2 out of 5

I like ‘Big Trouble in Little China.’  I fully believe that Eric Powell loves it.  But much like the writer’s recent Goon output, what we have here is a comic that seems to be coasting by more on vibe than content.  Goon, with its now built-in audience (and ability to rope in new readers who are roller derby girls and tattooed burly men) has lost much of its earlier inspired insanity and exists more as cheap puns with good art and occasionally heavy noir underpinnings.  It looks and sounds the way we expect it to, so we keep buying it and keep “enjoying” it.  Most of this built-in audience probably has fond memories of ‘Big Trouble,’ or are cool enough to know they’re supposed to have fond memories of it, and thus BOOM has scored a nice double whammy of automatic readers.  As long as Powell didn’t outright spit on the history – which, since the book is mostly just call-outs to the film building up to a new monster chase, totally wasn’t the case – ‘Big Trouble’ would be a win.  And though his art doesn’t appeal to me, Brian Churilla’s cheesecake style will totally do in a pinch of Powell himself won’t be pickin’ up the brush.

So I’m not the intended audience.  I haven’t been craving more Jack Burton my whole life, and I’m sorta burned on Goon.  I just said Churilla’s style is a good match, and it is, but personal taste: the dude has an alarming habit of dropping backgrounds and tons of details that always makes his books look rather sloppy to me.  If this had been more of the springboard concept I was hoping for (like Powell’s super fun Billy the Kid series), then… something.  But on the plus side, I think it’s what most people were probably hoping for: more ‘Big Trouble in Little China.’