Crimson Dynamo is, to all intents and purposes, the first Epic book.

Yes, I know - Trouble was the first.  But it doesn't really count.  The point of Epic was low-budget comics with new talent; Trouble was a high-profile miniseries, apparently done on a work-for-hire basis, by an established art team and the writer of two top ten titles.  It's got nothing whatsoever to do with Epic.

Crimson Dynamo is also a little shaky around the edges when it comes to the Epic remit; Steve Ellis is not a novice artist, and in fact I'm pretty sure he's worked for Marvel before.  John Jackson Miller is a novice writer, although he's not a newcomer to comics - he's one of those journalist types who got invitations to pitch for the first wave of Epic books.  Anyway, it's closer to the stated aims of Epic.

Miller has a longstanding interest in Russia, and he's decided to play with that by reviving the Soviet equivalent of Iron Man.  However, rather than bring back the original character (who's dead anyway), this series takes the ever popular approach of having a completely new character stumble upon a spare set of armour. 

Gennady Gavrilov, the new owner of the armour, is a rather unsympathetic and feckless little brat, not that that's necessarily a problem.  Basically, the set-up here is a Russian version of the bored, disaffected teenager who's delivered from the mundane when a great big lump of Kirbytech lands in his lap.  It's transplanted to a different society - one where the local university is jealously protective of its exciting new CD burner - but the thrust remains the same.

But is it any good?  Well, yeah, it's okay.  It's above average, actually.  The story's not particularly out of the ordinary, but it's quite well paced, and Miller writes decent enough dialogue.  I'm interested enough to see how he's going to try and get an ongoing series out of a character quite this feckless, who doesn't at first glance seem like ideal superhero protagonist material.  The art struggles a little with clarity in a lengthy sequence intercutting between Moscow and Siberia, although that may be more of a colouring problem which fails to distinguish sufficiently between the two settings.  Some of the slapstick sequences with Gennady's moped are a little ropey, too.  But I do like the red star design for the armour, and for the most part the storytelling works well enough.

This is alright; it's not staggering, but it's got some promise.

Rating: B

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