Duke Nukem: Glorious Bastard #3 Advance Review

How's it going, everybody? So, I know I've been away for awhile, but it was with good reason: I spent twelve days traveling across the country from New York to Los Angeles. It was awesome, and I wholeheartedly plan to write about it at some point. But now I'm in L.A., so I'm very busy looking for jobs and apartments and won't have that much time to write for awhile. However, I am pretty much obsessed with comics right now, so I will be covering them from time to time, as well as write something for Games Abyss if I get the chance.

Clearly I'm on the rise as a blogger since a nice fellow from IDW Publishing recently sent me an advance copy of Duke Nukem: Glorious Bastard #3 and ecouraged me to write about it. So I'm going to do just that. Here's a review.

Duke Nukem: Glorious Bastard #3

I've been a big proponent of the character of Duke Nukem, as well as his new comic series these past two months, and while the third issue, entitled "Surprise- You're Dead" isn't a let down per se, I am finding my excitement beginning to wane.

Issue #3 is an installment chock full of action, and little else. Granted, this is a Duke Nukem comic, so the primary fun here is seeing the King blast away Pig Cops. But after last month's issue, I really was hoping for a little more insight into the series' big bads, the Vrillerinnen. Other than a seemingly pointless scene in which Professor Fraud is returned to their lair, we see next to nothing of the leotard-wearing baddies, as most of the issue is spent with Duke & co. as they fight practically every enemy type from the games while driving a Jeep. It was nice to see familiar critters such as the Assault Trooper and Battlelord, but there's really only so much gunplay I can enjoy before I get bored. At times it even felt as if the comic was just replicating sequences from the games, and though there were som truly amazing sound effects ("BA-DAM!!"), Xermanico's art just wasn't really grabbing me this time around, though Luis Antonio Delgado still makes good use of color, particularly with the lasers.

Without spoiling anything, I do feel the need to mention one ridiculous scene in which Duke exults Martin Luther King Jr. Hearing Nukem speak of the iconic champion of civil rights with such reverence was quite bizarre- I didn't know whether to laugh or cringe. Seriously, I never thought I'd hear Duke Nukem say "There's gonna come a kickass guy someday who's gonna fight with words, not guns..." That's not how this King rolls, baby.

Still, the saving grace of this series is the character of Duke Nukem. He's still the over the-top amalgamation of a dozen action heroes we all know and love, and writer Tom Waltz nails it. The one-liners alone are probably reason enough to pick this one up, and I won't spoil any of them here.

Duke Nukem: Glorious Bastard #3 hits shelves September 28th.

Score: 7.0