ADVANCE REVIEW Django Zorro #1 Review

PLEASE NOTE THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

Written by: Quentin Tarantino and Matt Wagner

Art by: Esteve Polls

Publisher: Dynamite

Django Zorro is the official sequel to Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained. After the events of the film, Django finds himself heading West to fight more evil, collect some bounties, and avoid the people who want his head back in the East. While on his travels he runs into Diego de la Vega, a rich man who seems oddly unconcerned with the color of his skin and who can hold his own during fights. Diego, of course, is none other than Zorro, and Django is soon offered the job of being his bodyguard.

This first issue is a rather odd issue because it seems to struggle somewhat with blending the characters. It’s not that they don’t go together or anything like that, it’s more that they don’t want to waste time with introductions. Django’s backstory is essentially glossed over, meaning that you must watch the movie to understand certain references, and Diego is presented as little more than some rich man. The writers are both solely relying on the readers’ presumed knowledge of the characters to really sell the story and I can’t help but feel this may turn off a decent amount of people who are picking up the issue for one of the characters over the other.

Oddly enough, Matt Wagner’s Zorro comes off as a much more stronger character in print which may ultimately have to do with the fact that Wagner has been writing Zorro for years. Tarantino’s Django still comes across nicely but I can’t help but feel like his character just hasn’t translated to print that well. Within Tarantino’s over-the-top movie universe, having a sort of straight and serious character contrasts nicely with the hyper-violent world Tarantino gives us consistently. With the slow set up that Django Zorro has, there just isn’t much for Django to do in this first issue. Besides a brief scene where he blasts a couple of racist jerks with his trusty guns, Django takes a backseat to this eccentric millionaire character that is Diego.

Which is why I find this issue so hard to review. It’s easy to see that there’s some very good ideas here and that they’ll (hopefully) present themselves in the near future. But this first issue is sadly lacking the sort of punches I’d expect from something written by Tarantino as well as Wagner. It’s not necessarily boring, it’s just that there isn’t much going on. This first issue is supposed to serve as an introduction but all we essentially get is a rushed story of “Hey, we’re both here. We may as well travel together”. We don’t see much of a partnership, neither character is properly introduced (Zorro is somewhat introduced but Django would essentially be no more than a random merc if you haven’t see Django Unchained), and all we know is that Diego wants Django to be his bodyguard even though he clearly doesn’t need the help. It’s an odd decision for a first issue and I just hope that it means something big is brewing.

The best thing about this comic is the art, however. Esteve Polls is probably the best artist in the Western/Cowboy genre and his artwork remains some of the best in the industry in general. Everything is drawn with the familiar sepia tones we associate with Westerns and his backgrounds are full of details that make them seem like fully realized places. I’m so happy that Polls was chosen for this project and his art of Django feels so natural that I almost can’t believe that Django himself wasn’t started in the pages of a Polls’ comic.

I sincerely hope that the series gets better. Zorro and Django killing some racist jerks together can be all the fun in the world if its handled correctly and I hope that Tarantino injects some more of himself into the story because right now it ultimately feels like a work by Wagner. A Zorro comic can still be Zorro with some zany Tarantino writing thrown in the mix and I’d love if this comic reached the level that Django Unchained reached. It feels like the pieces are there but they’re struggling to be put together. Only time will tell.