IDW has gained a reputation of being the home of comics based on well known properties. With everything from Transformers to Doctor Who being under the IDW banner, this reputation is well earned. This includes the cult-followed Mars Attacks. Having only a short four issue run, its back with a forty nine page, holiday themed, one shot. Do martians and holidays mix? Find out after the jump!
MARS ATTACKS THE HOLIDAYS
Writer(s): Bill Morrison, Dean Haspiel, Fred Hembeck, Ian Boothby
Artist(s): Bill Morrison, Dean Haspiel, Fred Hembeck, Ian Boothby
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Cover Price: $7.99
Previously in Mars Attacks The Holidays: While this is the first and only issue with this specific name, there have been previous Mars Attacks comics which might as well be in the same continuity. They are pretty much all about the martians attacking. There have also been tie ins between the Mars Attacks property and others that IDW publishes.
PUNNY YET NOT FUNNY
Mars Attacks The Holidays is an anthology title containing four separate stories of aliens engaging humans in combat during four different holidays; Halloween, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Half of these stories, specifically the ones set during Halloween and Thanksgiving, are full of groan inducing puns. I am usually a person that loves awful puns, but these were so bad that I seriously considered putting the book down. The Christmas story is mostly exposition about various battles in American history, in what reads like a pitiful attempt to try and bring gravitas to the story. The Veterans Day story was probably the most interesting, but the characters seemed to dismiss the fact a friend of their dies in it, while at the same time being very torn up over a dead dog. Aside from all that, all four stories feel very empty. Not much really happens in them, there is little to no characterization, and the plots are boring. There is not anything outrageously wrong with this comic, there is just so very little right with it.
ALIENATING ART
Each of the four stories are accompanied by their own art style, so I will have to address each specifically. The Halloween story looks like a newspaper comic strip, which just comes off as cheap and really uninteresting. The Veterans Day tale actually has the best art out of the bunch. It is very detailed while maintaining a style that fits the late thirties theme of it. The adventure set during Thanksgiving is heavily stylized, and is not bad, it just does not fit the tone of the story. Lastly is the Christmas fable, which has the most bland and uninspired art I have ever seen. At least the comic strip style of the first story was trying to be something unique.
BOTTOM LINE: NOT WORTH THE PRICE OF ADMISSION
At $7.99 for this volume I a simply cannot recommend this. In fact I would suggest avoiding this at all costs. There is really nothing here worth seeing.
DID YOU READ THIS ISSUE? RATE IT!
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