Doc Savage (2010 series) #18 Comic Book

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Peter Silvestro (August 7, 2012)
Review (the issue): Lame story/epic art is how to sum up the final issue of the series. The battle scenes with their double-page spreads are exciting, even helping us overlook Dan Panosian’s sleepy-eyed bullet-headed Doc (though not the apish Doc on the final page). Sadly the story looks like they were trying to wrap up the story as quickly as possible, with the resurrection of Genghis Khan—the event that provided the arc’s title—is totally forgotten. The imagination that went into the earlier issues is gone, with a simple bow-and-arrow fight clearing up the details. It’s a shame, really, since J.G. Jones came the closest to capturing the spirit of the original Doc Savage pulps, he just needed a little more time to get the hang of it.

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Peter Silvestro (August 7, 2012)
Review (the series): While this series hasn’t been among my favorites, I thought it was finally getting to be acceptable with Jones taking over the writing but DC clearly gave up supporting the title some time ago (the First Wave universe was officially cancelled several months before this issue would have appeared). The First Wave project was imaginative, though it never seemed to know who the target audience was (do comic books fans care about the old pulps? Do old pulp fans care about comic books?) but at least it was better than DC’s previous attempt at bringing the Man of Bronze into the modern era (late 80s/early 90s). The aret was wildly uneven in the s eries, original writer Paul Malmont, though having written THE CHINATOWN DEATH CLOUD PERIL, seemed uncomfortable with penning a new Doc adventure, and all the stories that were foreshadowed in the first arc were thrown out of the window when Brian Azzarello took over. And though Azzarello had written the original FIRST WAVE miniseries, his Doc Savage was a dark and intense war story that was far from the spirit of the original. J.G. Jones had the right idea of juggling over-the-top elements (Mongolian mummies! Cyborg crocoldiles! The resurrection of Genghis Khan!) for a fast-paced spirited adventure, though he was not helped by his artists. Final result: a series that never found its character—someone must have had a vision for what they wanted this series to be, what happened to it? Rather disappointing.