Editor's Note: Beta Ray Bill: Godhunter #1 arrives in stores tomorrow, June 10.

"Godhunter, Part One"

Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artists: Kano (p), Alvaro Lopez & Kano (i)


"The Ballad of Beta Ray Bill, Part One

Writer/Artist: Walter Simonson



I'll be honest with you. I read Secret Invasion Aftermath: Beta Ray Bill: The Green of Eden, and wasn't that impressed with it. It was okay, but nothing about the story really grabbed me enough to even write a review of it. Eh, there's your review, I guess.

I went into that comic expecting more, since although I haven't read Gillen's acclaimed Phonogram, I had read his one-shot, newuniversal: 1959 and thought that it was pretty good. Not groundbreaking, but good. Anyway, Green of Eden was a letdown, especially for a fan of Beta Ray Bill. It seemed to be trying to capture the feel of a classic 2000AD story, but lacked the energy.

With Godhunter, Gillen once again takes Beta Ray Bill out for a spin of cosmic proportion, and again falls short. Not as short as last time, but this issue is still lacking something. Which is odd, because this sounds like a no-brainer: Huge, musclebound spacehorse-man with the power of Thor and a sentient star cruiser at his side decide to hunt down and kill Galactus.

What could go wrong?

Well, the writing isn't bad, but it's lacking something. Again, the energy just seems to be missing. Even during the climactic battle between Bill and Galactus' herald, Stardust, the action seems muted and is quickly over. The power of these two cosmically powered beings is reduced to a lot a flashy color explosions until Bill really gets his hammer, Stormbreaker, into the game. And then it's over.

Before this, though, we are given two other action set-pieces that also wrap up very quickly without any real sense of threat or danger. But neither action sequence is really very interesting to begin with, nor are they taken care of in very imaginative ways. There are no real obstacles for Bill to overcome beyond figuring out how to actually deal with Galactus, and that is planned entirely off-camera, providing the only real surprise in the issue.

But I'm not sure it's a good surprise. It's morally ambiguous at best, and we'll have to wait and see if it's even a feasible plan.

The art, by Kano, is functional, but contributes to the lackluster sense of muted action. There's not enough excitement in the designs or the layouts to effectively capture the larger-than-life scale that this story demands. I'd have preferred to see more stylized art and maybe only about two-thirds of the issue's content for the opening salvo of this story. What we've got here is just kind of boring.

And it looks even worse when contrasted with the back-up feature included with this issue: Walter Simonson's first issue of The Mighty Thor (#337) which also happens to be the introduction of Beta Ray Bill from back in the winter of 1983. I was fifteen when Simonson created Bill, and had been reading Thor comics off and on for seven years prior to this, my longest continuous run being issues #293 through #300 (which retold Wagner's Ring Cycle with the Marvel Norse gods).

Simonson took over the book, which had been faltering, with #337 and immediately turned it into something unlike anything else on the stands. The first issue, reprinted here in its entirety, was the first of a four chapter story that had the audacity to posit that someone else was worthy of carrying Mjolnir - and that someone was a genetically altered spacehorse-man assigned to protect his race from space demons. It was daring and exciting and was the start of the best run of Thor comics ever.

And not only was Simonson writing, he was doing the art. And it was gorgeous; just as daring and stylized as the story he was telling.

My only concern about including it with Godhunter is that it so overshadows the main story. I don't know if they plan on continuing to include Bill's first appearance, but if they do, there's a small problem. It ran four issues, as I've said, and Godhunter is only scheduled to run for three. I'm afraid that instead of getting this entire classic story, we're going to be given a highlight reel of Bill's classic appearances.

I suppose that would be okay, but I'd rather see this first story again from start to finish. In fact, if that's Marvel's plan, then I'd recommend buying this series just for Simonson's story and art.

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