The Action gets Rolling In Smith's Green Hornet (sort of)
I walked in to my local comic store yesterday and saw this one up at the front counter, so I gave it a shot. Kevin Smith, a nerdy icon, the Generation-Xers' Williams Shakespeare, trying his hand at writing Green Hornet. I was excited about the potential for the movie, so why not give the comic a chance? What you get here is something that is not completely bad, but its so cliche ridden that it fails to keep your interest. The standard retired crime fighter, angry son with deceased mother, corrupt justice system, ninjas(Smith loves him some ninjas), even the fundraiser gala crashed by bad guys, all make their way into this book. You get a pretty uninteresting build up into a mediocre action scene that reveals something you would know by looking at the cover of the book. I did, for the most part, appreciate the art in this book. Jonathan Lau's details on faces and his use of shadows is skillful, but he seems to lose some of the detail during the actions scenes.
I am curious to see how the Green Lantern is reintroduced, so I may read further. I think one thing that was really missing from this was a reason to care about this washed up superhero or his bratty son. I felt like with some of the dialogue and characters Smith was making an attempt to make the Green Hornet more current, but it felt very flat, like he was at his computer saying, "hmmm. What are kids laughing at these days?".
Did anyone else read Smith's Batman mini series, "Cacophony"? This felt very similar to that in the sense that it was Kevin Smith taking on a classic character and ultimately not doing very much with it. There's nothing that stands out here to make with worth a read. Pass on it