I don’t like to review the first issue of a comic series, especially if the story’s not self contained. It feels too much like reviewing the first chapter of a book, the first half hour of a film or the first episode of a serialized tv show. I’m never sure if any problems I have with the story or the execution will be resolved or disappear as the story progresses. Sometimes creators just need space and time to figure things out. I’ve read any number of disappointing comic series with transcendent first issues and amazing series that had a slow start. So why not wait? Because the analogy between comics and other art forms has a limit. The industry and culture of comics are fundamentally different from television, books and film. Movies and books are (mostly) produced and sold as singular objects. We might consume them piecemeal, but the only thing wasted by a ‘wait and see’ approach to the story is time. Although television episodes and comic book issues can be appreciated as discrete works of pop art or as components of a larger story, most people still buy TV shows via a subscription to a network or streaming service. Comics are different. While subscription services, stand alone graphic novels, story collections and free/ad-supported webcomics are growing in prominence, there are still an awful lot of comics produced and sold in the individual issue format at three to five dollars a pop. It’s hard to wait for things to improve if it’s costing you money. Readers can wait until an arc is completed, but the ‘Wednesday Warrior’ culture that has developed around the Direct Market also exerts social pressure on readers to read and discuss comics as individual issues. It’s hard to be patient and wait for a book to get better.

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