Review: The Scumbag #11
[Editor’s Note: This review may contain spoilers]
Publisher:Â Image Comics
Writer: Rick Remender
Artist: Roland Boschi , Moreno Dinisio
Letters:Â Rus Wooton
Colors: Moreno Dinisio
Reviewed by: Carl Bryan
Summary
Like Ben Franklin said…’True heroes deserve a four-way with ladies of ill repute!”
–Â Ernie Ray
The Scumbag #10 – Golden Brown Eye (Part 1) – Ernie has double-crossed every spy organization on Earth. Now, a method to extract the Formula Maxima has been discovered—at the cost of Ernie’s life. Who will kill Agent Scumbag and claim his powers?
Positives
Before we take any step further, perhaps you should read the First Issue online so you know exactly what you are getting into with Ernie Ray.
Roland Boschi takes over the artistic reins for Scumbag in this issue. We are back at some very solid renderings and intricate pencils and colors. No shortcuts are taken in each frame as they both accentuate the action, color, and real clean comic storytelling.
Subject matter aside, this comic has featured a lot of great artists. Issue #1 (which can be read online if you are over 18), provided where this comic can be from an artistic standpoint along the lines of the 1980s Conan the Barbarian series.
Positives 2.0
The scripts of Rick Remender …
Remender cleans up what Ernie Ray has done in an eloquent way. After all, Ernie Ray has triple crossed every agency, but the one thing they all have in common is a disdain for working with The Scumbag.
So we literally are back to a control/alt/delete situation where The Scumbag has got all of his “friends” back but has more trouble than he can shake a hypodermic needle at. Literally, the entire world is upset at him due to the Ernie Ray “Ray’ that did so much damage to the world from a moral sense….or lack of morales.
Remender is clever with his titles and more clever with his scripts! Outstanding story line!
Negatives
You get what you get with Ernie Ray. If you are picking this issue up, then make sure you get the preceding issues. When you drink from Ernie Ray’s story, it is because you have a taste for it. Toilets, drugs, orgies, and somewhere along the line, there is saving the world. However, the man is triple crossing at this point, so bring a road map to navigate what he utters. it’s all lies…or is it? He’s a lone wolf in the midst of a mess and he’s the anti-James Bond…Rick Remender has given us an utter mess that we cannot look away from!
Verdict
If you are into something really really different and you like uncomfortable clashes, this is your book. You’ll laugh and wince and roll your eyes. f you want to catch up, be on the lookout for the trade paperback Cocaine Finger. That tells you all you need to know right there! If you enjoy this, you deny eating at McDonald’s and reading the National Enquirer.
