Gamenomics & Comicology

Personally, I felt like issue three of “The Midas Flesh” moved a little bit slower than I would have liked. No complaints this week; “The Midas Flesh” 4 throws the warp drive into hyper-gear as the action picks up and story gets darker and deeper.

For those of you who have never heard of the series before, “The Midas Flesh” is a kind of “what-if” story. What if King Midas actually did get the golden touch, and that caused the entire planet to turn gold, and then the golden Earth was rediscovered many years in the future by a small crew of scientists looking for a weapon to defeat the evil Federation with? I know, it is cool. Last issue ended with the crew of The Prospect being confronted by a super-powerful gigantic Federation ship, the FSM Titanic. Issue #4 is an exciting game of cat and mouse between the two ships, making it way more intense than some of the lighter issues in the past. Our heroic crew are also faced with a tough moral dilemma and a dangerous catch-22 as they try to find a way to survive against the Federation. This issue is emotional, and I don’t envy the heroes’ position one bit.

Ryan North is a great writer and his character work in this series is wonderful. The voices for all of these characters are unique and distinct, from the sarcastic and scientific dinosaur Cooper to the slimy and offensive Federation General Russ. These heroes feel very real, and you end up really caring for them and concerned about the outcome of their space fight. North is also very funny, and the pages of this comic are sprinkled with his offbeat and casual humor. For the most part it’s great, but in the extremely tense setting this issue exists in, I felt like a couple of jokes seemed a little out of place and a little out of character. That’s probably my biggest gripe with the book, so not bad.

One thing I’ve really enjoyed about this series so far is that I never really know where it’s going next. “The Midas Flesh” is an eight issue miniseries, which means this issue is the midway-point. I honestly have no clue how the narrative is going to proceed and only a vague guess as to the final destination. How exciting is that! And while there are other books that you could say that same thing about, only a few are just as fun as this one. And that’s all a comic really should be, just fun.

If you like fun, go pick up the first four issues of “The Midas Flesh” now. I promise you it’s worth it. This is the first story in BOOM!’s new BOOM! Box imprint, and if the rest of the series that come out of it have the same quality as “The Midas Flesh”, I’ll be reading them.

Curtis’ Gold Plated Score: 4 / 5

“The Midas Flesh” 4

Written by: Ryan North

Interior Art by: Braden Lamb and Shelli Paroline

Published by: BOOM!

Available on: 3/26/14

Price: $3.99