Is Scarlet any good?

I haven’t read it, but I’m a big fan of both Bendis and the artist, Alex Maleev. Is it worth reading? The premise sounds great but I’ve seen some negative reviews from reviewers and sites I generally trust.

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Ignore the reviews, start with the original series from 2010 (originally published by Marvel but now owned by DC) and enjoy. Both series are very entertaining.

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So, I downloaded the first volume and just read the first issue.

Hoopla’s nice that way.

And I have some thoughts. First things first: the story is actually pretty great. I said that I liked the elevator pitch of the book, and reading the issue didn’t let me down. The dialogue was on point, the thing with the word balloons that are actually narrative captions was a brilliant idea, and I’m excited to finish the volume, move on to the next one, and see where the series goes.

The only problem was the art. I know Alex Maleev does photo referencing, and his figures can be fairly stiff at times, but I tend to find that typically I really like his style, and the way his pages look and are laid out. He does a good job working with Bendis. Hell, I loved his work on Event Leviathan recently. The lines were crisp, and looked great.

But this? I don’t know what happened, but the art had some major problems. The figures were drawn okay, and I read the facial expressions well for most of the book, and there were those excellent three pages that summed up Scarlet’s emotional arc by showing the important moments in her life. That said, I still have no idea what was going on on this page:

But, again, overall? It was solid. Much better than I thought it would be. And I’m glad I checked it out.

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Glad you enjoyed it!

Regarding Maleev’s art, I enjoyed what he did here much more so than in Event Leviathan. Of course, I like Scarlet much more from an all around standpoint, so that likely had something to do with it.

SN: Hoopla is glad you checked it out too. :wink:

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I mean, Scarlet is much better overall (I’m a couple more issues in now), but something about the art puts me off. But, that said, it’s peak Bendis. The character writing is fantastic and the protagonist (Is she a hero? Is she a villain? Does it matter?) of the book is fascinating.

Also, the near idiosyncratic nods to iFanboy staffers is weird.

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Scarlet is my second favorite Bendis book, behind Cover.

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Speaking of, is iFanboy still around? I last listened to their podcast in…2011 or so.

Yeah, I could Google them, but it’s too early to Google. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Yeah, they are. I actually jumped back on in late 2018. Something to listen to on Sunday mornings.