Polarity #2

Polarity is one of those books where the more things change, the more they stay the same. It's still sort of a slice of life book about an artist living with bipolar disorder, but now there are powers involved. The powers lead to some fun things, but they also make this issue fall a little flat.

It isn't even because of bad writing, which is the unfortunate part. Now if a guy like Tim (or even a regular guy like you or me) got these powers, of course there would be some purely selfish use of those powers going on. Telling off people you hate is fun, but so much better when you know their secrets. And what comic lover hasn't had at least one idle fantasy about beating up some jocks?

The problem is with Tim being an obvious (and admitted) self-insert for Max Bemis it doesn't feel like organic writing. It feels like he's just trying to exorcise some of his own demons and get some of his own revenge fantasies off his chest. I'm sure it's really cathartic, but it doesn't exactly make for the most enticing read.

It was only about 5 pages or so, but two of them were totally unnecessary. In fact, those two pages were so unneeded that they colored how I looked at the actually important “powers for revenge” pages.

Bemis doesn't need to resort to those things. He is an incredibly likeable character with Tim, but it feels like he's pandering by doing writing these scenes. Either to himself or everyone who wished they could do something about they were treated in high school.

Bemis is better than that. Tim is a character with far too much depth to be reduced to a revenge fantasy. I love seeing Tim expose hypocrisy and fighting for social justice. He strikes me as exactly what would happen if a a jaded twenty-something got powers: expose two-faced people and make them admit their own lies.

The art is better than the first issue. It's still a little inconsistent at times, but I had to look to look for them instead of having them jump out at me.

Jorge Coelho's faces are so expressive. It's the most important thing in a book that's as emotional as Polarity and Coelho does his job right. On the first page is an example of one of the most disappointed faces I have ever seen and it's perfect.

The character design is still wonderful and a jab at some of the New York hipsters. The design of the pop-star struck me as especially great. I've always found the airs put on by some stars of pop music to be somewhat ridiculous and Coelho really ran with it.

All I wonder is how exactly this book will be paced for the last two issues. I'd hate for a good book like this to have a rushed ending.

Oh, it took ten pages into the second issue for a Say Anything reference to come up. I was hoping it wouldn't happen, but it was pretty obtuse. I also may have been looking too hard.