Deathmatch #4

Deathmatch #4
Boom Studios Comics
Written by Paul Jenkins
Art by Carlos Magno

I’m pretty sure a lot of us thought bout this. Imagine if a boatload of Superheroes or Super villains were pulled out of comics, books and popular culture, thrown into an arena and forced to fight to the death. They have no memory of what occurred outside the arena all they know is that they need to fight one-on-one combat until there is only one person left. But what happens when some of the contestants start to realize that things are not right and are trying to escape or just to shut down the system. This is the premise for Deathmatch.

The art was gritty, somewhat raw; I think to give an overtone of the feeling going on in the arena and in the “locker room.” There were times when this helped and added to what was going on but other times it took away from what was going on. To go along with that, the paneling was easy to follow, it did not have any weird shapes or an odd flow patterns. Now the writing was a bit difficult for me to follow. The story, to me, seemed choppy at times. The characters were difficult to follow. But I was able to get through and see what was going on after a bit.

This is one where, again, if I would have read the first issue or issues, I might have a better idea of what was going on. But Boom chose not to tell us or remind us what happened before, a pet peeve of mine. Also, some of the characters resembled others from different companies. I don’t know if this is by design or not (on a personal note, they copied one of my favorite characters which I don’t mind too much). But the premise is good and you have to wonder, are they going to get back to their homes? Is there a true villain? What brought them here? There are ups and downs on this. In my humble opinion, read the first books then, get this one. Don’t pick it up cold. I give this 3 caps out of 5.