Divine Right: The Adventures of Max Faraday - Book One & Book Two (2002)
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Let me start off by saying that I love Jim Lee's pencils in pretty much any book that he draws. The guy knows how to tell a story with just pictures alone. And that's where the fan-boy worshiping ends. This book is awful. The characters, story and dialogue is downright horrible. The entire book is one big giant cliché after another. Jim is an amazing artist and that's all Divine Right has going for it. I think the problem with most artist that suddenly think they can write a book is they have told countless stories with pictures and then say..."how hard can it be to write dialogue?" The problem is that they are only pulling from the comic book world and nothing else..or so it seems. So, those cliché plot points are just going to be rehashed over and over, not giving the reader anything new, exciting or original.
Why is it necessary to create the same Alien Characters over and over and give them the dumbest names possible? They all look alike save for the new costume designs. Why must they go to the same well over and over and give us Alien Invasion stories? Is it really that hard to sit down and do some research from other source material that isn't comic book related? Personally, I think the entire book would have been so much better if Jim had stuck to just Max and his online relationship with Suzanne and his relationship with Dev and his sister Jenn. It was far more engaging and compelling than any of the stuff that came after. But even this was botched as well. It's not until issue #7 before we even get to really see their relationship in full and how they bonded over the internet. If you want to give the reader something to hold onto and make us care about what happens to the characters, especially when she is kidnapped....set up the chemistry between the two leads first. Otherwise it's just a waste of time because there is no urgency when she gets kidnapped at the beginning of the story arc. I couldn't have cared less. The reader is just left with assuming they have a "connection". Not a good way to start of a book.
I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone. It's got your classic Jim Lee art, but even that fades at the end when they bring in other artist to finish what he started. So, you're not even getting an entire series of Jim Lee pencils. I'm being very generous with the 2 Star rating here.
This is definitely a Skip.