Halcyon #1

The first thing that I noticed when I picked up this issue is that it is written by Amazing Spider-Man author Marc Guggenheim, who in my opinion is one of the better writers on that book. So it is safe to say that I was fairly excited about this book. After reading the issue, I can say that I was not as impressed as I thought I was going to be, let me tell you why.

Before I get into any negatives about the issue, lets first go over the positives. The base storyline of the book is pretty good, which is what I expect from Guggenheim, and the art of Ryan Bodenheim was pretty good as well. Also, the best part of the issue by far is the ending of it, it has a great cliffhanger and you would never expect the result that occurs while reading the story at any point.

The downfall of the issue is fully credited to the story as a whole. It is not until the end of the book that the reader realizes what the point of the book is, and until the end the issue seems like it is a bunch of random stories, featuring all different characters occurring at once, all of them without endings or relevance. Also, with the introduction of over ten different characters, with no back-story to any of them and no description of their powers or anything, it is hard to relate, connect, or even understand what role they play in the story.

Another reason I was so excited about reading and reviewing this issue was the fact that Image comics have been putting out a number of popular new series; such as Morning Glories and Skull-Kickers and I expected another one of those with this issue; even thought I wasn’t too fond of Skull-Kickers, it has gained a large fan base.

If it weren’t for the cliffhanger at the end of the issue, I would have condemned this book to no end. But even in all its confusion and non-clarity the story allowed for an ending that would make any comic book fan come back for more just to see where the story is going to go. It was not a horrible story, and if you are a superhero fan but are sick of the everyday run of the mill superheroes that we see in comics everyday this would be a good book to check out. Overall though…

7 out of 10