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Yeech. The cover immediately makes me think this is
another awful early Image Liefeld/Lee clone type
comic. The first thing you notice is a pair of tits in
a very tight shirt. The woman is bending over while
something yellow and gooey is after her. Behind her is
a macho muscle man holding a smoking gun. Behind them
both is a cityscape, but the two characters are on a
large rock/mountain of some sort. The Galactic
Gladiators logo is bland and doesn't stand out at all.
Now that the first impression has been established,
lets turn the page shall we?
Inside cover has a bit about the story so far. While
Earth was populated by Cavemen in Africa, two old
races fought against each other. One was good and
peace loving, the other evil and war loving. The bad
guys are winning. Now the good guys are looking for
planets with intelligent life to help them fight off
the bad guys.
The story. The good guys found Earth. Guess What?
Humans are what they need. We clone and hybrid much
better than those other races. They abduct many people
and treat them in a not so good manner. They are
trying to create clones and hybrids that will create a
race of warriors to fight off the bad guys for them.
The aliens abduct people while they are in life or
death fights. Those taken are unnamed Neanderthal
woman and a Homo Sapian man, roman gladiator Justus
Libertus (no I'm serious) and devoted Caesar assassin
Caligulus, and the two on the cover Tom Freeman the
cop and Tessa Guess an animal rights terrorist with a
conscious that only kicks in just before the calvary
arrives. Tom and Tessa weren't fighting each other
when abducted though, so no doubt they'll end up
fucking before the limited series is over.
Alien abduction stories are nothing new. Nor is the
idea that humans are special and somehow better than
all other races. Nor is the idea of aliens abducting
humans to make hybrid clones out of them. Nor is the
idea that aliens have been watching us since for most
of our known history. You could watch all of this be
played out on X-Files re-runs. Also not new is the
idea of good races/bad races fighting each other with
the bad races winning (Star Wars anyone?). And please
don't take this to mean that the book is a cross
between Star Wars and X-Files, because it's not. It's
just unoriginally bad.
Throughout the book there are captions to explain what
everybody is doing. Examples include "Tom fires but to
little effect." or "Freeman Retreats, using his
HANDGUNS to keep the creatures back!" A writer having
to do this is a very clear indication that the art is
not good enough to tell the story, or that the editor
believes the audience is too dumb to figure it out for
themselves. You decide which is worse. The scripting
is very cliche as well. Examples include "So much for
plan A!" and "OH NO. It's coming this way."
As I've indicated with the cover the art looks like a
bad Liefeld/Lee hybrid clone. Which is very fitting
for this book. The only bright spots are the drawing
of a spaceship, his panel layouts are easy to follow
and that his double splash pages has panels within
them, making them not completely a waste of space.
Also in here are interviews where they pat each other
on the back with the editors interviewing the
creators. Some of it is funny after reading the book.
Examples are artist Scott Lee saying "You definitely
don't want to rehash old things, especially on a new
project." On the back they try to sell Galactic
Gladiators posters, hats, coffee mugs, golf and
T-shirts. Of course there is a woman's ass beside all
this with the selling pitch "Hey! Want to get your
hands on some great stuff? Take a look at this." On
the back cover is the cover to the next issue. More
tits, ass and slimy stuff.
My Rating for this? Zilch. Don't buy it.
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