What happens when superhero comics creators take Mad Max and Fallout and smoosh it all together with the capes and masks? You gets Geiger!
Tariq Geiger could be having a better day. Not only is his paranoid survivalist fantasy coming true - nuclear armageddon suddenly breaks out - but he can’t get into his fallout shelter! Oh well - at least his family’s safely locked up. But wait! Geiger somehow isn’t killed in the ‘splosions but gets superpowers instead! Twenty years later, while he protects his locked-up family from the outside, the surviving humans decide killing Tariq is glorious or something. Leave whatever brains you got left at the door kids ‘cos Papa Johns is here to serve up a steaming slice of nonsense!
Geoff Johns and Gary Frank make their Image debut under Johns’ Mad Ghost imprint with Geiger, aka contrived swill! The main character’s name is Geiger, like the device used to measure radioactivity, in a book set in a post-nuclear wasteland? It’s so on the nose, it IS the nose! That’s the least of it really but it gives you an idea of where Johns’ head is at here.
The first issue of Geiger is Johns stealing cliches and prefab story elements. Survivalist/Cold War-esque paranoia, superpowers from accident, Mad Max post-nuclear wasteland world, and I won’t even mention the ending but it’s another straight rip-off of a very popular recent TV show. There’s nothing original here, just an array of familiar tropes. Even that shot of Geiger eating while on his wall behind him shows the days marked off is identical to Rey’s intro in The Force Awakens!
As derivative as the content is, Johns’ years of comics-writing experience makes this first issue a fast-paced read that sets up a lot quickly and efficiently - I wasn’t gripped by what I was reading but I wasn’t bored either. And I didn’t see that weird left turn of a cliffhanger coming! Gary Frank’s art is gorgeous too - the sequence where the bomb explodes and Geiger’s superhero design are the standouts for me. Brad Anderson’s colours are beautiful, really making Geiger’s transformation pop.
Despite being visually stunning and well-produced, there’s too much unoriginal stuff here to leave much of an impression behind, nor does it make me excited for the rest of the series - Geiger #1 is an underwhelming beginning.
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