Their names are legend: the Glorious Knox! Greghorn the Battlebjörn! Jhago the Irritator! Three warrior gods vacationing on Earth, just looking to get their drink on and have a good time! Join the drunken festivities with toastmasters JOE CASEY (SEX) and PAUL MAYBURY (SOVEREIGN). The new mythology begins now!
While the fist issue didn't completely blow me away, it was more than original enough to get me to want to come back to see where it all goes. I mean, we're being given an excuse to watch gods drink. What can go wrong? Read Full Review
Valhalla Mad #1 by Joe Casey and Paul Maybury is a comic that starts with incredible promise and does nothing with it, like that gifted friend you had in high school that ended up managing a McDonald's because he didn't want to try very hard. Read Full Review
Readers looking for a lighthearted and vintage take on the fantastic should check out "Valhalla Mad" #1. It's a great looking book with fun ideas; it doesn't take itself too seriously and enjoys being a comic book. Read Full Review
Paul Maybury is a wonder on art. He draws in a style that simultaneously evokes the epic grandeur of a Thor story, while also delivering on the hilarity and absurdity of a cartoon like Adventure Time. It's off to a bit of a slow start but once this bender truly gets under way there is no doubt that the book will succeed in large part due to Maybury's incredible talents. But for now, we're left waiting for #2 to see what this series can really become. Read Full Review
Fans of Maybury's work are probably the only people I can 100% recommend this to just because he has a great opportunity to really make some really great stuff within this title. I wish I could say the writing was as strong as the art because there's a very interesting idea here that so far fails to be as cool as it should be. It almost feels like Casey isn't sure what he wants this comic to be and that's where a lot of the mediocrity comes in. On one side it's a story about warrior gods partying nonstop. On the other it's trying to set itself up to be a deep story about something very big. This first issue seems stuck between the two and because of that it doesn't really do either part justice. Read Full Review
I imagine the series will maintain its tone and sense of humor for the most part, and I recognize no book can continue on without a plot, but the final moments of this issue seemed to promise something different than what we got in this issue and Im not really sure what to expect for the future of Valhalla Mad. This issue won me over and then sort of apologized for itself at the end. Im not sure what to make of that yet, but I guess that is a good enough reason to come back for more. Read Full Review
Casey and Maybury lent the issue a definite feeling that it had been plucked out of an earlier time in comics with just enough of a modernization in dialogue and trappings from the residents of New York to give it a bit more appeal to current readers. That said, I didn't feel like I got a sufficient chunk of story in this debut issue to make me really want more. Not a lot of forward story momentum, what we got was mostly atmosphere. Fans of stories with a retro Lee/Kirby feel may enjoy this for those attributes alone and this may read better as a collected edition. As a standalone #1 issue, this was OK, but not something I put down and thought “Wow! I really need to get my hand on issue #2.” Read Full Review
Overall, Valhalla Mad seems like a good concept, just a poorly executed one. There's an interesting story here, one that Casey is fully aware of but didn't translate completely onto the page for us. There's just not enough of the characters or their motivations in the issue - they all remain one-dimensional from start to finish - and that ultimately fails to make us feel invested in their quest (whatever that actually is). Read Full Review
The characterizations are one dimensional, there is almost no conflict, the travelers have no motivations beyond emptying tankards and helping out the occasional distressed commercial aircraft, the plot doesn't exist. And the dialogue is gratingly awful. Read Full Review
There is a kernel of a not terribly original but interesting premise " not-Thor and his gang return to Earth after an 80 year absence. What could've been at times funny and soul searching is just dire. Grandiose dialogue that is obstructive and sneeringly pleased with itself, truly excorable art that fails to evoke Golden/silver age and just looks infantile " no redeeming features. Everything remotely original here isn't, as it's been done before. It's an atrocious vanity project from the most ambitious and inventive of publishers. Read Full Review
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