Review: Damage Vol. 1- Out of Control

Quick Summary

Pros: This volume is packed with action and contains a plethora of exciting battles. The mystery developing in the background is intriguing. The volume’s artwork is gorgeous in many places.

Cons: The actual storytelling isn’t that great.

Overall: This is a solid book for fans of action. The entire volume is focused on a series of battles fought by an incredibly powerful new character. These battles are engaging and are backed up by visuals that enhance them even further. The problem is that, besides building a little intrigue for the next volume, there isn’t much when it comes to story. All in all, this is a book for readers who want to see epic battles play out and don’t mind a thin storyline.

Story

Damage Vol. 1: Out of Control, by Robert Venditti, does one thing and does it well. This volume is a blistering barrage of fighting between a powerful new character and anyone who gets in his way. Each chapter mostly serves as a showcase for a different conflict and the vast majority of these conflicts are executed well. The actual storyline binding all of this fighting together shows some potential, as it generates some intrigue, but, at the moment, isn’t anything that special. Overall, this comic is great for action but is just alright when it comes to story.

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As mentioned above, the main draw in Out of Control is the action. Each chapter in the volume’s first half is almost entirely focused on a single battle between Damage and an enemy, with a soldier in a mech suit, the Suicide Squad, and Wonder Woman serving as combatants. Then, the book’s second half features a more elaborately designed battle against Poison Ivy and forces from Gorilla City. The vast majority of these battles are awesome explosions of action, with the Poison Ivy fight being the only lackluster entry of the bunch.

However, when it comes to storytelling, Out of Control struggles. The volume’s overwhelming focus on action leaves little time to actually develop a plot. Instead, the narrative simply has the main character jumping from battle to battle with little to no objective in between. Even the arrival of the combatants is often poorly justified. It seems that this is a collection that is ok with the tradeoff that comes with its focus on action.

The bright spot here is that the storytelling does develop a moderately intriguing mystery. The exact circumstances behind Damage’s origin and the relation between his dueling consciousness is brought up in a few places but is not fully explored. Plus, the goal he gets at the conclusion of this collection, to go to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, turns a series mostly consisting of aimless rambling into an actual quest. This gives me hope that the next volume will be able to turn things around when it comes to the storytelling.

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Art

The artwork in Out of Control starts out incredible before downgrading to pretty good. The first half of the collection features the always-impressive team-up of Tony S. Daniel on pencils, Danny Miki on inks, and Tomeu Morey on colors. Their work has a great sense of energy that, when paired with their realistic approach to visuals, is absolutely perfect for the dynamic battles seen throughout these chapters. All of the characters look great and their clashes with one another are fantastic. In the second half, pencils from Cary Nord and Diogenes Neves are less realistic and more stylized but still manage to develop a great sense of energy. However, the visuals here are less precise and bodily proportions occasionally feel off. Despite this, both halves of the book feature well-constructed pages, with horizontal and vertical spreads looking particularly impressive. Though I would have liked the whole book to have been like the first half, overall, this is still a good collection when it comes to visuals.

Continuity

Damage Vol. 1: Out of Control is the first volume in a mostly independent series. The main storyline has its origins in vague hints given in Dark Days: The Casting #1, collected in Dark Days: The Road to Metal (Review) (Reading Order), but this is not necessary to understand what takes place in this volume.

The story here is continued in Damage Vol. 2: Scorched Earth.

This volume also references other comic books, detailed below:

• Notes indicate that the events of this volume take place prior to Poison Ivy’s appearances in Batman #41-43, collected in Batman Vol. 6: Bride or Burglar (Review).
• Gorilla Grodd was recently defeated by the Flash (Reading Order) in The Flash Vol. 7: Perfect Storm (Review).