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.

Skull Kickers #1

To be completely honest, I don’t know what to really think of Skull Kickers. When I first opened the issue the first impression I got was that it was going to be awesome, due to the fact that on the first page there was a man fighting a bloody battle against a werewolf. As I continued to read, my original opinion became more and more skewed.

The art that is used for the book looks like art that I would see used for a cartoon that was slated for Cartoon Network and would be watched by kids across the U.S, it does not look like the art you would expect to see in a book called Skull Kickers. I could totally understand if the artist is trying to have more of a cartoon feel to it, there is nothing wrong with the art style and it is a great way to attract more children to a book. The thing with Skull Kickers is that the artist uses a good amount of blood in the book. The title, plus this little tidbit would deter any responsible parent from purchasing this book for their kid.

Now for the writing, I feel as though the writing had the same problem, it could not decide which age group the series was being marketed for.