Delayed Reaction: Misplaced@17

Misplaced@17 (Devil’s Due Publishing/Viper Comics), by Josh Blaylock and Josh Howard

Why’d I Wait?: I was slow getting on the Josh Howard/Dead@17 bandwagon, and am still catching up with the series via trades. Hence, I was even slower checking out Howard’s character’s crossover with Misplaced, a sci-fi series written and drawn by Devil’s Due’s Josh Blaylock, who helped mastermind the G.I. Joe comic book renaissance a few years back.

Why Now?: I don’t have a very interesting answer. I had to buy a back issue of Howard’s Black Harvest series from Devil’s Due’s homepage because my local shop ran out, and figured I should spend more than $2.99 there, as I’d hate to pay a $2.99 credit card bill next month. See, told you it wasn’t a very interesting answer.

Well?: Howard’s great strength as a storyteller is his amazing ability to drawn extremely cute girls. As a cute girl artist goes, he’s not too, too far behind the genre’s master, the late Dan DeCarlo, or Bruce Timm, who spends more time producing great animated series than drawing comics.

Sure, all of his girls look alike—call them Howard girls—but he has an irresistible style. There’s a lot of manga/anime in it, but probably just as much Sunday funnies; it’s extremely flat and wholly Western.

I think I could read just about anything he drew, no matter how bad the writing was, but Howard’s writing (on both Dead@17 and Black Harvest) is decent as well.

That said, the bulk of this 48-page special is both written and drawn by Blaylock, and it’s a little strange seeing Dead@17 ’s axe-wielding heroine Nara drawn by someone other than Howard (and oh how disappointed I was when I saw I got the Blaylock cover instead of the Howard one…damn variants!).

Yet while this is a Dead@17 comic missing the greatest attribute of a Dead@17 comic, Blaylock tells a very story crossover story. Like all good crossover comics should, it feels like it can be read as a tale starring either of the principals; in this case, it reads like it could be either a Misplaced story or a Dead@17 story.

The plot follows Blaylock’s dimension-hopping teenage heroine Alyssa and her transforming robot dog Tink to the world of Dead@17, where they end up sharing an apartment with Nara. The two teens make like Felix and Oscar for a while, until the weird cult Nara’s battled and the villains of Alyssa’s realm show up to cause trouble. It’s not exactly essential reading, but fans of either franchise should find it enjoyable enough reading.

As for Howard, he’s not completely MIA here—he contributes a four-page gag back-up story packed with cheesecake, making for a nice dessert to Blaylock’s story.

Would I travel back in time to buy it off the rack?: Only if I could be sure I’d be able to get the Howard cover. I’d hate to travel two years through the past just to get the wrong cover again. Damn variants.