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Duel #2
Review posted: 05 Mar 2006
Writer: Ted Nomura
Artist: Ted Nomura
Publisher: Antarctic Press
4.00 out of 5 Stars
Reviewed by Matt Yocum
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Duel is not a comic that could be completed in a hurry.
Written and illustrated by Ted Nomura, Duel offers “epic
battles that might have been, fought between legendary combat
aircraft.” Duel issue number two centers around a battle
between the British and Argentina during the war in the Falklands in
1982. Thankfully, Mr. Nomura offers plenty of background on the
situation for the uninitiated. He also offers plenty of information
regarding the aircraft in the issue, showing profile views of the two
dueling aircraft on the back with their respective technical
capabilities and stats.
The action and
duel are so well rendered that I found myself more interested
in the motion and ballet of the contest rather than the dialogue and
characters.
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The cover is what grabbed my attention. Being in the Air Force,
I’m familiar with aircraft past and present, and seeing the
dueling images of a McDonnell Douglas A-4 Skyhawk chasing a
British Aerospace Sea Harrier made me want to find out more. If the
writer and artist are unknown then this is the ultimate challenge of a
cover, to make you pause a moment and grab it off the shelf. Then the
book on the inside has to look appealing to make you walk to the
counter and pull out your wallet.
After reading the issue, I found the story of this battle between
forces interesting. The dialogue wavered between sometimes accurate
pilot-speak and sometimes contrived talk for the sake of adding drama.
The characters looked nothing like the Brits and the Argentines and
more like manga inspired people. I thought for just a moment that
Yamato from Star Blazers would come flying from above on their quest
to save Earth.
The real characters in this comic are not the people but the
planes. Every detail is accurate, I would imagine painstakingly so as
this must have taken a great deal of research. The action and
duel are so well rendered that I found myself more interested
in the motion and ballet of the contest rather than the dialogue and
characters. Perhaps this is what Mr. Nomura wanted. Perhaps not.
Whatever the case, the planes took over.
The back pages of the comic reveal more about Mr. Nomura’s past
work including Dictators of the Twentieth Century Series:
Hitler,Dictators: Saddam, Hiroshima: The Atomic
Holocaust, and Families of Altered Wars: Luftwaffe 1946.
Each series of historic warfare comes from Antarctic Press. The
covers of these series show a perfectly rendered image of an aircraft,
tank, or helicopter. I wish the artists on DC Comics’
Green
Lantern
would be as equally careful in their rendering of Hal Jordan’s test
aircraft, the Lockheed Martin F-22A. Although the aircraft is not the
center of the story in Green Lantern as it is in Duel, it still
makes you feel proud that the artist took the time to get it right,
right down to the proportions and size.
Duel was a fun comic to read with great action scenes. The
characterization and dialogue could use some polishing, but overall
this proved a comic rare on the shelves, sacrificing capes for wings.
It showed you don’t have to have superheroes to have a heroic
adventure.
Comments about my comments? Feel free to email me at myocum@comiccritique.com.
—CCdC—
Cover image used without explicit permission in accordance with the "Fair Use" provision of US copyright law.
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