Genius #2

by RobertJCross on August 12, 2014

Written by: Marc Bernardin & Adam Freeman
Art by: Afua Richardson

O.M.G. I think I just found one of the better comic debuts of the summer. Genius is actually a good way to describe the comic itself. Based around South Central L.A., it tells the story of a girl named Destiny who is essentially the reincarnation of Alexander The Great. Destiny starts a war with the LAPD in order to take back South Central for the minorities and becomes the leader of the people. It just works in a way that makes me think that it might be turned into a movie or television show at some point. I feel like with all the tension between law enforcement and the various minority groups throughout America at the present time, this is the perfect time for this comic to come out. I was living in Los Angeles during the Rodney King Riots, I was 6 at the time, but I still remember the smoke rising from the various places Downtown. This comic brought back some of the feelings I had during those riots. No order, no control, mayhem....on the LAPD side of things. I loved every panel.

Bernardin & Freeman are a dynamic writing duo that I felt drew their magical writing ability from Shane Black (Lethal Weapon) & Steven E. de Souza (Die Hard). It had all the gentle notes and textures of a classic action movie meshed with the heroism of comics eternal. I was impressed because I barely know who these two writers are and now I want to pick up everything they've written just to get a taste. It reminded me of my once grand obsession with Brian Azzarello after reading the 100 Bullets series (highly recommended reading BTW). Look out for these two in the future.

Richardson's art was pretty good, but there were a couple panels that weren't great. Alas, not everything can be perfect. Aside from that, everything was and the artwork in the action scenes flew off the page. You could practically smell the embers as they rose from the burning cars and destruction. Lovely setpieces and it looked enough like L.A. to believe it.

Start reading this!

Our Score:

9/10

A Look Inside

Comments

spicytoilet's picture
I absolutely love this series!
RobertJCross's picture
It really is awesome and I'm super stoked to have started reading it.