< comics >
KAMEELMAN #1 & 2
(32pp & 24pp b&w comic, $2.99 from A1 Oregon Publishing / PO Box 1324 / Lake Oswego, OR / 97035 USA. Web:
www.kameelman.com)
Review by Alan Rankin
An interesting combination of the conventional with the innovative. Kameelman is a superhero with a fairly standard origin – he’s been genetically engineered with chameleon DNA, so he can assume the appearance of anyone else, including their personality and emotions (implausible, but who cares). It’s what he and his support team
does with this ability that’s so unusual. Instead of fighting the standard costumed supervillians, they seek out people who need help in their
personal lives, and intervene,
Mission: Impossible style. In the first issue, for example, they help a troubled teen cope with the bullies who are making his life miserable. It’s an intriguing concept: in mainstream comics, superheroes rarely help people cope with the challenges of day-to-day life, but in
Kameelman it’s central to the story. I’m curious to see how they carry it forward. Issue 1 ends with a textual appeal to the readers, urging them to commit to non-violence in their own lives. When’s the last time you saw that in a mainstream comic?
Issue 2 involves a sky-diving scenario, and while it’s obvious that writer “T-Bone” really did his homework on the techniques and lingo sky-divers use, it’s less of a story than an open-ended scene, a setup for issue 3. Much of it is spent on supporting character “Tiger,” her Asian background and her environmental concerns. It reads like a primer geared for a teenage audience new to such concepts, which is obviously the book’s target audience. But it’s less involving than the first issue’s intriguing concepts; ditto the subplot revolving around Kameelman’s sinister creator.
Another innovation: both stories have full-color “alternate endings” available on the book’s Web site. I’m not sure of the value of such things story-wise, but it’s certainly a new concept to me. Penciller Ron Randall has done much mainstream work, including an issue of Alan Moore’s classic
Swamp Thing run; he gets top billing in all credits. All in all, an interesting debut, certainly unlike anything else out there I’ve seen.
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