Skybourne #1

Skybourne is Frank Cho’s one-man show. It’s being marketed as a spy-thriller with a dash of fantasy--James Bond meets Sword and the Stone. If that’s all Cho wanted, that’s technically what we got. Unfortunately, its dialogue is pulled from the rejected pages of late Roger Moore Bond scripts--you know, the bad ones--and its action scenes fall flat because they fail to unfold logically. Cho looks past all the stepping stones on his way to a badass payoff. Instead of appreciating how awesome the finale is, it’s difficult to look past the absurd chain of events that led there.

The first issue follows Grace Skybourne as she attempts to recover an artifact that her employer has paid for. Surprise surprise, the seller double-crosses her and demands more money. The dialogue is paint-by-numbers in this scene. You know those opening scenes in Bond movies that require little more than a flimsy excuse for our hero to start kicking ass? That’s more or less what this is. After Skybourne is double-crossed, the two parties initiate in so-called banter (that telegraphs the punchline) and she eventually starts tearing people to shreds. Literally.

After an interesting first page that is never mentioned again, none of the action scenes give us surprises. Stories like this don’t necessarily need M. Night Shyamalan twists or anything, but they should at least make us raise our eyebrows at a creative turn of events. After about fifteen years of watching Mark Millar characters eviscerate one another, a punch through chest is somewhat blaise. We’ve also seen bullets bend around characters since Metal Gear Solid 2 in 2001. Maybe this comic book would have been better if it were released fifteen years ago.

Perhaps worst of all is that the artwork is disappointing. It’s not terrible. This is still Frank Cho, after all. But this issue barely has a background to speak of, which strips away any depth the scenes might have had. Cho uses silhouettes during an escape when he should be provided us vital information to scene’s procedure. Immediately thereafter, Cho misses the opportunity to show us that a door has locked. Instead, a character unnaturally vocalizes it. Later, Skybourne unsheathes a sword in a car and even after looking at it for a few moments, it’s unclear how she brandished it without scraping the roof or bopping the driver in the head. He even Liefelds some feet.

When I see that Frank Cho created, wrote and illustrated a comic, including covers, I expected a tour-de-force. I expected something that he’d kept close to the vest for fear of plagiarism, a powerhouse comic book debut with mind-blowing action scenes and snappy dialogue. Skybourne #1 is just plain vanilla. It fails to lift its fantasy or spy elements above anything we’ve seen in a thousand B-movies and quarter bins. Hopefully next issue will give something with a little more flavor.