Isom #1 – A Distracted Story

This was honestly a surprising read/review for me. I went into Isom thinking I would 100% hate it. In fact, I went in thinking I would somehow find a way to demand my time back from Eric July. While I would not recommend anyone read Isom #1, at its current price. If you can snag it for around $20 I can recommend it to people who are more forgiving to first issues.  I can’t say I fully hated it. The hate is at about 80-85%. That means I liked it 15-20%. Which is slightly below average for any first issue of a new comic. This was a huge surprise for me. I read a lot of reviews about Isom #1 and was expecting a glorious train wreck, but I was instead greeted with a mismanaged idea. An idea I wound up being interested in. The TL;DR for my review is this: I don’t recommend reading Isom #1 if you don’t want to be greeted with Marvel Cinematic Universe-esqe teasers. I would instead recommend waiting until issue 5-10, choose a number, and start there. It’s really hard to judge a new comic since every comic sucks until issue 5-10, except webcomics taking until page 30-45, but this one wasn’t the worst issue #1 I read, nor the best. It’s about average, and held back because of weird choices.

Pre-review nonsense. Not mandatory for the review, but apparently needs addressing. Feel free to skip this section.

One of the hardest things about this review is deciding where to start. Apparently this comic is riddled in controversies. From being sued by a religious organization for a trademark dispute to something about scamming kids with donated books, or something? I dunno. I heard something about the crowdfunding campaign being super shady too, but couldn’t find any evidence. In fact, I couldn’t find any evidence of these issues outside of the trademark dispute. I found claims that it was all a scam, but the comic came out. No joke, there is even a post on Game FAQs calling it a scam. Like, what is going on with this comic? The funny thing is all the time I spent researching these supposed controversies was wasted. Why did I waste my time? Because none of it matters.

The content of the comic book does. If any of that mattered then no one would watch anime, or read manga. No one would buy DC/IDW/Dark Horse/Marvel/any other comic line. They’re all rife with controversies from sexual assault to abusing employees, including wage/IP theft (No, I don’t mean signing away your rights with contracts either. I mean actual theft). “Why did you mention anime?” Do you know how little rights and how much abuse the animators for the anime industry get? On top of their low wages? Check out: twitter.com/animatorsupport for an idea of how bad workers rights are in the anime industry. Would anyone go over these controversies when reviewing a manga/anime or a comic from IDW/DC/Marvel? No. So I don’t think it’s fair to bring it up in my Isom #1 review. I’m only doing it because apparently failing to address these issues means you’re a shill for Mr. July.

The other starting point everyone seems to go with would be Eric July himself, and I’m not sure why. No one talks about how awful of a person Stan Lee was when reviewing a Spiderman comic, or his politics. In fact, a lot of people still think he was a great guy because no one talks about Stan Lee being an asshole. A lot of ex-Marvel writers came out with stories about Stan Lee being an asshole, but it’s nothing major. Everyone’s an asshole to someone. Yet everyone seems to focus on Eric July during their reviews. To such a point the reviews come off more like a personal attack instead of a review. Eric D. July is a man who wanted to make a comic universe like the traditional American comic book industry. I am unsure why people are choosing to attack him over this. What confuses me the most is the people attacking his character the hardest are the people who should be agreeing with his character. He is a dude who thinks political ideas have infested too much of society, taxation is theft, and people should be able to choose how they want to live. Yet the people who say they champion these ideals are attacking his character in their reviews, with some trying to shut down his operations as a whole. I do not get it, and again I am bringing it up because people are so smooth brained these days that if you don’t directly address something they accuse you of being a shill, paid off, or intentionally misleading people. This is why I posted a TL;DR at the start, but now let’s finally talk about the comic.

Review starts here – Foundational issues

Isom #1 is far from a masterpiece, and that’s okay. I feel like people are judging the comic not as a new piece of media but as an established piece of media. This is happening because Mr. July said he’s trying to restore the US comic book industry and people are treating him like an established publisher. No, that’s not how this works. He can make a big picture claim, but it’s not fair to judge the first step as if it’s supposed to already be the big picture. Now, it doesn’t help that the first comic is full of, “Hey kids go to Toys R Us for these new Mighty Max action figures,” scenes, or MCU-esqe teases. Which was the stuff I hated the most. Some may argue that it’s setting up the universe, but we’ll go over that later. We should judge his big picture claims after a few issues. By issue 10 you will know if the bigger picture is possible. Almost every comic sucks until issue 10, I’m just going to say it. I loved Scooby Doo Apocalypse. However, every time I re-read it I skip the first 5 issues. The first 5 issues of any comic is lore/world building. Isom #1’s main issue is it’s supposed to already be in an established universe, not a world.

 This means the first issue not only needs to establish a world but also a universe. Everytime it needs to establish the universe it kills whatever pacing the comic had going for it. I was confused each time this happened. I thought I skipped a page or missed a speech bubble. So I went back a page or two and started over again. Nope, the comic needs to take its time to show you the new toys you will be able to soon buy at Toys R Us. It’s very jarring, to say the least. Whenever Avery, the main character of the comic, is heading into town it cuts from him walking to the police being attacked. At first I thought Avery was attacking the police. He was angry about going back into town and I assumed he had an issue with the police. However, it then cuts to Yaira. Who is Yaira? Your guess is as good as mine, and I read this comic. It tells you her name with a unique blue font next to her as she threatens the cops. The first of a few, “Go buy these new Mighty Max toys at Toys R Us kids!” scenes. Rereading the scene I have no idea why she was fighting the cops. I have no idea why it was included other than to introduce her and Alphacore, a crime fighting team where everyone wears green. Who are they? I dunno. Do you know? Probably not. The only person who knows is Mr. July. They also get a Mighty Max toy tease too. These are the types of issues that prop up when your first comic is launching a universe instead of a world. 

In Scooby Doo Apocalypse Issue #1 they establish that Scooby Doo is a cybernetically enhanced dog, Shaggy is a kennel cleaner that the dogs liked so the lab uses him to tame the dogs when their aggression gets out of control, Velma is a mad scientist working on some mysterious drug, and Fred and Daphne operate a TV show with Fred being the camera man. Fedy and Daphne break into the secret military research lab that Shaggy and Velma work at to expose a dark secret. Project Elysium goes off,you’re never told what it is, and everyone inside of the lab is safe. Meanwhile everyone outside of the lab is turned into horrific monsters. The gang finds each other and when they venture out they see a bunch of monsters and escape. That’s the first issue. It sets up the world and idea of Scooby Doo Apocalypse. It’s clear Project Elysium is a big deal and we will find out what it is later in the comics. They don’t even hint at Scrappy Doo existing, much less being a genetically mutated dog meant to kill every other dog in the experiments. Which is his motivation for tracking down the gang because he needs to kill Scooby Doo. There’s no future teases. There’s no stop and wait for the Mighty Max toy line bit. They establish the characters, the world, the base story, and the reason for them to adventure together.

 In Isom #1 the only things we find out about Avery are he hates the city, why he’s going back to the city, that he had both of his parents growing up, he has superpowers, he is a former superhero, he’s hot headed, and he runs a farm. That was the stuff I liked about the comic. However, a not insignificant amount is dedicated to setting up the Rippaverse with hard cut aways, MCU-esqe teases (I’m tired of mentioning Mighty Max), and weird plotlines that go nowhere or seem to be unrelated to the plot at hand. Like, what was with the police chief kicking people out of his office? Was it for mentioning Alphacore? I know in the next scene a secretary comes in and says, “She’s back.” It’s obvious this is Yaira, but since she doesn’t need to be in the comic then this scene doesn’t need to be here either. If you removed Yaira from the comic nothing would be lost, other than why Avery went to the hospital and the introduction of Alphacore. A lot of people were confused why Yaira fought Avery “seemingly” out of nowhere. This is actually explained in the comic. She thinks Avery is an Except, the Rippaverse’s term for superhumans, since he withstood a hit from her. She then mentions something about how the secret police are now using civilian clothing. This fight between them has two main points. First, it introduces the concept of a secret police. Who are the secret police? Again, your guess is as good as mine. Second, it sends Avery to the hospital so they have a reason to explain he has a bracelet that won’t come off. 

This part bugged me a lot because I went back and looked at the previous scenes of him showering and training. There were no bracelets in those scenes. I don’t mind the magical unexplained bracelets that are probably giving him his powers. A lot of people did, I’ve no idea why. This is right up there with all the other ways people get their powers in comic books. Is it any more dumb than a spider bites you and now you know how to make spider webs to fill canisters with? No, it’s par for the course, but they should still be visible in previous scenes to give us a hint they exist. It’s a nice easter egg to notice and shows you care about continuity. There’s a random editor’s note to tease about a future issue, which looks to be Isom #2, going over why Avery gave up on being Isom. I think this is a bad idea because it ruins the fun of rereads and noticing things that were hinted at in the past. As a comic book fan that is one of my favorite things to do and was why I rarely sold issues. Telling us which segments will later be issues and which parts won’t ruins the fun. Then at the end of the comic it introduces this metal band where two of the members are Excepts. This part was completely tacked on and was 100% an MCU-esqe end credits scene. It was completely pointless, but didn’t distract from the main story. It’s not as bad as the Yaira and Alphacore scenes. Those scenes pulled me out of a story while the metal band scene was a post credits bonus scene.

Story synopsis – A fair backbone held down by the weight of a universe

Now that we’ve gone over my biggest gripe with the Isom #1, let’s talk about the story. Avery is a man who runs a farm. He don’t like them city folk none to bit. It’s never explained why he don’t like them city folks, but that’s okay. Like Scooby Doo Apocalypse this is a perfectly fine set up for us to learn more about him as a character later. You get a rough idea when he enters the city, but aren’t really sure. This is an example of good character building. We can somewhat understand but aren’t sure why. It’s not something completely random like a superhuman just attacking the police for no reason. After working out Avery gets a call from his sister saying Jasmine ,the daughter of a nice church lady, is missing and he reluctantly agrees to find her. Despite him never wanting to go back to the city he does so because his mom would be mad at him if doesn’t help the woman from church. Again, perfectly fine character building.

 Avery hates the city but cares about how his mom feels more than his hatred of the city. I don’t understand why all the reviews hate this motivation. I understand a lot of you have terrible relationships with your parents but it’s pretty normal to not want to disappoint them. It also lets us know Avery’s hatred of the city isn’t as deep rooted as it initially seemed. Again, pretty nice character development that’s subtle. Like my mom couldn’t get me to go on a submarine trip to see the Titanic or to see a Disney movie with her. I don’t value my mom’s respect as much as I do the safety of my life nor as much as I hate Disney. However, I really hate wearing nice clothes but if my mom wanted me to go to an event where I needed to wear nice clothes I would. My hatred for wearing nice clothes isn’t as deep rooted as my hatred for Disney. 

Avery is told to check out the club his former friend Darren owns, because Darren most likely knows what happened to Jasmine. Cut to the pointless Yaira fighting the police scene and then we’re back with Avery outside of Darren’s club. Avery asks to see Darren and the club staff tells him no. Darren sees Avery on the cameras and agrees to show him around the club. Immediately Avery brings up Jasmine. Another subtle character trait. He doesn’t want to be in the city. He wants to get out ASAP and thinks Darren would at least give him the basic information so he could tell Mrs. Newman, the woman from church, that her daughter is okay. Darren instead threatens him to sit down so they can have a talk. In this talk Darren does an exposition dump on Avery’s background. People criticize the writing here but I’ve had conversations like this with people. People who are jealous of your upbringing and wanting to gloat how they’ve outshined you. It’s perfectly natural.

Avery gets upset at being disrespected and starts to come towards Darren. Obviously his security guards won’t allow this so he starts to fight with them. As he is dominating his security guards Darren calls for his hired Except to take on Avery. They fight and Avery loses. The hired muscle throws him out of the building and into Yaira. Which is why Yaira fights him. I’m confused why people said she “randomly decides to fight him for walking outside” in other reviews. No, he is thrown into her and she thinks Avery is trying to attack her. Especially since she is currently being assaulted by Alphacore and the police. Thinking Avery is a member of this secret police she flies up and drops him on top of a car. Now, there is a lot to unpack here. Unless the secret police are a part of Isom #2 there is zero reason to mention them in this way. In fact, you could’ve had the police at the start of the comic talk about the new secret police, or had a document on the chief’s desk about them. Yaira isn’t needed for Isom to go to the hospital. You can have the hired Except just chunk Avery’s ass outside of a window. Maybe the club could be in a building with 10 floors. Avery can still land on top of a car and end up in the hospital. Maybe Darren instead takes Avery to his penthouse, so he can gloat more. Then Darren would retain a personal Except bodyguard, instead of just one at the club. After Avery gets chucked out the penthouse window Darren can even make a joke about billing his family for the window later.

After waking up in the hospital Avery leaves and convinces himself he is now fueled by the rage brought on from being disrespected. He is picked up by his sister and she takes him to get his truck from the impound lot. Here it cuts to his farm where the farm help discusses life on the farm and how important farming is for society to function. Avery’s right hand man at the farm answers a phone call from him where they discuss what’s happening and after they hang up Avery’s right hand man enters through an open door at the farm with his gun out. This is a fine scene and I would’ve loved to know what happened after he went into the open door. Instead of wasting pages on Yaira and Alphacore Mr. July could’ve written this part. I’ve seen people complain this is where the story stops making sense. If Avery doesn’t care about Jasmine anymore why is he still here? Why did his motivation change for no reason? Both of those are stupid questions. If you’ve ever dealt with someone who is hot headed, or demands respect, they will change their goals to ruin you after feeling massive disrespect. We’ve seen throughout this comic Avery is hot headed. He’s already caused a fight over being disrespected, and he lost that fight. Of course he wants revenge.

Avery goes back to the club and he sees Jasmine. Some security guards stop him from talking to her and she runs off. He starts a fight with them. After fighting his way into the club he tells the guest to leave and they make fun of him by saying he has no idea what he’s in for. This is the only scene that I think was poorly written and drawn. It’s hard to tell who he is fighting in this scene. If he is fighting just the security guards then why are some of the guests on the floor? If he is fighting then guests then why are the guests fighting for the club security? Like I said, this was the only scene that I think was poorly drawn and written. The Except that he fought from before shows up again and they fight outside of the club. Avery gets a mary sue power that lets him move faster that he didn’t have before and eventually he beats the hired Except. He doesn’t overpower the hired muscle. He wins by pinballing himself off of a wall and knocking the hired Except into another wall. It’s not a mary sue win, but it sure doesn’t feel earned. Had Avery used that power before it could have felt earned. In fact, we don’t know what Avery’s powers are past super strength and I guess healing. If he was using his super speed on the farm and mentioned something about how he couldn’t always use it then it would make sense why he would only use it when getting revenge. It comes off very mary sue, especially when we don’t know anything about his super powers. It seems like you’re pulling a silver age Superman where he has whatever power the comic needs him to have at that time.

After beating the hired Except the police show up to arrest him. He escapes and runs to his sister’s house to tell her what happened. He also warns her to stay strapped before tucking his niece into bed. Nothing here stuck out as weirdly written and the niece waking up is pretty realistic. I’ve had my nephews wake up when I would go to my sister’s house to talk to her about serious issues. It’s like kids know. Avery then says he doesn’t care about solving the crime of what happened to Jasmine and that he’s leaving the city. It then cuts to Darren talking about making an example out of Avery so other gangs don’t try to overthrow him. Finally, we cut to Avery going to pick up his old Isom suit. This makes no sense. Why is he getting his suit? Why does he no longer care about helping Mrs. Newman? Obviously he still cares but he tells his sister he doesn’t. Why does he tell his sister that?  If he didn’t care he wouldn’t have gone to get his old suit, but why is he trying to become a superhero again? I assume it’s because he’s trying to protect his family from Darren and help Mrs. Newman, but who knows? This is a jarring ending. Instead of wasting time setting up the universe Mr. July could’ve given Avery a reason to get his suit back. Especially since they make a big deal about him returning it during this scene.

Distraction is a writer’s enemy

The writing leaves a lot to be desired in Isom #1. This isn’t me saying Mr. July is a bad writer. He wrote some pretty subtle character growth/traits that tons of people seemed to have missed, or are choosing to ignore. What I am saying is he’s a distracted writer. Every second he spent fleshing out Yaira, Alphacore, and the metal band was a second taken away from fleshing out Avery. I’m not talking about the pages wasted on including them in the story. I meant the time spent creating them, designing them, giving them a background, etc. That’s all time that could’ve gone to Avery. It’s evident that Mr. July choosing to launch a universe has negatively impacted this comic. Almost everyone I’ve talked to has questions about Avery’s motivation for getting his Isom suit back. It comes out of left field as much as the scene where Yaira is fighting the police. Both scenes feel like we’ve skipped 3-6 pages. With the exception of the ending, I think every part about Avery was fine. It’s not the best writing but far from the worst. It’s average leaning towards better than average. If Mr. July had focused his time on Avery instead of the universe. I can see the writing, pacing, and story being above average.

Mr. July is trying to pull a DC and not a Detective Comics. Considering how many people didn’t understand the fight scene with Yaira, I feel the need to explain what I mean. When the first Flash comic happened you didn’t have references to other heroes, especially ones that don’t exist yet. Go back to any of the original Detective Comics lines. The original Superman was about Superman. The original Flash was about The Flash. The original Batman, back when he had a gun and would ice people, was about Batman. Speaking of Batman with a gun. Did you know the reason he doesn’t kill is solely because the original writers were tired of having to come up with new villains every week? If he just arrests them then they can come back! That’s how little Detective Comics understood the idea of a shared universe. They didn’t even think of having recurring villains for a while because they were getting murdered. This meant when they finally had crossovers, or formed leagues, it was built up. People wondered what would happen if Batman and Superman ever met. It’s weird to think at some point it was a child’s fantasy to see Batman and Superman meet. Even weirder to think a lot of people still fantasize about a DC and Marvel crossover, ignoring that it’s been done in the past. This is what I mean by pulling a DC instead of a Detective Comics. Modern DC comics are a shared universe. The new 52 was a reboot meant to create a new universe from the start. Detective Comics #1 was just a standalone story, a private world if you will.

However, with Isom #1 we’re introduced to the Rippaverse. By God do I hate that name, but that’s besides the point. I hate to beat a dead horse here but it needs to be beaten. This slows down the pacing of the comic a few times and you can tell Mr. July had spent a lot of time focusing on the verse instead of Isom. Yes, I know all of the Mighty Max scenes are supposed to be set ups for later issues of solo comics, but that’s kind of my problem. I feel like Mr. July is stretching himself thin focusing on too many IPs at once. The reason DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, and IDW can slam out so many comics in a shared universe is because each line has their own writer. While Stan Lee was involved with a lot of the happenings at Marvel he wasn’t writing every comic. He wasn’t responsible for every idea the comics had. Instead of focusing on making Isom #1 the best it could be he had to focus on other IPs. It’s a very cluttered way to work, and I would know. This is why I’m more positive about the future of Isom, and the others. Mr. July has hired writers for Yaira and Alphacore. This removes a lot of the extra work he had and lets him focus on Avery more. It’s possible by Issue 10 Avery will be his and all of the others will be taken by other writers. Which would let us see a true Isom comic, as long as it’s still not being used as a Mighty Max toy line.

Finally for a random tidbit before I close this off. Except is a fine term. I’ve read way too many comics and Except doesn’t even come close to the worst term I’ve heard for supes, that would be mutis (for mutigens because mutants is too mainstream). It’s not the best either. It’s in the middle leaning towards good. I don’t understand the people criticizing the story, and Mr. July, for this. Not everyone with powers is a hero or villain. I understand “supes” and a lot of those terms can be used for “superhumans” but we don’t know what makes them superhuman. Maybe this plays a role later in the story, who knows right now. My point is the term is fine and people need to stop nitpicking over Mr. July not wanting to call them something related to superhuman/heroes/villains. It’s possible they aren’t even human, again who knows. From a marketing point it’s not a bad idea either. You want terms you can trademark and own. This is a reason why so many comics come up with new terms for supes, but all of them sound like terms created to be trademarked. Like Back4Blood with Ridden instead of infected/zombies, or Stephen King with Shit Weasels. No, that’s not a joke. He really did call the monsters in one of his stories this.

Cla— Joshua explains it all

If you’re wondering why I kept referring to the MCU-esqe scenes as Mighty Max toy line promos it’s pretty simple. Mighty Max used to take time out of the cartoon to pause on whatever the new toy line was supposed to be. You would get slow panning shots on new vehicles, heroes, and villains. They’d talk over these scenes, just like Isom #1 does, but it was still a pause in the action. Sometimes it was even a pause in the story, just like Isom #1. Which is why I said these were the worst parts of the comic. It’s clear what it was doing. Selling me on stuff to come with characters who I know nothing about. It took away any enjoyment I was having, and it’s worse than the Juicy Fruit ads in old Archie comics. You knew those were ads. They weren’t woven into the story. Here the ads are poorly woven into the story and drags a serviceable story into a poorly written one. This is why I tried to review Isom #1 based on the premise of Isom #1 not Rippaverse #1. I wanted to label, and discuss, these Mighty Max scenes because they do negatively affect the comic, but they’re not Isom #1. They’re Rippaverse #1.

As a complete package I rate Isom #1 about 15-20%. That’s not bad for a first issue. Most first issues I rate around 20-25%. They’re supposed to be world building and less storytelling. Very few first issues are supposed to be universe building, for a reason. It drags the first issue down. Scooby Doo Apocalypse is one of the few first issues I would rate above 25%. It’s at 30%. That’s not much higher, but higher. First issues suck. This is not exclusive to any comic. If you removed the Rippaverse stuff the flow and pacing would be drastically better. With its current story, minus the Rippaverse, I would rate Isom #1 a flat 20%. This is why I say 15-20%. That’s about par for the course. If Mr. July was able to flesh out Avery’s motivations for getting his suit back, and a few small changes here and there, Isom #1 could easily be given 25%. This is why I said to wait until after issue #5 to check out Isom. By then Mr. July should be in his groove and focused less on creating the Rippaverse and instead more focused on creating Isom.

Another reason it’s really hard to recommend Isom #1 is because of the price. It’s $35 USD. I live in China. That’s expensive for me. That’s not even counting customs and shipping. For the average American, you know the ones still in America, that’s not a small amount of money. That’s a few games on a Steam Sale, a movie date with your significant other, a warhammer box, skateboard bearings, and more. It’s $35 for a first issue that suffers from the same problems every first issue has plus new ones because they’re setting up a universe and not a world. If Isom #1 was cheaper, by about $15, I could kind of recommend it for people willing to take a risk on a new IP. If Isom #1 had an ebook, I could possibly recommend it. Ebooks are useful because they allow people on the international market to buy them without needing to pay for expensive shipping. Plus the added benefit of regional pricing, which opens your audience up to a much larger audience. You can’t regionally price a physical book. You’re losing money on manufacturing. However, you can regionally price an ebook because then it’s just money gained. You lose nothing because you’re not selling a physical product at a loss. This also helps turn pirates into customers because not only can they buy it but now they can afford it.

With the high price and forced Rippaverse segments I can’t recommend it. I do give it about 15-20%, which is slightly below average for first issues. However, I don’t write it off completely. Looking into the Rippaverse they have hired new writers for the Yaira and Alphacore. This gives me hope for these comics because those writers won’t be distracted like Mr. July was. It also gives me hope that Mr. July won’t be as distracted as he was creating Isom #1, and possibly #2. I would recommend you to look at reviews going forward and see if things change, or improve. I believe by issue #5 things should improve, it’s possible by issue #3 but I’m calling #5 to be safe. There’s a fine foundation here, just a distracted creator. Mr. July understands comic books. He just jumped right into a hot bath, instead of slowly getting in and adjusting to the temperature. I have hopes, once he can adjust. Hopefully there will be ebooks that are regionally priced. They’re pricing themselves out of a lot of markets by refusing to do this. In the end, I wish you luck Mr. July. Should you succeed, great. Should you fail, well you tried which is more than others do. I don’t wish for you to fail because I have nothing to gain from your failure. While this review was negative, please don’t take it as such. I am hopeful and wishing you the best. I take no enjoyment in negatively reviewing a new product. I want future installments to be above 80%, but in its current form it’s far from it. I just can’t recommend it between the high price and these flaws.

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