Category: V
Last article published: 24 July 2011
This is the 7th post under this label
The two V mini-series had striking visuals, but the memorable pieces aren't really the action - a Visitor swallowing a rat, a ripped face revealing lizard skin, oh my gosh, it's Nazi Germany all over again, the animatronic baby... strong moments, but mostly TV-strength action. Some laser fights, Donovan using a bazooka on a Visitor shuttle, it was actually quite good for its time and format. The TV series would do the same with diminishing returns. But what of other formats? Today, we're going to look a more or less random issue of V: The Comic Book to see if it stuck to TV realities or of it used its format's capabilities to stretch the action and effects beyond what TV could offer. And from the cover, I'd say issue #3 has promise...
A Visitor transport lands in what looks like a town in the Old West where they are welcomed by the population, but this isn't some earlier scouting visit from our scaly "friends" because our heroes - Donovan and Julie - are in Sparkling Springs themselves, in an old-timey jail. The Visitors come here every morning to soak up water from the geysers, so here really begins our effects-fest.
Mildly underwhelming (but the geysers haven't geysered yet). As to why the Visitors have the residents' good will, it may be that they're regrowing amputated arms like nobody's business. Now you can have that thresher accident and be back on the job the next day! And all it cost was geyser water? Good deal!
But we're still in TV land. This would have been done with time lapse, pretty simple effect. The Resistance break the captives out and grabbing rifles, the heroes remind themselves that they have to go for head shots. Their Visitor guards have armors that are impervious to firearms. But the Visitors don't have any such limitations.
TV-style (laser) gun-play - even the western set is rote - but the exploding windows and walls are pretty dynamic. We're approaching comics-level action... The fight ends with Julie and Hart being captured and young Billy forcing the Visitor to drop his gun to free them, but a sniper blows up the house he's in. Basic comic explosion, but I think Cary Bates, Carmine Infantino and Tony DeZuniga understand what the show's brand is. It's scenes like this:
If they indeed murdered a kid, it's images like this that bring the point home without showing an unbearable image. (Although in TV as in comics, if you don't see the dead body, you can't be sure the character's dead. In this case, he is.) A couple pages of Donovan trying to convince the townsfolk to join the Resistance but failing, and it's on to Plan B - taping grenades to geyser spouts and hoping they'll blow when the water does. THIS I wouldn't expect from the TV show!
The transport crashes, bit from any great height (but hey, Julie and Hart are in a cell, inside), but emboldened, the townspeople decide to turn on their Visitor friends.
Scripted as TV action, but the angles give it a bit more production value. A race to the ship, a quick rescue of their friends, the Visitor captain escapes in a flying throne (so that's blowing an already-blown budget, and the ship finally explodes as Donovan and friends run away from it.
None of this has anything to do with the cover, but I have to say, the issue was surprisingly action-filled, certainly more so than V on TV. Because yes, they could splurge on an effect or an action sequence, but the bulk of an episode would have to be people talking or doing things that don't cost as much time or money. So this is a nice little addition to the V-verse, showing the conflict in more no holds barred circumstances without necessarily breaking from the premise or mood of the show. Let's call it a
V for Victory!
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