The Stardust Kid #2 (of 4) - Image/Desperado (2005)

Hey, kids! It's my 100th post!

Of course, that's less than a tenth of what some folks have but I've only been doing this since May.

Now, to the review:



When I reviewed the first issue of this miniseries I mentioned that there was too much telling and not enough showing. This issue does not suffer from that malady but it does make the first issue irrelevant. J. M. Dematteis is an excellent writer and the story in The Stardust Kid is a good one but he started it too early. My wife had not read issue #1 but had absolutely no trouble getting into the story. In fact, I discovered that it reads better if you start with #2. Perhaps you could pick up #1 later and consider it a prequel or something akin to the Secret Files of The Stardust Kid. The pictures are really pretty.

Which brings us to the excellent work of Mike Ploog. The comic has an excellent mix of cartoony and dark elements just as the story does. The threes of you who read Noetic Concordance regularly have probably noticed that I'm big on the art fitting the story. This does so in the best way possible.

The story involves a 12 year-old named Cody who has a not-so-imaginary friend named Paul. Paul is an ancient Faerie creature. There's all sorts of metaphor and subtext about how Cody is getting older and is about to forget childish things but I prefer to read it at face value. The conflict is provided by an even-more-ancient Faerie creature who is pissed off that all these humans have shown up and started screwing up the place. She starts turning everything into plant life.

Cody, his sister and two of their friends have to put everything back like it should be and Paul is indisposed. The story is interesting even if the narrative conceit is a bit annoying in a couple of spots. I think this would be a good title for younger readers but I'm really bad at guessing age ranges for that sort of thing. I can say that there's very little violence in the book and none of it is graphic in any way. The language is clean and the art is accessible. It's worth a flipthrough to see if you think a kid you know would enjoy it.

I don't know what Image's trade-paperback policy is but if it comes out in that form some time down the road I'd recommend getting it. However, if you run across the second issue and can't find the first you'll still be good to go.