The Intrinsic - Series
Arcana comics has published a lot of interesting, original series. A good number of those have free #1 issues with the following issues at 99¢. I’ll be giving them reviews for sure. A lot of those reviews will be from books and series that I very much enjoyed.
Unfortunately I can’t say that about The Intrinsic.
I honestly feel bad about making this my first Aracana review rather than other series I enjoyed more like The Evil Tree or Champions of the Wild West. But The Intrinsic touched upon a subject that’s bothering me; the all-encompassing, multi-hero, crossover, team-up exploitation event/series.
Marvel’s guilt here stands out here like a cosplayer in a Red Hat event. They’ve especially summoned and fed two demons with these series that exist to annoy me.
The first one has been around a while, the all-encompassing series gets so all-encompassing that they either spill into our favorite series for way too issues or, even worse, they actually only continue through the actual various series forcing readers to get follow the whacky path. Now that’s nothing new or recent. But it’s getting a bit crazy.
The other demon is hero on hero porn, a big pet peeve device. Used sparingly the hero having to fight another hero can be interesting. But it’s done so much I sometimes feel that creators just sit around a campfire discussing if Mighty Mouse can beat Superman in a fight. Somehow Marvel succeeds in these series to make me absolutely loathe certain characters in these series with that. DC doesn’t get a free pass because, really, do we really need another Batman versus Superman fight? Really? Oh wait. Now it’s a movie.
So Arcana unfortunately gets to pay for my own personal baggage with the Intrinsic. Ishmael Stone from the series Philosopher Rex has a dream, a vision. He sees evil Apollyon leading a charge that will lead to the Apocalypse (lots of Apo here). The key to saving the world from this vision happening: The Intrinsic!
No wait, they fail in the dream too. The key to saving the world from this horrible nightmare? Security guard Alex Rand. Or his dancer girlfriend Tori. One of the two. Stone’s just not sure which one yet. Using the time honored trick of telling each one that the other’s in the hospital Stone gets the two of them together. Because the house where they live together presented too many difficulties I assume.
Explaining this all in a sort of safe hospital room Stone tells them about the danger the world faces and the group ready to fight it: The Intrinsic, made up from characters of stand alone Arcana series such as Kade, Kore and Candice Crow (the K guys will likely get some reviews on their own). They have united to stop Appolyon, but it’s not going to be enough.
From there we get a lot of good old-fashioned contrivance and plot conventions to move everyone along to the big battle (does that need a spoiler alert in this kind of series). Manufactured circumstances mix in with off-beat whacky moments that get to give each character their moment.
It’s not a bad read. There are books that can piss you (me) off while reading them. And for the most part The Intrinsic avoids this.
But here’s the best way I can describe the series. I read it not too long ago, maybe a month ago, and I honestly could barely remember anything about the series. Now of course all these series and even their movies will have to use stupid plot devices to either get them together or move them to the big battle. That’s a given. Hell, the Avengers movie has quite a few. However, if that’s the point, I want a great battle. I didn’t get it here.
Maybe if I had some more love for the characters I’d have a different opinions, there’s no doubt that going into the series with a more emotional connection will always help. But even after reading Kade and Kore, I really didn’t have any deep connection. And as Tori and Alex are only introduced here, the writers have only this series to get me to connect with them. Cliched self-doubt and hurried training scenes though just won’t get it done.
I know these series are comic book feed, popcorn for our reading souls. And admittedly with my hunger and their price the Intrinsic does do that at least. But with Arcane trying to create differentiation along with quality, I had hoped for a bit more.
You can find #1 for free and the rest for 99¢ at Comixology.
