Undying Love has gone back to being a bit better than the first
issue was, with some of the same and different reasons as to why. The story’s events begin before the
first two issues and tell the story of how John met Mei during his service as a
soldier and how John decides to protect Mei and travel with her. Tomm Coker and Daniel Freedman are putting their creativity
to good use in this latest issue of Undying Love. Mei’s character, one that seemed nothing more than a simple
damsel-in-distress an issue ago, has proven to have a lot more bite in this
issue – and in deceptive amounts.
Coker and Freedman really outline Mei’s insatiable blood lust in this
issue with great results and make Mei seem both deceptively innocent and
deadly, a great combination with a vampire that really makes you wonder if she
will ever turn on her GI Joe-model boyfriend. Hopefully this is intentional, otherwise Mei’s rapid mood
swings throughout the issue are just examples of inconsistent writing. If planned, this tactic is a great one. It gives her character depth and makes
me even more curious to learn about her origins and the very first time she
ever became a vampire, which will hopefully be answered in future issues. An even bigger and more pleasant surprise than Mei’s
transformation from damsel to a mostly full-fledged vampire is Mei’s
aforementioned boyfriend. John
Sargent is not a bad character by any means – he served in a war and is often,
through several attempts by Freedman and Coker, portrayed as (for lack of a
better word) a badass. With so
many characters like that in not only the world of comics but in most media,
it’s hard to measure up, but John comes a bit closer in this issue. The fact that he has suffered through
war seems to be a central part of his character, which is an interesting and
unique viewpoint. This issue even
manages to make John come off as even cooler during his fight against Mei’s
captives than in every other issue.
The only problem is that his character could still use more depth. He still has a ways to go (or at least
a few speech bubbles) before his characters can be fully fleshed out. But this issue does finally give him some
of the motivation to fight for Mei that the series should have started with –
but better late than never.The actual story is where things start to get a little
shaky. The ending of the issue
turns into a cliché and fails to be climactic at all. The sudden time shift does make sense since John went
through such an ordeal in the last
issue, but still would have been better in the first issue. It would have created more of an
attachment to the characters and given away part of their backgrounds, while
setting up many more surprises for future issues to explore. Even with my many questions finally
being answered here, it felt a little light on content in this issue as opposed
to the last. The issue just seemed
to go by a little too quickly and could slow its pace up a bit to give not only
the story a better pace but the reader a chance to breathe. The issue also seems very disconnected
from the first two, taking place in a completely different setting and taking
away the cultural elements written so well in the first issue. These elements are very missed here
even though I know they will return in the next issue. Another small complaint is the language
– and I don’t mean cursing. Since
the first issue, Undying Love has had people speaking different languages that
are never translated and simply remain jumbled symbols. Since you don’t know what it says you
just ignore it, so what’s the point of having it there? The art has the
most problems out of everything, with only one moment really standing out from
the rest. Artist Tomm Coker used
to have beautiful backgrounds that made me want to visit Hong Kong but now
they’ve taken a back seat to just about everything else and are mostly
neglected. All the male characters
also seem to have proportional issues with a little too much muscle and not
enough realism. Mei is given much
better treatment and has her most beautifully drawn shot in a full page
panel. In the future a touch of
her beauty needs to go into everything else. The speech bubbles are also an interesting element in the
comic. It uses the rarely used
technique of having a simple line drawn from the mouth of the character to the
speech bubble. This gives the art
more room and doesn’t cram them in between characters. But it’s also disconcerting: the lines
really stand out as a weird grey mass crossing through the panel, especially
when contrasted with a brightly colored panel making it seem very out of place
and interfering with the art about just as much as it was trying to help it.While the art was mostly a letdown with mixed results on
the speech bubbles and beautiful results on Mei, the characters have grown a lot in
this issue. Seeing the origin of
their relationship, despite it feeling a bit late, was what the series really
needed to pull in a reader and make them truly care about the characters. They help distract from the fact that
little really moved forward plot-wise in this issue, but that isn’t really the
purpose here. Instead this issue
is more of a highlight to the characters, which could have been accomplished in
a better way but still manages to hit many high notes. My hopes for the next issue are that it
can polish the already great elements and make them better as well as improve
the flaws and not fall by the wayside like the second issue did.Overall Score – 8.7/10
*Great - Easily getting a second printing. Worth any comic fan's time and money.*
An all-around nerdette, I’m a comic book connoisseur, horror aficionado, video game addict, anime enthusiast and an aspiring novelist/comic book writer. I am the head of the comic book department and the editor-in-chief of Entertainment Fuse. I also write and edit articles for Comic Frontline. I am also an intern at Action Lab Entertainment, a comic book publisher at which I edit comic book scripts, help work on images in solicitations and help with other comic book related project. My own personal website is comicmaven.com.
An even bigger and more pleasant surprise than Mei’s
transformation from damsel to a mostly full-fledged vampire is Mei’s
aforementioned boyfriend. John
Sargent is not a bad character by any means – he served in a war and is often,
through several attempts by Freedman and Coker, portrayed as (for lack of a
better word) a badass. With so
many characters like that in not only the world of comics but in most media,
it’s hard to measure up, but John comes a bit closer in this issue. The fact that he has suffered through
war seems to be a central part of his character, which is an interesting and
unique viewpoint. This issue even
manages to make John come off as even cooler during his fight against Mei’s
captives than in every other issue.
The only problem is that his character could still use more depth. He still has a ways to go (or at least
a few speech bubbles) before his characters can be fully fleshed out. But this issue does finally give him some
of the motivation to fight for Mei that the series should have started with –
but better late than never.
The actual story is where things start to get a little
shaky. The ending of the issue
turns into a cliché and fails to be climactic at all. The sudden time shift does make sense since John went
through such an ordeal in the last
issue, but still would have been better in the first issue. It would have created more of an
attachment to the characters and given away part of their backgrounds, while
setting up many more surprises for future issues to explore. Even with my many questions finally
being answered here, it felt a little light on content in this issue as opposed
to the last. The issue just seemed
to go by a little too quickly and could slow its pace up a bit to give not only
the story a better pace but the reader a chance to breathe. The issue also seems very disconnected
from the first two, taking place in a completely different setting and taking
away the cultural elements written so well in the first issue. These elements are very missed here
even though I know they will return in the next issue. Another small complaint is the language
– and I don’t mean cursing. Since
the first issue, Undying Love has had people speaking different languages that
are never translated and simply remain jumbled symbols. Since you don’t know what it says you
just ignore it, so what’s the point of having it there?
The art has the
most problems out of everything, with only one moment really standing out from
the rest. Artist Tomm Coker used
to have beautiful backgrounds that made me want to visit Hong Kong but now
they’ve taken a back seat to just about everything else and are mostly
neglected. All the male characters
also seem to have proportional issues with a little too much muscle and not
enough realism. Mei is given much
better treatment and has her most beautifully drawn shot in a full page
panel. In the future a touch of
her beauty needs to go into everything else. The speech bubbles are also an interesting element in the
comic. It uses the rarely used
technique of having a simple line drawn from the mouth of the character to the
speech bubble. This gives the art
more room and doesn’t cram them in between characters. But it’s also disconcerting: the lines
really stand out as a weird grey mass crossing through the panel, especially
when contrasted with a brightly colored panel making it seem very out of place
and interfering with the art about just as much as it was trying to help it.
While the art was mostly a letdown with mixed results on
the speech bubbles and beautiful results on Mei, the characters have grown a lot in
this issue. Seeing the origin of
their relationship, despite it feeling a bit late, was what the series really
needed to pull in a reader and make them truly care about the characters. They help distract from the fact that
little really moved forward plot-wise in this issue, but that isn’t really the
purpose here. Instead this issue
is more of a highlight to the characters, which could have been accomplished in
a better way but still manages to hit many high notes. My hopes for the next issue are that it
can polish the already great elements and make them better as well as improve
the flaws and not fall by the wayside like the second issue did.
Overall Score – 8.7/10
*Great - Easily getting a second printing. Worth any comic fan's time and money.* 
