Comic Review: Rumble #17

Rumble (2017) #17

Image comics

Writer: John Arcudi

Artists: Gonzalo Ruggieri, Dave Stewart, James Harren, and Andrew MacLean

John Arcudi is one of those writers I’ve always been curious about. I’ve heard positive things about his work on the Mask, the B.P.R.D. and I even enjoyed the laughably bad film adaptation of his Barbwire series. Despite all this, I’d never given in and actually read one of his comics until I came across the latest issue of his series “Rumble” and it’s really sold me on him, hopefully you’ll give it a try and enjoy it too.

Rumble is a series focused on Rathraq, a warrior god who’s lost his body in the past and been reincarnated in a future world in the form of a scarecrow (who’s visually a little reminiscent of 2000AD’s Shakara). There’s a bit of a fish-out-of-water aspect as Rathraq ends up enlisting the aid of some humans to navigate this world, recover his body and take revenge on those who stole it from him. This isn’t some lazy, cliched revenge story though and there’s high quality all throughout this book to keep you entertained.

There are three stories on display here, each with a slightly different creative team. The first 2 stories focus on a crossover with Andrew MacLean’s Head lopper series with the premise being that both Rathraq(prior to becoming a scarecrow) and Head lopper’s protagonist Norgal (alongside his severed witch head called Agatha) are trapped inside the stomach of a giant and have to find a way out. This little adventure is amazing. I’ll admit that the premise alone won’t blow you away. It’s fun but you’ll have likely seen this story play out in multiple other team-up books. The artwork is the strong point here. The first book features a cartoonish art style from MacLean with minimalistic backgrounds that help to not only draw your eye to the characters but also draw attention to the witty dialogue and dark humour throughout.

The second part of this lovely story covers Rathraq’s view of events and the art is handled by James Harren who you may know for his previous work on the B.P.R.D and Hawkeye vs Deadpool. His work is far more detailed and serious-looking than MacLean’s which helps Rathraq’s side of the story feel different from Norgal and Agatha’s but thanks to the wonderful colouring of Dave Stewart on both of these stories it still meshes well with part one. The one thing I’ll say is that despite the cartoonish colouring you shouldn’t let your kids near this comic. There’s swearing throughout and it’s primarily aimed at mature audiences.

Our third and final story follows Rathraq as a scarecrow as he’s called away from his human assistants by some mysterious creatures into the lair of a towering, hungry, blue monster. Again, this is a very simple story but there’s also some good action and very little to complain about given its short length, especially with the breathtaking art of comic book newcomer Gonzalo Ruggieri. Hopefully, we’ll all be seeing more of him in future. Really my only major criticism across these three books is that the stories can seem unconnected if you don’t know Rathraq’s backstory. A “The story so far” section at the start would’ve been great for filling in new readers.

In conclusion, I’d have to recommend this book to any comic book fan reading this. It’s not the most original book I’ve come across and it isn’t emotionally deep or anything but if you’ve got a dark sense of humour and enjoy supernatural stories with plenty of action like Hellboy, Abe Sapien or the B.P.R.D. then odds are that Rumble will be right up your alley.

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