If you’re a lover of Sgt. Rock, The War That Time Forgot, or just dinosaurs eatin’ dudes, chances are Chronos Commandos is your cup of tea. While the debut issue suffers a great deal from its lack of character focus and a reliance on too many familiar beats, its bouncy dialogue, pretty digital paints, and wacky (though sparse) time travel plot might be enough to warrant your cash.
Writer/illustrator Stuart Jennett seems less concerned with building his cast here – most of them serve as cannon fodder anyway – and is happy to rely on the reader’s familiarity with the archetypes. Think about Sgt. Rock’s Easy Company and you’ve got an idea of every character in Chronos Commandos #1. In lieu of notable character work, Jennett offers a fast-moving romp through a dinosaur-ridden island on a hunt for Nazis. Just as character work isn’t a concern, neither is plot, though it works well enough. We understand that these soldiers are on the hunt for time-disrupting Nazis, and the rest is pure spectacle.
Hopefully future installments can move beyond the gimmick and flesh out the characters and their world, but for an action-packed first issue, it works just fine. There is a problem with repeating beats, however, as we see the same moment essentially play out twice but for two different characters, and the surprise is less impactful both times because of the repetition.
Jennett’s art is the real star here, though. While human figures often suffer from a lack of emotion and a rather robotic quality of movement, his atmospheric detail and rendering of dinosaurs and non-human objects within the world are quite stunning. The opening sequence of dino-on-dino violence will get you riled up in no time; Jennett’s storytelling flow is flawless in this instance. Ironically, it’s only when the soldiers go on the run from the dinos that things feel a bit lifeless as the static quality of the characters lessens the illusion of movement within the panels.
One other gripe I have to point out is the lettering for the sound effects in this issue. Most are simply a bland white in a font that looks dangerously close to Comic Sans, making some of the lettering stand out like a sore thumb and look rather amateurish. Hopefully this can be corrected before this book goes to print in July.
In all, though, Chronos Commandos #1 is an enjoyable, if somewhat hollow, romp through time.
Joey is a Senior Editor at IGN and a comic book creator. Follow Joey on Twitter @JoeyEsposito, or find him on IGN at Joey-IGN. He will love Star Wars until he becomes one with the Force, and then he will continue loving it as a blue ghost.
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