Standstill #1 // Review
There is a gentleman entering a bar. It isn’t just any bar, though...it’s the Murder City Devil’s Biker Club. He hasn’t exactly dressed to fit in, though. He’s wearing a Lous Hawaiin shirt. He’s smoking a cigarette out of a classy, little cigarette holder. He’s clearly looking or trouble and there’s no questino that he’ll find it in Standstill #1. Writer Lee Loughridge opens a promising, new series with artist Andrew Robinson. It’s a fun opener featuring a fearless, iconoclastic hero who manages a very strong introduction in the first issue of his new series. Looks like Loughridge and Robinson might have a hit on their hands.
The loud-shirted stranger is up against the wall with a shotgun to his mouth. It’s not like he couldn’t have seen that coming. They commented on his bright shirt...saying that it was indicative of his sexuality. He responded by making the observation that a lot of the traditional biker gear might have its roots in gay S&M. Naturally people are going to get a little upset. Naturally a shotgun is going to be involved. It’s not all that natural when he suddenly disappears only to reappear on the other side of the establishment holding a rather large knife that had been sheathed around the belt of the guy with the shotgun. That’s when he tells the gentlemen why he’s there...
Wes Craven directed a story for the first episode of the first revival of The Twilight Zone. “A Little Peace and Quiet” told the story of a meek housewife who gained the power to stop time by means of a magical artifact. Craven’s time stop story wasn’t the first and it wasn’t that last. There’s lots of potential. What happens if it isn’t magic? What happens if it’s advanced government tech? What happens if the person with the ability is much more sinister than a meek housewife? Loughridge takes the idea and runs with it with a main character who is a suave anti-hero who punishes the guilty. It’s a fun opener to a promising series.
Back in the mid-1980s, John Byrne did an entire issue of The Fantastic Four the long way. The reader had to tilt the entire issue on its side to read it. It wasn’t the first time it was used and it wasn’t the last. Andrew Robinson uses the “landscape” format of the comic book to create something similarly cinematic to that which Byrne had done back in the 1980s. The wide-screen aspect ratio isn’t a gimmick, though. It adds a certain splashy aesthetic depth to a story that features a very stylish and ostentatious anti-hero.
Craven had a single episode of The Twilight Zone to explore the idea of someone who could stop time. It was provocative. Loughridge and Robinson have a whole series to explore it...which MIGHT be too much space to work the concept and still make it appealing. It’s a fun opening. There’s a great deal of promise in a series like Standstill, but a whole lot of ways that it could theoretically go wrong depending on how artist and writer decide to execute the series in the months to come.
Grade: A
