Comic Book Review: The Traveler #1

The Traveler #1

When I first heard about this series, I was stoked. A comic about a dude with time travelling powers written by Mark Waid, under the direction of Stan Lee?!? How could you go wrong?!

Unfortunately, they found a way. I'm pretty sure that a zombie bit Mark Waid right on the face or something...and then shoved quaaludes down his throat while he was gasping in horror, because this first issue was a borefest to the Nth degree. Don't get me wrong, there were a couple of cool moments sprinkled in here or there, but the majority of it was just generic feeling, and boring as hell. If I had paid cover price for it, I would have been pretty pissed.

Legion of Super-Heroes #3,
written by Mark Waid

Let me just preface this by saying that Mark Waid is one of the best writers in the medium. His runs on The Flash and Legion of Super-Heroes are some of the best comics ever produced. That's why this issue was so mystifying to me. The story begins with a villain possessing Magneto-like powers wreaking havoc. Fair enough, but the stupid part is that this villain decides to chase around and attempt to kill this random woman for about 75% of the issue. Apparently we are supposed to care about her, because she was on the phone with her son right before this villain decided that she had to die. Of course, the Traveler steps in and saves the day. Snooze... The art was not terrible, but it wasn't very good either. It was a little bit cartoony, which can work sometimes, but it just wasn't doing anything for me here.

The villain chasing random mom all over Hell's half acre...

The cool parts were the instances where Mark Waid extrapolated on the Traveler's powers. For example, in one scene the random woman and the Traveler seek refuge in a construction trailer. The villain uses his magnetic powers to send the trailer sky high, with the intentions that it will plummet back down to earth and kill them with the impact. The Traveler simply jumps out of the airborne trailer with the woman, and uses his ability to control time to achieve a slow descent. Pretty cool.

Overall, there was some huge potential here, but it just didn't pan out for some reason. Maybe the subsequent issues will show vast improvement, but this one was so disappointing that I don't intend on giving the series another shot.

Rating: 1 out of 5