The Mammoth #1 Review

The Mammoth is an attempt to capture the mystery, suspense, and horror of the monsters that came before it. This first issue sets the stage - strange seismic events are occurring in Kasbro County, and our 4 protagonists - Olivia, Mason, Jess, and Kokoro - are here to investigate. After the death of Olivia, it's apparent that these events are more than just earthquakes -but what?

While I found myself pulled in by the premise of the story, I didn't feel that this first issue continued my absorption into the story. While I love the idea of a giant monster in the woods that's basically causing earthquakes, this type of monster requires suspense and setup - and not only that but suspense and setup done well. We're told about the background of Kasbro County through the expertise of Kokoro, and it is limited to a handful of panels. This issue majorly focuses on the relationship between Olivia and Jess above The Mammoth. While relationships between characters are important, I think that when a book is attempting to establish a cryptid of massive proportions, that should be the focus. I would have liked to see how the people of Kasbro County view these strange events. Additionally, the people that Mason and Jess encounter during this issue appear to be another detractor from The Mammoth (although to be fair, this could be directly related - time will tell!). Overall, story-wise, I felt this was a bit of a messy start that didn't deliver on the potential that the solicit established.

If you look at my review of Slow Burn #1 from BOOM! Studios, you'll notice I included an F-Bomb counter. I didn't do that here, but should have. These are meant to be professionals investigating geological and seismic events and every other panel, they drop an F-Bomb. I'm not completely averse to coarse language but I feel it should be meaningful and/or important to the character. This felt excessive.

There were aspects of the art that I appreciated, but I found it hard to get into. Some of the scenery was well done, but often faces were stagnant where they should have been more expressive, and a lot of the art seemed rush. Sound effects were great - not sure if that was the artist or letterer. The letters were the high point of the book, excellently placed (even one point where speech bubbles overlapped to show two characters speaking over each other) and varying styles based on situation and character.

Now, I haven't said much positive about this book to this point, but I do think I'll give issue #2 a try, and here's why; often times, one issue is not enough time to figure out if you'll like a book or not. I've made some assumptions on the direction of the story based on one issue - I have to, it's all I have to go on - but I'd argue that it takes more than that to completely write off a book.

A rough start for The Mammoth but I'd love to be proved wrong in issue #2.