The web deepens.
Creative Staff:
Story: Chris Roberson
Art: Cezar Razek
Colors: Dijo Lima
What They Say:
While she seems like a sweet old lady to the staff at the nursing home where she resides, only Doc Savage knows that a seemingly harmless elderly woman was once a member of a doomsday cult that threatened to kick off World War III back in the 1970s, and might well hold the key to a mystery that threatens the safety of the world in the modern day.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Doc Savage is working a steady path here to unfurl what it is that it wants to be about as it works the storyline in both past and present. This does work out ideally because we get bookend material in this chapter that lets us deal with the modern day team and adapt to them in that setting in small doses while also giving us the bulk of the book set in the past, which in turn impacts the present. The flashback material and stories definitely bring out elements of the time, though it’s also a bit frustrating since Savage and his crew are often far more progressive than everyone else, sometimes too much so. But not having lived through these periods myself, it’s hard to tell just how much further out of the mainstream of those times they are.
With this chapter, the present day piece is interesting as we get Doc with a few others bringing a woman named Laura Silver to the old convalescent facility they have to try and access her past memories. The facility has been closed for a while and it certainly looks worn down from the exterior, but the interior has been kept functional and clean. The nod towards congressional investigations is intriguing as it hints a bit more of some of what Savage and his company has to deal with. The movements here are mostly setup and closure, but it works well as we see how they handle the elderly woman to try and get what they need while being respectful of her and what she’s been through as well as not wanting to unlock them again. Considering how they fought in the past, it’s amusing to see them so pleasantly polite in this instance.
The flashback story from Silver’s memories takes us back to 1974 where we see Savage and his team being brought in to find Silver as she was a pretty young woman of privilege who went missing. The discovery that Arachne was involved leads to showing how they tracked them down, which is a lot of fun to go through the various locales of the time and see how well Razek illustrates it, bringing it to life in a really good way. The story is one that’s simple cult material for the most part, though tied to something larger that Doc still has to figure out to help in the present, but seeing the old James Bond style events and the rescue that they perform, and how they perform it, works well. That plus the investigation with the smaller crew that Savage had at the time talks of how progressive he was then as well with a diversified group of talented individuals.
In Summary:
This Doc Savage series is one that I’m enjoying on one level but also feel like it hasn’t gelled together well to be a compelling story in the big picture sense. I like the individual stories as they’re creative ways to tell the tales of “classic” Doc while still keeping a foot firmly in the present. Roberson has the voices for the characters down well and the narration works right to add the extra exposition without being too heavy. Razek’s artwork is spot on in bringing it to life, though it’s more traditional in terms of actual panel layouts and flow, which feels a little old school and manages to work quite well with what it presents. It’s a solidly put together book but it just lacks that extra oomph to really take it up a notch or two in engagement level.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: February 10th. 2016
MSRP: $3.99
