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Lobster Johnson Volume 1: Iron Prometheus (2008)

by Mike Mignola(Favorite Author)

3.82 of 5 Votes: 4

languge

English

genre

Horror

publisher

Dark Horse Comics

series

Lobster Johnson

review 1: This is a decent story that gives more credence to the "Occult-Nazi-fighting" aspect of the Hellboy universe. Herem Lobster Johnson is introduced as a fighter for justice against Nazi spies and saboteurs on American shores. Mignola tempers the absurdity of such a superhero with the goings-ons of evil Occult masters that are standard for his books. (Really, he probably just wanted to do a spoof on pulp comics of the early 20th century and though LO JO would be great.)I think this is the first book to introduce Memnan Saa and his cohorts, and we get a sense that what he's doing will resonate in the entire Mignolaverse. in fact, I think there are at least three more volumes where he is a pivotal part of the story through Lo Jo and BPRD. Overall, a decent read for fans of Hell... moreboy and his ilk.
review 2: That was extremely painful. Giving something by Mignola only 2 stars. Painful indeed. Because I love Mike Mignola in the same way I had high school crushes. But it seems that in the same way my affection for him is erroding over time and becoming blurry, only hints of why I orginially thought him a genius. Reading this rather awful book was like finding your high school crush on facebook 15 years later to see them still single, hagard, their profile picture of them with a drink in hand, beaten up by one too many nights out at the bar, and having a different photo album to commemorate each of their six month long relationships, and making status updates about regretting last night's decisions. It is disenchanting. And a complete disappointment. It was the early 90's when I became enamored of Mike Mignola for his work on Gotham by Gaslight. I was young then, too young to fully grasp what was happening within the book on all levels, but I was dran to the artwork and the dark imagery. It was something else entirely, not a superhero book, but something else, something sinister lurking in the shadows behind the mainstream melodrama. And I liked it although I wasn't entirely sure why at the time, outside of the fact that the book was dark and I liked dark things because I was that teenager- listening to Slayer, reading Poe, and watching Army of Darkness. When I came across his Hellboy series I completely got it for the first time. I was a little older. I understood it completely and loved it more for the art and the spare style of storytelling, the lean dialogue. It was thin, almost emaciated. I like it for that because it seemed to speak louder for these things. And now this. This book. This solo Lobster tale. I just didn't get it and could not care for any of it. He left the artwork to someone else, an inferior artist with no sense of the hard edges Mignola can craft. An artist without a sense of contrast and without a sense of shadow. An artist inferior to a host of other highly stylized artists of the same vein. It was hard to push through most of it, the seemingly lazy style of inks. And then the story showed more bloat than I have ever seen in a Mignola book. A dead body that had been sitting in a trunk of a car in a humid Tennessee back road. Grown gassy and full in the heat. Too much ialogue and still not enough of an explanation of the story. Too much action and not enough finesse. It left me wanting on all levels. I understand the idea of the throwback comic book. I don't like it, but I understand it. I wanted to like Tom Strong more than I did, but just could not in good conscience. I feel the same way about the Lobster- it'smissing too much. It can't recapture the glory days of golden age books and it isn't even creating anything new. It's a pale imitation. less

Download links for: Lobster Johnson Volume 1: Iron Prometheus

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