Fanboys Anonymous

We here at Fanboys Anonymous are lucky enough to get advanced copies sent our way when anything new comes out from certain publishers, Titan Publishing included. So thanks, Titan, for the copy of the darkly Gothic graphic novel, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (FHA).

The images and artwork are top notch, but the story could use some work. That's a mini-review for the whole thing that encapsulates my response to it. We begin our story with a focus on righteous do-gooder Adam Cahill, a member of the Order of Solomon who is bound by his ancient bloodline to protect the Earth from Armageddon.

It's a nice beginning, and I like when Cahill starts to build his own team of fighters determined to face and defeat the Four Horsemen. They are an oddball group and different from what one would expect. A politician, a hooker, a murderer, and Cahill are all bound together to fight the evil of Hell. The book has a good push forward into the story and a good pace. It's never boring, but once you reach the end you may feel a bit hollow. Not much happens. Interspersed between scenes of violence and fighting (which I liked), there is dialogue about this and that, but ultimately it's a bit of a cliche-riddled plot.

Evil must find the Seven Seals and bring about the end of the world; good must stop them. I really enjoyed what happens along the way, and the writers do a good job of twisting expectations, but considering how long this tome is and how many pages it has stuffed in it, there should be more story points packed in along the way. There's nothing wrong with simplicity, but I wanted to see more character interactions, more from the side of evil instead of them just being evil for evil's sake.

Why do they want to take over the world? They seem to be having a grand ol' time in Hell. What is at stake if people die? Won't they go straight to Heaven to be with God? Isn't this a good thing overall? I don't want to spoil anything, but there are moments where something bad happens, but then it didn't happen. It was a nice change up at the time, but it was destroyed by a quick fix. Not quite a deus ex machina, but disappointing.

Don't get the wrong idea; this is something I enjoyed and the type of graphic novel I would eat up in a second if I saw it on the shelf. The designs of the Four Horsemen in FHA are stellar and really well done. They're very Gothic and "updated" while retaining the flavor of what one would expect from the classic archetypes of Death, War, Pestilence, and Famine. The panels are nicely arranged and not too hard to follow along with, which is something I find happening in some titles.

So the good outweighs the bad with the FHA graphic novel from Titan Publishing. There are great visuals, a fast-paced story, and some cool ideas on an old story.

Recommended for the like-minded Goths out there. I give it a solid 7 out of 10.

Is anyone looking forward to picking this up? Anyone know about it but on the fence about getting it? Sound off below.