Review – Weavers #2 (Of 6) (BOOM! Studios)

June 7, 2016

4–6 minutes

Story: Simon Spurrier
Art: Dylan Burnett, Triona Farrell
Release Date: 8th June 2016

I love original material, which is an odd statement to be fair because who doesn’t like original material, but I’ll give extra points simply for originality. That being said, sometimes you find something that thinks that it’s original inspired material, but instead is more like someone who said “THE DARKNESS IS SUCH A COOL GAME I WANT TO WRITE COMIC BOOK JUST LIKE IT” and at some point “I LOVE SPIDER-MAN HE’S SO COOL WHAT IF THERE WERE A HUNDRED SPIDERS WITH ALL DIFFERENT KINDS OF POWERS” and then eventually merged them together to create something flat and contrived. That brings us to the topic of today: issue #2 of WEAVERS.

In issue #2 of WEAVERS, we once again follow Thyme, who is trying to fit in with the Weavers but is totally hopeless. He speaks up when he shouldn’t, asks questions when he shouldn’t, and is even ready to fight other Weavers in the family. As Thyme tries desperately to fit in, he learns more about the origin of the Weavers and the spider that bit him. The origins of this strange family become more and more clear, but more and more odd.

I really only have one compliment for this book, and that’s the coloring by Triona Farrell. The art of the book itself isn’t very good, but the coloring is very interesting. It manages to be vibrant, while also being dark. It works this fine line between the two that’s really atmospheric and interesting. It’s the one bright spot in an otherwise terrible book.

Well, there go my only kind words for this review. It’s about to get real up in here. First off, the script by Simon Spurrier. A problem that I had with the first issue was that it felt so jarring being thrown into this story with almost no context. This isn’t to say that I don’t like stories with already established stories and characters, but when done wrong it can be very confusing and messy. Needless to say that it’s done badly here. I was hoping that this second issue would pick up with a storyline and be a bit more linear, but once again the story here is just messy. I don’t quite get what’s going on, or more so I don’t get the point of it all. I don’t understand why this book exists. It seems like a story that Spurrier came up with when he was 6-years old, then finally went back to write it when he was 13, then sent it in to his editor today without looking back at it. Like I mentioned in the opening, it feels like a kid who loved the video game The Darkness and the Spider-Man comics, then just pushed them together into a story that would be better if it weren’t so flat. I don’t mind wearing your inspirations on your sleeve, but not doing anything interesting with those inspirations is completely different.

Not only is the story a complete mess, but the dialogue is horrible as well. The dialogue in the first issue was bad but I thought “maybe Spurrier will find his footing with this second issue” but in fact the writing is even worse. This dialogue really feels like something that I would’ve written in Middle School. Hey, when you’re in 8th grade it sounds awesome, but when you’re over the age of 17 it comes off as a childish attempt to be dark and moody. For a story that’s very violent and mafia-oriented, you’d think that swearing would be a normal thing. For some reason, Spurrier feels the need to sensor all of the curse words, which makes absolutely no sense to me. It’s not funny, nor does it fit with the rest of the tone. What also doesn’t fit with the tone is this weird constant whispering that characters do in the middle of sentences. It’s so odd to read, it takes you out of almost every sentence.

Not only is the writing bad, but the art is messy as well. As I mentioned before, I do like the coloring, but the character/environment designs are just boring to look at. Dylan Burnett is the illustrator here and I don’t know if it was how he was told to draw or if he came up with the designs on his own but it’s all just so bland. None of the designs are unique, nor does it even look clean. It’s like a rough draft, not a finished product (much like the script).

It’s safe to say that I hate this book, which pains me to say. I’d love to eat this book up, hell I’d love to eat up everything that I read, but this just didn’t do it for me. This feels like a script written by a preteen, with designs that are far from inspired or unique. The coloring is solid, but I need more than just pretty colors to make a book function. I can’t recommend this to anybody. This is completely boring and flat-out fucking stupid. That’s exactly the reason why I wanted to be detailed with this review. When I dislike something, it’s childish to say “Don’t read this, it sucks.” No, I want to crack open this broken machine and see where it all went wrong. Needless to say, it goes wrong in almost every way. There’s absolutely no reason for you to spend your time and money on this. Even though this is only a 6-issue story, I don’t have any interest in continuing to read it even out of curiosity. In fact, I couldn’t be happier that I’m done reading it and can forget about it by tomorrow morning.

Rating: 0.5/10

Preview Artwork

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