I bought a buncha Top Shelf comics recently and I’m really coming to appreciate how bad some of their catalogue is. The Homeland Directive is yet another jaw-droppingly shite piece of work that I’m stunned anyone read and thought “That’s AMAZING - people need to read this, let’s publish it!!”
We’ve all seen/read conspiracy/political thrillers, right? It usually involves people in suits rushing around waving guns while talking to people watching screens who say things like “He’s on your 20”. That’s this pile of garbage: “characters” running about, hauling some unsuspecting civilian who’s being targeted by the US government for reasons and everyone’s gonna die and the President is somehow involved or something.
At some point towards the end a couple of dialogue-stuffed pages breathlessly recounts the reasons behind all the running and shooting and paranoid nonsense - something to do with scaring the public into giving the government more powers, artlessly and heavily condemning the evil Bush administration with their PATRIOT Act, etc. - but I was so beaten with tedium by that point I didn’t care.
Mike Huddleston’s art reflects Robert Venditti’s ultra-crappy and confused script by changing from page to page. He’s drawing on graph paper using inks, now he’s on blank paper and using pencils, now he’s using only red and green colours, now he’s adopting a photo-realistic style, now he’s using a scratchy style, now it’s full colour, now it’s black and white - mental. Settle down Mike, your ADHD artistic approach is giving me an eye-ache!
Don’t read this nonsense. It makes Shia LaBeef’s Eagle Eye movie (if you had the misfortune to sit through that) look like a masterpiece in comparison. If you do pick it up, expect a thriller for the sake of a thriller rather than anything substantial, well-thought out or, yes, thrilling.
The Homeland Directive
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