1 out of 5

You know what’s proven most difficult to translate in these screen-cap comic-ized episode summaries?  Action and dark backgrounds.  So adapter Justin Eisinger has already had his work cut out for him with – and has thus far only been able to wrangle a certain amount of quality out of – a source show that mostly takes place at night and has a lot of action.  Besides, presumably, selecting scenes (and maybe he doesn’t get the full episodes’ “shots” to work from, who knows) and arranging panels, there’s also then the decision of what dialogue to use, and what to add via extra narration.  This juggling act of undesirable variables gave way to readable material the last couple volumes, at least for someone really desperate to re-live the show in print form.  (Need I express again confusion over the market for these books?  No comment on why I keep buying them.)  But volume 4 regresses.  In part, it’s because these two mutagen-themed episodes – the mutation situation, with April’s dad going Kirby-bat, and Mutagen Man Unleashed, which features the further transformation of Pulverizer into the eponymous unleashed man – are very action and night-time based, both essentially falling back onto chase sequences on the streets of NY.  But the attempt to further distill this process down to its core beats misfires, Eisinger now dropping transition panels from A to B such that pages where a lot is happening end up feeling like all still shots (meaning action isn’t even implied, whoops), and his choice narration feels incredibly random, no real pattern to the type of scenario when it seems like it will appear.  And letterer Tom Long gets in on the water-muddying antics by having sound effects completely obscure the panel sometimes, making what discernible action there is hidden behind a BLAM.  Unless that was the point, or unless that was a specific script direction.

Who knows.  I recognize this is a “working with what you got” setup, and probably not a ton of fun.  Still, based on the core values of whether the comic captures the essence of an episode and/or can function as a distracting read, volume 4 misses both marks.