Action Lab Danger Zone 2017
Story by Ceasar Voghan
Script by C. Voghan, J. Case & Eric Granger
Illustrated by Justin Case
Lettered by William Bohm
What if Marilyn Monroe fell in love with Jesus of Nazareth and tried to save him from the cross? There is a world in which this scenario is not that far-fetched: the world of MISBEGOTTEN--a post-apocalyptic saga about hot clones, holy relics, and a priest sent on a mission to spoil the most accurate passion play ever.
Alright not going to lie this whole confused the hell out of me. There’s a great premise here but it seems like there are so many different segments that didn’t go together or have a proper segue from one to another. I felt like I was switching channels and watching something completely new.
So let’s break it down here shall we? The opening is well very church centric in a way. From what I can understand the Vatican or it’s now equivalent has a legitimate army that has been converted to it’s way of thinking. Now I’m not a fan of the church in any way shape or form and ironically the very reason is highlighted in these very pages. They kill unless you convert to their way of thinking and “god forbid” you have your own belief’s. So while they were dealing with the Heathen’s we get to meet an Oracle, a blind girl of ten who has the sight and she reads the Monsignor and tells him what’s to come.
Next up is thing about runaway replikas. No explanation on what they are, how they came to be or anything like that but it does start a bit of what the Oracle had seen. Meanwhile I’m guessing a clone of Marilyn Monroe is screwing a pilot to get off the ship. It just seems to appear at random and okay so we get some titties and his ass, which really isn’t enough, but c’mon other than this serving to get her off the ship did we need to see it?
Suddenly the Monsignor is at the new Vatikan and with the current Pope, Inocentis, where the Marilyn clone has ended up. So I guess this is where she went after getting off the ship. While she’s no Oracle she does have her own two bits to add about Jesus and him ending up on the cross which seems to send them into an uproar.
So finally we meet the man who made Jesus. His Island and those on it and it’s weird. Creative, imaginative and all kinds of whackadoodle interesting. He seems to love his retro stuff, which would explain why the clones he creates are of historical figures, though not why his assistants look like slutty Harlequinns.
I do rather like the artwork here it’s got some great attention to detail. The way that page layouts are utilised through angles and perspective are extremely well done. I like that we see as much use of backgrounds as we do since they help to convey the larger picture. There is some really nice use of imagination and creativity going on here as well as some stunning likenesses.
As much as I want to rave about this book I can’t. Yeah it has this premise that’s intriguing and the cast of characters that we see make us want to know more but it’s not enough. The structure of the story here is a right mess. Nothing flows like it should from one part to the next. There is nothing to tell us what’s going on or how it got this way, no brief catch up on how the world ended up with this version of the church. I want to give this a rave review because I’m used to high quality storytelling from Action Lab this however doesn’t stack up.
I'll give this one more issue to come together and impress me but with as disjointed as it feels here to me I don’t see that happening. It’s a shame too because the art is stellar.