My copy of Heavy Metal #318 came to me in late August 2022. It has 176 pages and the $14.99USD cover price. Almost three months after I got #317, making six issues I got this year. Not good for a mag that pretends to be a monthly. Another of the Portents that concern me about the future of Heavy Metal Magazine.
I got the Cover A by Greg Hildebrandt:
It gets an 8 from me. A lovely clothes-less lady with a dragon, it could hardly be a more classic example of Heavy Metal Magazine ethos, more evocative of a HM "brand" than anything the big shots are peddling these days. And I thought including the classic tagline "The adult illustrated fantasy magazine" and the "June 2022" date was just adorable.
We are again spared the big shots' editorials, in favor of another "in memoriam" page, for George Pérez. George Pérez was apparently a celebrated comic artist, who has not appeared in Heavy Metal Magazine. Oh well. RIP.
The Contents page has a notable entry "Heavy Metal logo enhancement by Peter Kleinman", which was a new and interesting way to put it.
There's a one-page preview of "A Darker God" by Homero Rios, C.F. Villa, Oscar Carreño, Jame, that says it's "coming next month". Might be cool, I'll wait for it to actually appear before I try to rate it.
"3320" by Christopher Priest, Montos, Chris Sotomayor, Wille Schubert, Joseph Illidge - 3 - This appears to be a preview for the "Entropy" comic book HM is producing. "In Stores July" it says. Sure. Boobs and occasionally pretty cool art can't possibly save this misguided supervillain comic. I'll be pleased if I never see this again.
"Space Pirates Unit Dolores Chapter 2 The Orphans of Fort Messaoud" by by Didier Tarquin, Lyse Tarquin, Ivanka Hahnenberger, Jame, Fabrice Sapolsky - 5 - A 46-page installment of this sprawling space pirate adventure. I'm suffering from trope overload on this one. The protagonist is troubled by the mystery and brutality of the world she's entered, and suffers a murderous delusion, there's an orphan or something, and the alcoholic ex-ringfighter finds her a duplicate of his lost captain, and the enslaving religious colonizers are overcome by a rebellion of the enslaved. And then the good guys are chased across space by more pirates. I wanted to like this one, maybe there will be more installments that I enjoy better.
"Cold Dead War: Ammunition" by Adam Lance Garcia, Armitano, Lee Loughridge, Saida Temofonte, Joseph Illidge - 5 - Another installment in this story with some different creators (and a couple of repeats) that tries to show zombies with some humanity. I like Armitano's art here more than others, and it's an interesting premise (maybe) that these stories don't quite investigate in a way that entices me. I enjoyed "The Rise" better, for different reasons, as a zombie tale.
"Starward: Chapter Eleven" by Steve Orlando, Ivan Shavrin, Saida Temofonte - 6 - With Joseph Illidge credited as Editor, and a Special Thanks to Vita Ayala. The story ends with this chapter turned up to 11. The Sisters defeat Kaos in their father's body, reuniting for brief minutes, before he sacrifices himself to seal away Kaos forever. The art works hard to the end, brightly action-filled, and thankfully avoiding unfortunate two-page spreads. The story succeeds in scratching the surface of real human emotion. This has been not terrible but not exciting to me.
"WireMonkeys" by Dan Schaffer, Fabrice Sapolski - 7 - Subtitled "2. Brainframe". More freaky shit ensues when the protagonist Mazzy finds her lost lover "installed" in the cerebral servers, for her brain to be a "wet processor", finding along the way that her lover was not only hers. So she breaks in to the servers, dying along the way and annoying the entities who reject her untimely death again, and thus reconstituted, she reunites her past lover's head with her lover's lover's head, so they can sensuously share data for eternity. Pretty magnanimous if you ask me. I enjoyed this one a bit more, for increased wackiness.
"The Axe - Part 4" by Joe Trohman, Brian Posehn, Scott Koblish, Diego Fichera, Lucas Gattoni, Morgan Rosenblum - 6 - The teens keep having to fight demons, hoping to somehow escape Sheol. But one demon is an Earth geek, who wants to be besties, so they have an ally. More delightfully imaginative demons, and many jokes, some even funny.
"Engagers - Part 3" by Matthew Medney, Bruce Edwards, John Roi Mercado, William Soares, Lucas Gattoni, Morgan Rosenblum - 5 - Noted as "The Final Chapter" in the contents, this 31 page installment makes use of the extra pages in this issue, to come to its end. While this tries to end on a Matrix-y "Revolution" of clandestine resistance against the parasitic overlords of this reality, too many things soured my view. The storytelling for one, there's some showing but a lot more telling going on. The art for another; the coloring got better but it seemed out of place to me sometimes, and the drawing is good at first glance, but the uniformity of style is too manufactured for my taste; characters' similarities are too obvious, the hands are perfect enough to make me think they come from templates. Maybe that's just how it's done in comic book land these days.
"Something Seems Off" by Chris Anderson - 8 - Delighted to see another installment, with the story actually developing continuity. And dialogue! A telepathic monologue from a meditating mind-melder, or something, but still. And Darla seems to be a female humanoid? With boobs? Of course! Quite pleased to see this story still shine through the dreck. Can't wait for more.
