anything new that I learned that I hadn't already known from watching the show. This series was developed as a look into the early days when Dean and Sam, the main characters on Supernatural, and shed some light on how their father became the hunter that he is on the show. However, I get the feeling that the writer was so restrained in what he could or couldn't do that in the end, I don't get the feeling that I've learned anything new. At the end of this issue, I'm trying to look back in my memory of the story as a whole and figure out what new insight I've discovered. I can't think of anything. It felt like I spent about $20 and have absolutely nothing to show for it.
If I had the opportunity to speak with the creators of this comic, I think I'd suggest that they spend their time and money coming up with something original that isn't so reliant on an already established product. In this case, as I feel most comics based on television are, the original product is the best, and the spin-off pales in comparison.
 Dynamo 5 #8
Written by Jay Faerber
Art by Mahmud A. Asrar, Ron Riley and Charles Pritchett
Reviewed by Kenne
Working on a superhero comic book can be hard. Creating a new comic series from scratch can be hard. Creating a new comic book series with superheroes can often seem like an impossible task. In today's market, it's hard to try and get viewers to try out a new comic about heroes when there's a whole world of the Big Two out there to choose from. However, for some creators, it pays off to try anyway. I can think of a few that I would consider a big success, and I'm glad to see Dynamo 5 as one of them.
To me, one of the beauties of reading Dynamo 5 is that you have the opportunity to get in on the ground floor of the series since this is only the eighth issue. You don't have to go to wikipedia and try to figure out in what issue did Aunt May almost marry Doctor Octopus. You can pick up the issue without having to go "What a minute, I thought she was british. How did she become Asian?" Dynamo 5 is still in the beginning stages, so if there's something new that's coming up, it's something new for us all. Like the introduction of Bonechill. This is a new villain that no one's seen before. He's not the alien clone of Supermans old foe that hasn't been seen in 50 years. And what a cool new villain Bonechill is.
One refreshing thing about Bonechill is that he's a simple villain. He's not out to become the Kingpin of Crime, and he's not out to rule the world while driving his arch-nemisis insane. Bonechill is merely a man out to get revenge on the ones that sent him to prison. If he ever becomes involved with a master plan to take over the world, he's going to be part of the muscle, not the brains behind it. For some reason, this makes him more appealing to me than if he was Dr. Doom with delusions of Granduer or Darksied with his great plans to bring the universe under the rule of Apokolips.
The writer, who writes another awesome Image series called Noble Causes, is very talented at giving us great character moments without sacrificing the action or giving us "talking heads." The artist is also very well suited to this book. He draws characters that are realistic, not so unevenly proportioned that one often wonders just what keeps their chests from breaking their backs. Also, Mahmud Asrar is a more classical artist, which is the kind I like. When he draws people, they look like people, not someone's exaggerated idea of what people look like. With Dynamo 5, I've discovered a consistently good book, and in today's market, that's a rare thing indeed.
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