Howard Chaykin and David Tischman were responsible for American Century.  They also had a hand in the TV show Mutant X.  For some reason I am unable to fathom - and believe me, I'm kicking myself over this - I nonetheless purchased a copy of Forever Maelstrom #1.  Maybe I still can't shake that received wisdom that says Chaykin was a top creator at some point.

Forever Maelstrom is pretty much everything the cover would suggest - a rather goofy time travel story in which a lovable lummox inexplicably named Forever Maelstrom teaches history at university while using his unexplained time travel powers to go around visiting pieces of history.  A villain doesn't like him, the timeline gets disrupted, and a generic quest plot is established.  ("The temporal jolt scatted five of the Chronomikron's mystic jewels throughout the realities -- the jewels must be found and replaced in the proper order, to restore the timeline.")

It's rubbish.

Does the "goofy time travel and visiting historical figures" bit sound fun to you?  Yes?  Then rent BILL & TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE, which has much the same premise, but the huge advantage of actually being entertaining.  If you really harbour the urge to own a comic with Queen Victoria doing fart gags, though, by all means buy this one.

With comedy books, it's difficult to get past the key factor that they're either funny or they're not.  To me at least, this is a painfully unfunny comic.  Since the plot seems to be knowingly generic and the characters have no personality, there's little else in the way of entertainment to be had from it.

Avoid.

Rating: D

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