Written by: Marv Wolfman
Art by: Allison Borges & Blond
Publisher: DC Comics
Initially, it seemed odd to me that DC would bring Marv Wolfman on to write a modern interpretation of Raven, a character he defined with his work in the 1980’s. Bringing back older creators to do contemporary work hasn’t been a strategy that’s worked particularly well for them in the past. Nearly every time they tried it during The New 52, it was a disaster, and what is Rebirth, if not DC showing that they learned from the mistakes of The New 52? So yeah, I felt a bit of trepidation going into this book, though I tried my best to remain cautiously optimistic.
I don’t know if it’s because of my tempered expectations of the actual quality of the book, but I found myself quite enjoying Raven #1. I do have a bit of an affinity for the character, though I haven’t read a ton of great comics that she stars in. This issue doesn’t change that, but this series certainly has the potential to. There are a lot of elements about the issue I enjoy, but it never feels like it has quite enough time to bring them all together. It goes from introducing Raven’s extended family, to tossing her into high school, to introducing elements of the supernatural to the high school and the surrounding area – all within the space of 18 pages.
I guess I’ve gotten used to other publishers spoiling me with 25-30 page issues, because everything about Raven #1 felt rushed. Just as I was getting a feel for her aunt’s family, that was removed from the issue. The same goes for the group that attempts to befriend her when she’s at school. In theory, I liked those sets of characters. There’s dramatic tension between them and Raven, that much is established in this issue. There are certainly some interesting conflicts that could arise from said tensions, but honestly, there’s not enough space in this issue to flesh any of that out. I need to see more to be fully convinced that this is a book that’s worth my time.
Look, the likelihood of me sticking with it is decently high, because I do like where I think some of this is going. For instance, I find the religious conflict between Raven and her family to be an interesting angle to play with, considering she’s the daughter of the devil – in as literal a sense possible. So inserting her into what seems like an evangelical family is kind of perfect, especially if Wolfman is interested in playing up the comedic aspect of the affair. Even barring that, it’s interesting simply for plot and character reasons as well. The thing is, and I probably sound like a broken record at this point, this issue doesn’t have enough time to convince me that it’s interesting. I mean, I’ve convinced myself that it is, but that has little to do with the actual content of the issue.
To be honest, that’s incredibly frustrating, which is pretty much this issue in a nut shell. It just frustrates me – I’m not livid about it like I was with Action Comics, but I’m not passionately excited about it like I am for Wonder Woman either. For the time being, it’s on the somewhat negative side of “well, that is in fact a comic book that can be purchased.” That’s not a great way to be left feeling after a debut issue, especially a debut issue that I was hoping would be good.
Visually, Allison Borges and Blond do a solid job with what they’re given. It very much looks like the DC house style, but the duo do a pretty good job of capturing that. It’s a bummer though, because there are some awesome looking pages in this book – one in particular that takes place in Raven’s dreamscape. It’s clear that Borges has some artistic chops, but it would be nice to see her do more of the cool shit and less of the fairly pedestrian high school scenes. Or at least make those scenes more visually interesting than they are. Because, while there’s nothing wrong with the art, it just isn’t really worth getting excited about, for the most part.
I guess that sums up this issue pretty well. I don’t think it does anything that’s all that bad. Sure, there may be a few text boxes too many on some pages, but really Raven #1 is rather inoffensive. There’s just no reason to be excited about future issues. For me, that’s actually kind of worse than the issue being offensively bad, because it means I’ll be giving it at least another issue, probably two. And at that point I might as well finish the mini, which could end being a mistake. Granted, the book has the potential to actually be a pretty great mini series. And I hope it meets that potential, but the debut issue isn’t convincing. That’s pretty damning.
