Written by: Frank J. Barbiere
Art by: Brent Schoonover
Publisher: Marvel
I hadn’t heard of Howling Commandos of SHIELD until I took a look at issues that needed reviews this week. Looking into it a bit more, I actually got pretty excited to check it out. Marvel’s answer to the Suicide Squad, but with the supernatural side of the universe? Not only did that concept sound awesome (it still does, by the way), it seemed like it could spark a revival in Marvel’s supernatural series, akin to DC’s “Dark” line. That was exciting to me, since it’s a subgenre of superhero comics that I have a huge soft spot for.
Unfortunately, despite really wanting to like the debut issue of Howling Commandos of SHIELD, I couldn’t bring myself to enjoy it. Sure, the action scenes that dominate the issue are entertaining, but comics are hard-pressed to produce action sequences that aren’t. The art is fine, but it’s nothing special, and it doesn’t match the tone of the book especially well. The aesthetic of Schoonover’s art would feel more at home on a book like Ms Marvel or Batgirl than it does here. This book isn’t really in the vein of either of those books, though at times it tries to be. Honestly, I would have loved it to be different, and go for a darker tone. For the most part, it does, but there are attempts at quirky humor that not only feel out of place, but also fail to elicit anything more than a cringe.
Not only is it tonally inconsistent, there’s nothing here to really grab the reader. None of the characters are all that interesting – in fact, I don’t think you can really call any of them characters. Most of them get zero meaningful dialogue, and the ones that do are horrendously overwritten. It certainly doesn’t help that none of them seem to have any motivation. SHIELD keeps supernatural villains captive, and yet they fight for SHIELD, seemingly with no incentive? That just doesn’t make sense. The only real attempt to establish character motivation is with Duggan, and even that is half-baked. There’s a scene where he’s looking at his LMDs and talking to himself, which is not only far too long, but also fails to do anything for the character.
He also seems to harbor sympathy for the rest of the Commandos, despite this mission depicting his first mission with them. He may be an entirely selfless character, but he goes out of his way to ensure the safety of another character who doesn’t have a single line of dialogue in the entire issue. That doesn’t make any sense, and if anything, it portrays Duggan as being a buffoon, which isn’t super interesting to read. Also, the conflict between him and Reyna is just silly. Reyna goes out of his way to remind Duggan who’s in charge, even though Duggan never seems interested in challenging his authority, which makes Reyna look like a completely inadequate idiot.
Finally, there’s the exposition. Barbiere really seems to go out of his way to explain minute details that don’t seem to matter at inopportune moments. The dialogue is overwritten enough as it is, injecting useless information into it certainly doesn’t help anything.
There really doesn’t seem to be any reason to pick this book up. If you’re looking for a team book, find something that actually has characters that interact with one another, because this series has neither. The interactions that are here are inexplicable and over written, as if the book has absolutely no time to bother with subtlety. Plus, even if it had everything I’ve mentioned, it would still be hard to care about characters that don’t seem to have logical, if any, motivation, to be doing what they’re doing in this issue. In short: avoid this issue.
