3 out of 5

Meh, yeh, whatever you want to do with Indian culture, Grant: she’s all yours.  I guess.  I’m sure thats what Graphic India feels, happy to have a mega creator at the helm, though it seems like his pitch so far – with 18 Days and now this title – is to just modernize everything with sci-fi.  Like I said, whatever.  I’m pretty forgiving with FCBD issues in terms of whether or not I like the book, and I think I’ve already decided that Grant’s Graphic India stuff is going to be of a certain shruggy style that probably won’t amount to much, even if there are certainly interesting ideas to be mined.  So Avatarex – presumably the first few pages of an upcoming ongoing and not material unique to this FCBD – is, like 18 Days, another “myth turned into superhero” thing, except this time it takes place in the modern age and it looks like the ‘twist’ is that muscle guy Avatarex, after being awakened in a spaceship, is going to be forced into a Thor-like Donald Blake existence as a mortal for a while, proving that all culture is actually ripped from comic books in some kind of reverse timeline manipulation that Marvel and DC would probably endorse.  While there really aren’t enough pages to determine if ‘Rex will be good, there’s enough to establish the top-down style (i.e. big and bold narration) and to see Jeevan J. Kang’s widescreen style.  So: fair enough.

Also included, some script pages (not many notes, so not of too much value) and then half the book is given over to 18 Days pages from that series’ first issue in order to hype the volume one trade.