Black Ice #26

Russ Rogers (9:25 AM on Tue Jan 13, 2009)

Is that it? Was that really the final installment of Black Ice? The story doesn't end so much as it just stops. (Why am I complaining? I begged for this book to stop months ago! I also swore I wouldn't comment again. But, just like Black Ice, I'm not living up to my promise.)

The final panel has a the baby haddison evolving like a Pokemon. That's a strange non-sequitur to have as the final image. I've been waiting for another episode, an epilogue, something to tie up loose ends and make some sense of this resolution. But now I doubt that another episode will come. Did somebody pull the plug on Black Ice? Did it run out of steam, money or did Mike Baron and Mike Gold finally decide to put this sad, crippled pony of a story out of it's misery? Did Baron and Oaks just get as tired by Black Ice as I was by the end? There have been long delays between installments of Black Ice in the past, so I'm really not sure if this is the end.

By the way, why is this book called "Black Ice"? I kept waiting for some reference in the story and it just didn't come. Maybe that's a metaphor for this book. I kept waiting for Black Ice to make sense or get good and that didn't happen either.

This issue revisited the most preposterous of plot devices: mention it's somebody's birthday and everyone will try to kill them. And poor Roland, the innocent gondolier, cut down in his prime, all because Prince Orum was trying to escape his birthday festivities. Let's face it, nothing in this book made sense. I guess it wasn't supposed to. I just frustrated myself trying to sort it out.

I did like the image of the Pomegs tearing Prince Orum apart, but I'm a Frank Zappa fan. I enjoyed the reference to "Weasels Ripped My Flesh."

How did Sir Boss sneak a knife into his meeting with the Helmut leader? Doesn't anybody frisk a prisoner? Nothing makes sense. Why am I asking the characters or plot to make sense!

It was fun watching Lee Oaks develop as an artist. You can see him gain confidence and progress from episode to episode. But Oaks' art never became masterful enough to pull "Black Ice" out of the tailspin death-spiral the plot ended up falling into.

This story had some cool elements, some nice ingredients, they just didn't come together to make any sense or ulitmately be entertaining. To my eyes, Black Ice is a Grand Failure, the single worst comic that ComicMix has offered up so far.

I wish someone else would comment on ComicMix comics. I take very little pleasure in being this negative. I just wish "Black Ice" had lived up to the promise of Mike Baron writing a Swashbuckling Fantasy Adventure. (I remember a story with Badger and Nexus on a flying ship. That was funny and cool. Was that Badger in "Nexus" or Nexus in "Badger"? I think that might have been the Bowl Shaped World [Nexus 6-8] in the First First Issues of Nexus!) Maybe my expectations were too high. Most comics aren't as good as Badger and Nexus. I've just come to expect more from Mike Baron, Mike Gold and ComicMix than the half-baked crap that "Black Ice" delivered.