Written by: Fabian Rangel, Jr
Art by: Warwick Johnson Cadwell
Published by: IDW
I came into the first issue of Helena Crash pretty excited. The concept sounded just absurd enough to be a ridiculous amount of fun, and it was riding plenty of positive buzz. And for the first couple pages of this issue, I could see it. I was getting into the book, excited to turn the page! And then–
Then it hit with the fucking internal monologue exposition dump. The book was riding a wave of momentum following a blistering cold open, and then threw it all away. It was such a shockingly abrupt shift that it has maybe resulted in me being a bit harsher than I’d like to be. It went from being very good about showing and not telling to doing…well, doing the exact opposite.
I don’t want facts about the world and the lead character to be told to me in an internal monologue. It’s meaningless and accomplishes absolutely nothing. Show me these things, and I’ll buy into them.
Even worse is when Rangel Jr feels the need to explain things that are happening. For instance, there’s a scene where Helena gets provoked into a bar fight, and during the fight, she’s thinking to herself about how much of a mistake the guy is making. The thing is, Cadwell’s art does that job on its own. The way she easily dispatches her assailant is more than enough to get the point across that Helena is not someone you want to mess with.
It would have made for an excellent scene if it hadn’t been for the stupid exposition.
All of this is especially a shame because of how excellent Cadwell’s art is across the board. His style is a little surreal, and it makes for an aesthetic that is really fun to look at. He’s also a really solid visual storyteller, which makes a lot of the writing feel redundant. At times, his art is really given the chance to shine, and it works seamlessly with Rangel Jr’s writing.
The problem is that these moments don’t happen often enough. Some of the best moments are late in the book, and by that point, I was already off it. It was a bummer too, because I’ve been looking for something light-hearted and fun to read every month.
Alas, Helena Crash is not that book. It’s highs are quite high, but there just aren’t enough of them. In the end, this issue feels rough and inconsistent.
