Tarnished Review

Tarnished

writers- various

art- various

Our friends at Broken Soul Press are back with a vengeance. The same folks that brought us Curse of The Black Terror are once again proving that there isn't a comic book character out there that can't be made interesting.

From a forgotten age of heroes, Broken Soul has put together Tarnished, an anthology book comprised of stories featuring The Green Ghost, The Black Terror, Agent 99, and The Black Cat. Of course they've put a newer, darker spin on the characters and they've freshened up the Golden Age the way only Broken Soul can.

Here's a breakdown of the book:

Simulacrum, A Green Ghost Yarn

writer- Curtis Lawson

art- Alex Diotto & Francesco Pisa

This story brings back a character I've always wanted to see, The Green Ghost. The Green Ghost is hunting down simulacrum, or magical clones. He blasts them with his gun and they return to the sand from which they were made. When one particular simulacrum gives him more trouble than he expects, the Green Ghost learns something shocking about himself.

I loved this story! Like I said, I have always wanted to read about the Green Ghost. I'm familiar with the character somewhat, and besides one old reprinting of a story, this is the only time I've seen him in action. The story is five pages long but it's written very well and stands pretty strong. Lawson's love for the Golden Age allows him to pay tribute to it in a way that gives readers a reason to love it as well.

Diotto and Pisa's art is perfect for the dark theme of this anthology. There's something about thick black lines that intensify the action and make the art jump right off the page. It's all just amazing. These two could carry the artistic responsibilities on a whole Green Ghost series for Broken Soul Press and I'd be happy. Also, I can't give all this praise to the art department without saying something about the colors. Often times, the colorist is either overlooked or overshadowed, but in the case of Simulacrum, A Green Ghost Yarn, Curtis Lawson's colors really add to the overall look of the story. There's definitely something great here and I hope to see this team with this character again soon.

Giant Killer

writers- Vanessa Carney & James M. Biggie

art- Frankie B. Washington

Hollywood starlet, Linda Turner, takes the identity of The Black Cat and joins a super team called the Planetary Protectors. She's immediately assigned a mission from J. Edgar Hoover, that puts her up against racism, sexism, and homophobia... all from members of her own team. Thanks to her vow to protect the United States of America and its citizens, Black Cat may end up paying the ultimate price for getting too close to the truth.

Carney and Biggie are a couple of writers that I definitely need to look further into. Their gritty version of 1956, makes me think about the actual secrets our country kept from us back then, and the secrets individual citizens kept from everyone in the privacy of their own home. It's a real dark look at what we thought was a more innocent time.

Washington's art also implies something innocent, though the story says otherwise. The style of art is one that could really make the Planetary Protectors look like smiley, happy, bubbly super-heroes, if they weren't so busy raping, murdering, and sexually harassing everybody else in the book. It's a style of art that makes the feel of the story that much more shocking. If I had four hands, I'd give Giant Killer four thumbs up and a big grin of approval.

Skin Deep

writer- Curtis Lawson

art- Michael Kennedy

The third story in the anthology is about a character I've grown to love, thanks to Curtis Lawson. It's a Black Terror story and strangely enough, it doesn't have The Black Terror in it. Skin Deep tells the story of a young upstart who goes into a tattoo parlor to get inked in celebration of killing the Black

Terror, a vicious and violent vigilante who has been cleaning the streets, one bloody swipe at a time. The kid sounds awfully proud of himself, as he tells the tattoo artist his story and how he got the drop on the scourge of the criminal underworld. Now, I know and you know that the writer would never kill of The Black Terror (or would he?), but Lawson does such a great job of building the tension during the kid's story that we are completely surprised when he finds out he didn't actually kill anyone and something terrible happens to him because of his mistake. I literally sat back and yelled, “Oh damn!” when I got to the end. Like I said, there's no actual sign of The Black Terror in the story, but this story makes him more badass than anything else out there.

I really like when art and color compliment each other. Kennedy's art is thick and vague and plays with the shadows and light throughout each panel, and Curtis Lawson's colors seem to play with Kennedy's art. It's a case of the two working together to get an extremely cool effect.

Lawson made me a fan of The Black Terror with his web-comic revival of the old Golden Age character, Curse of The Black Terror, and any mention of the character's name has me jumping to see what the writer is doing with him next.

Agent 99 vs. Satan

writer- Kenny Jeffery

art- Joe Griggs

Now, I'm familiar with the Green Ghost and the Black Cat, and I'm pretty familiar with The Black Terror, but I don't think I've ever heard of Agent 99 until now. Apparently, Agent 99 is a deep cover spy, often finding himself on the other side of enemy lines, using various disguises to do what he needs to get done. In this final story in the Tarnished anthology, Agent 99 disguises himself as Hitler and goes to Hell to fight the devil. It's a concept that has me looking for stories with the original incarnation of this character in them.

I thought this story was ok. I know it's an anthology and that Jeffery only had five pages, but it seems to me that there wasn't enough space to make his story really good. The idea of a secret agent with the mastery of disguise, taking his war right to Satan himself with no explanation of how he got to Hell in the first place is a great idea. I love it, but it seemed rushed and indeterminate, and even cut off at the end.

Joe Griggs' style of art is nice for this kind story. It makes the reader squirmy and uneasy, just as they should be when facing the ruler of Hell. But again, there seems to be something lacking. It's not in the art itself, but in the images he decided to use. Nothing is ever shown fully. We get all these images from the waist down or panels with just a mouth, an eye, or an ear. And maybe it's because you're not supposed to see what Agent 99 looks like, but it comes off as being brief and rushed.

I think Agent 99 vs. Satan would have been a better story if the artist and the writer had better fleshed out what they were doing and perhaps if they had about five more pages to work with. All that said, I'm still going to look for more Agent 99, and I'm still going to look for more fleshed out work from Kenny Jeffery and Joe Griggs.

So check out Tarnished. It's a fun new offering from the gang at Broken Soul Press and it's worth a read. Broken Soul Press can be found on Facebook or on their website. And be sure to read The Curse of The Black Terror. It's some of the best in web-comics today.