Steampunk never looked so bland.
Creative Staff:
Story: Mark Alan Miller, Joe R. Lansdale
Art: Piotr Kowalski
Colors: Kelly Fitzpatrick
What They Say:
The Old West, but not as we know it. Giant steam-powered robots are created to take down invading Martians and armies of killer albino apes in an all-out brawl. The Steam Man, a giant metal man operated by a team of monster hunters, seems to have the town protected and the West under control, until a crazed and powerful vampire comes to town to bring forth the apocalypse!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
You know, a story about a giant steam powered mecha robot fighting aliens should be a premise that gets the blood flowing. It did for me when I first laid eyes on the cover depicting steam man ripping apart an alien drone, one tentacle at a time. Unfortunately, the book is about as rusty as the titular steam man.
Our story opens in the old west, aliens have invaded and wiped out town after town with their advanced technology. I’ll give the book credit, it does build up the threat these aliens possess. You get the feeling their presence has brought unknowable devastation to this place, culminating with the main character, William Beadle, saying, “They tore their holes in the sky.” William and his crew gather their resources to fight these monsters from the stars, eventually creating the steam man. Steam man is a giant robot powered by steam with enough brute force to destroy an alien mech. The group makes great headway towards fighting the aliens, but then all the aliens just die.
So this comic is a huge $4 lesson in how not to write a story. The first half of the book is spent building up the threat of the aliens and the steam man fighting them in some pretty cool battles. That all just ends with a throwaway line about how the aliens just died because of diseases. Yeah, these things are a War of the Worlds ripoff done incredibly poorly. I cannot fathom why the writers gave up on their initial premise without rewriting the first half after the fact. It makes the whole first part of the story pointless other than to show why they made the steam man. This reeks of laziness with no clear idea of what they wanted The Steam Man to be in the first place.
I’ll throw up a spoilers warning in case you’re still interested in reading this book. Stop here or lest ye be spoiled.
So it turns out, William built the steam man to fight a vampire. You heard me right, he built a giant steam powered man to fight a normal sized human-looking vampire. All this, was so he could avenge his dead wife.
It is at this point I started to really look at the characters. You have William, who is a basic uptight boss with a dark past. Then you have his two engineers, Mike Hammer and Alfred Blake. One of them is a wisecracking comic relief character, and the other is a wisecracking comic relief character. I could not tell you a single distinguishing trait between the two other than one wears goggles.
And finally, we have the uncomfortable elephant in the room, John Feather. He’s a native american tracker with a whole batch of vague spiritual and folksy wisdom. I have issues with John, the rest of the group call him Feather, in that his character is pretty much a stereotype, and yet he’s the most interesting character in the book. Every scene where he’s the focus is the best part of the comic, whether he’s making fun of the others for wearing clothes inside the incredibly hot steam man, or shooting an alien straight in the head with a rifle. I have to ask why the writers couldn’t have made him an engineer or someone more important? Why is he on the steam man in the first place when he’s a wilderness tracker and they spend most of their time inside steam man’s cockpit? John is just there because the setting demanded it which is the worst part about his character.
So you have a confused story populated by bland and uninteresting characters. Maybe the art can save this book? Well unfortunately, the art isn’t much to look at. I will say it’s not that that bad all things considered, at least during the first half of the book. The art is at its best when steam man is fighting an alien because it shows how difficult and arduous it was to take down just one of the creatures. Everyone is panicking inside of steam man as the alien wraps its tendrils around the robot, and they only just manage to defeat it in the end through luck. I actually enjoy the art for what it is, but everyone’s faces are off model and the style takes a strange turn near the end for some reason. I can’t understand why the art looked so different at the end of the book, which is one of the most bizarre things I have seen in a long while. I’ll give the art a pass because it did a good job with the alien fight, but that’s about it.
What is there left to say? It’s a trainwreck of a book with no focus and very little substance. I would give it a major pass.
In Summary:
The Steam Man is a bland comic with no idea of what it wants to be. The initial premise is not strong enough to carry this comic through a lackluster story and stereotypical characters. Don’t let the cover draw you into this confused mess of a comic that thinks the idea of a steam powered robot is enough to sell you junk.
Grade: D+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: October 21st, 2015
MSRP: $3.99
