The Death-Defying Doctor Mirage #1
Writer: Jen van Meter
Artist: Roberto de la Torre
Colors: David Baron
Letters: Dave Lanphear
Cover artist: Travel Foreman
Editor: Alejandro Arbona
Publisher: Valiant Entertainment
Price: $3.99 US (regular)/$4.99 US (plus edition)

I haven’t delved into the recent revival of the Valiant/Acclaim super-hero line, which offers new, fresh spins (I assume) on a variety of unconventional concepts that enjoyed a surprisingly level of popularity in the 1990s, driven in part by the speculator boom of that era. I never had much of an attachment to those characters, though I certainly tried checked out of a few of those comics. I was a major fan of Quantum & Woody, but it was the creators on that book, not the Valiant brand, that drew me in. However, I did have some fondness for one of Acclaim’s lesser-known titles: The Second Life of Dr. Mirage, featuring the adventures of a spectral hero and his still-living wife, though much of my appreciation of that comic stemmed from the work of artist Bernard Chang. Nevertheless, the name “Dr. Mirage” was enough of a nostalgia trigger to get me to delve into this latest iteration of the Valiant Universe of the first time. I liked the intensity and emotion that come out quite effectively in the script, but when I reached the end of the issue, I wasn’t all that driven to find out what happens next in the story, and that hook is a rather vital component in serial comics. Read the rest of this entry »