The Massive, Vol. 1: Black Pacific

One giant MMMMEH from me. I could barely finish this. It sounds interesting on paper: a post-eco-disaster world, where some shady eco-warriors (like, with guns) cruise around the ocean on their giant, repurposed research vessel, looking for their missing sister ship and trying to save whales. Ya know.

Anyway, nice bits include all the water stuff: the art feels like a Zen haiku at times. I appreciate (intellectually) how the global disaster is portrayed on the periphery of things - i.e. when they dock into Hong Kong, and find it basically underwater (cool!). I also like the basic design of each issue, especially with the fake primary docs following each mini-story.

But... it's just, well, boring. And I found the characterizations basically ridiculous. A former black ops guy turns into a rough, handsome, righteous Robert Redfordy captain of a bunch of eco-warriors? It just seems absurd. Like, why have the black ops stuff in there at all? Also, while I appreciated all the globe-trotting and flashbacks (“Once, in 2001, in Slovenia...”), I also found them a bit tediously exoticizing, almost hipster in its “Yeah, you probably haven't heard of Mogadishu/Ljubljana/whatever”. LE SIGH.