Publisher: IDW Publishing
Writer: J. C. Vaughn, Mark L Haynes, Beau Smith
Artist: Renato Guedes, Manny Clark, Steve Bryant, Jean Diaz
Release Date: 16th April 2014

Good god, this was a slog. I like 24 as much as the next person, but when only two-fifths of a book have any merit whatsoever, getting through the remaining three becomes an exercise in seeing quite how much discomfort you can put up with before your mind implodes. Like getting acupuncture on your eyeballs.

To give it the credit it’s due, the omnibus collects 5 different stories – One Shot (they’re all one shots, but this one is actually called One Shot…which is confusing), Midnight Sun, Stories, Cold Warriors, and Nightfall. The two good’uns are One Shot and Nightfall, and both, coincidentally, serve as direct prequels to the first series – whereas the others try to fill in the holes between seasons. These two stories are tight and woven into the existing mythology relatively seamlessly, with some surprisingly decent art from Renato Guedes and Jean Diaz respectively, both getting likenesses of characters spot on, and generally nailing the show’s distinctive directorial style.

It’s probably wise that even though these are both prequels to series one, they bookend the omnibus, because the middle three are really not very good. Midnight Sun derails itself with a characterisation of Jack that is simply too heartless, fucking and shooting his way through story and antagonists without actually giving a damn. Yeah, it’s set after he loses his wife, but there’s a jarring discord between the Jack we have here and the one present from series two onwards.

Stories is the absolute nadir – a confusing jumble of a ‘story’ that tries to tie in to the third series, but that’s the least of it’s crimes. It’s the offensively bad art that’s the real rub of its awfulness – clearly the work of an artist who doesn’t care, and is being rushed by a studio keen to get something published. It starts off okay, before devolving into farce, stills from the show inserted in lieu of actual artwork, and awkward, copy-pastes of heads on bodies that clearly were never meant to carry them, all sent through the watercolour filter of your favourite photoshopping program.

Cold Warriors shoots itself in the knee by not managing to actually tie in to the timeline particularly well – the story ill-thought-out, and relatively confusing as a result. The art is odd, as well, never managing to give you a real sense of place, and the likenesses varying in quality throughout.

For people who aren’t in to 24, there is nothing for you here – go buy…I dunno, Captain America. Something good. No wait, the new Ghost Rider. That’s awesome. And even for fans of the series, I’m hard-pressed to find a real reason to recommend this trade. One Shot and Nightfall are both available on their own, so unless this is priced competitively, it’s entirely skippable. Worth a shot only to see how – for the most part at least – not to do TV-tie-in comics.

Rating: 2/5.

The writer of this piece was: Ross Sweeney