ISOM #2 – Mad at the Internet 2024-09-07

0:00:00
Unknown_01: Well, chat, here we are. The follow-up review to Isom. Isom 2 by Eric July. Black comic book man. A guy who Juju the Cow, a.k.a. Dax Herrera, hates with every fiber of his being. To the point where he promoted a pedophile's drawing book and even crowdfunded him from his own audience the money to finish this drawing book, which to this day the pedophile Vito Gisualdi had never finished. He made so much money, I think it was like $70,000 that he made off of Juju's audience, that he broke down in tears, so happy that he could finally pay somebody to draw naked a girl he had a crush on in college who died.

0:00:48
Unknown_01: But we're not talking about Juju the Cow or Vito Giswalzi, the pedophile, in his comic book. We're talking about black comic book Dan in Isom 2.

Unknown_01: Here we have it. I actually have two copies of this book.

Unknown_01: I bought one in, like, preserved packaging for a collection, I suppose, that I have started of comic books, of meme comic books. I actually have all three comic books of Rusty Cage, which I haven't read. And I have Butch Killigan, which is by Sven Soffels. And I will make reference. Now, because when I started talking about Isom, I had literally never read a comic book before. And I just kind of went in dry. And to recap my first review, it's sort of like a crime book, crime story where it's a very grounded story.

0:01:25
Unknown_01: There's a guy, he's a rancher in Texas, and his family friend has been sex trafficked. It's a very contemporary, modern story. So he's going to go and investigate where she went and confront the crime boss and get her back. And for whatever reason, and when I say that, it's because Eric July is big into comic books. There's like this superhero subplot where he's a superhero and there's a superhero that's like a bad superhero. It's got like an excerpt. And then there's like a world of superheroes. And I said in my first review that this all felt very needless and distracting.

0:02:02
Unknown_01: You had a very simple story of a man trying to hunt down a family friend against bad odds with an organized crime boss. And there's all this weird fantasy stuff that I – when I think of superheroes, I think of like Superman and Spider-Man. I don't really think of like sex trafficking. So I thought that that was weird.

0:02:41
Unknown_01: But nothing would have prepared me for Isom 2.

Unknown_01: Um, this is a bad comic. And I say that having only read two comics, I guess three. Um, it's a comic that has a extreme lack of focus. I want to say it's kind of hard to say, but I think it's like 60 pages. And despite its length, I do have this picture, by the way, um, in this, I'm going to be showing scans and the scans kind of wash out the colors. The colors in this are just wonderful. Um,

Unknown_01: I believe that the artists involved have done a wonderful job with a couple exceptions, but the colors just pop great. It's a beautiful book.

0:03:18
Unknown_01: But I really, I couldn't wait to be finished with it, which is, I realize that these are very short, these comic books. So when I'm flipping through this, I'm just like, God, I can't wait to be fucking done reading this.

Unknown_01: It's a bad sign. It's like, it's short, but I still have ran out of patience for it.

Unknown_01: And that's because I believe there's four subplots happening. Like, the story is told anachronistically. It's very weird. It's not like full fight club. It's like, what the fuck is going on? It's just like there's four different things happening in four different places. And it doesn't it doesn't have any cohesion whatsoever. You don't understand how A and B tie together. And the big problem is in the first book, he gets into the crime fighting stuff to rescue Jasmine, this girl. And there's one, specifically one mention of Jasmine throughout the entire fucking book. So this book could very well be the first. It could very well be the first book in the Isom series for all the tie-in that it has with the original. So I'm going to pull up the scan. And again, I literally have two of these. So I just got lazy and I did not want to scan this myself because I don't have a scanner anymore.

0:04:22
Unknown_01: But I do physically own this book.

Unknown_00: Okay, so the book opens in like nondescript office building.

Unknown_01: And my first big issue with this is that you can see Black Lady is going into this extremely, she's the chief technology officer. So she's like a C-level executive in this office building. And she has to do like a biometric scan to get in. So you can see she's in this dark room. She's getting in. She opens, and this is kind of weird. I thought this was a hologram at first. This is supposed to be like her shadow entering the door. And then she's immediately confronted by Darren Fontano, who is the main bad guy in the first book. But from this angle, you can see that it's not dark. So it's like dark in this. Right. But when we look at what she sees when she walks in, she would be able to clearly see that all these goons are at this desk. And you can see the door she just walked in through right here. So how is she possibly ambushed walking in through this door when the bad guys are like right in front of her? And like she should open the door, see these guys and then just be like, oh, fuck this and then leave.

0:05:39
Unknown_01: And then also there's this like I think that this was like if I was like Juju the cow and I was trying to make a meme about this comic book, the rhetorical slap would be something that I cut out. And I would ask, like, you know, he loves to do that joke. How many pushups can you do? I would ask that and then if they ever answer, I would just hit them with the rhetorical slap because it's not like a literal answer. I don't know if he did that but it would be funnier than he's usually.

0:06:13
Unknown_01: So again, my first big gripe right off the series like the sequence of events is like this woman is ambushed in her own office that's apparently very secure. By somebody she could have seen. There's like a trick to the eye when she is like they're pretending that it's like a dark corridor, but she's just immediately ambushed.

0:06:47
Unknown_01: Then, regardless of the fact that she was ambushed in an office she should have been able to see as she walked through the door, apparently they were wise to the fact that these bad guys, Darren, had broken into this tech office anyways. So we have, like, an entire fucking Counter-Strike Go counter-terrorist team breaking in, beating the fuck out of the main bad guy already. And it's just like, oh... So the problem's resolved then, right? I think this is the office building of the superhero complex that Isom actually belongs to.

Unknown_01: So it's like, there's the bad guy. You have him. You have his entire crew. So you can negotiate whatever terms for releasing what's-her-face, right? So there's no problem solved immediately on page 10, it looks like. What's the issue?

0:07:37
Unknown_01: So we immediately go from the main bad guy being wrapped up to this weird years ago thing. So we've already broken the chronological order of the comic book. We're now years ago. And this is the explanation of how Avery lost his mojo as a superhero.

Unknown_01: So he rushes into this comic book convention, ironically, and helps this girl and her boyfriend or friend or whatever off the ground and is like, hey, let me escort you out of this convention center that's been torn apart.

0:08:19
Unknown_01: Then, somehow, and again, this is like a common theme in the book that I have a problem with, even as somebody who doesn't read comic books. This guy has approached Avery out of nowhere. Like, out of nowhere. Where is he coming from? This guy is like an eight-foot-tall orc. He's like 300 pounds of pure muscle. How do you not hear him? How does he sneak up on you? He's like directly next to Avery, and the people he's trying to save are only like a few feet away.

Unknown_01: So there's a brief fight, and then the orc randomly says, and then starts super fast chasing after the girl in the costume. And I think it's kind of implying that she's dressed up as a superhero that he's actually trying to kill. So he rushes over there, and this is one of the worst parts of the entire comic for me.

0:09:03
Unknown_01: So if you look at this page, you can see the level of detail given to this character's ass. It is drawn like almost center. Like, I mean, the only ass drawn more in detail is Avery's. But hers is right next to his ass. And they're both drawn in detail. So then we go over here. And this is the action sequence that is supposed to have impacted Avery so much. That he decided, I can't do this. I can't do this. And if we look at her face and how this is drawn, this is like such a brutal thing is like she's pulled down by this is like a random girl at like a convention. She's pulled down by her hair. And then this is her face of mortal terror. And it looks like the kind of face you would draw on a background character. You see a full-colored, well-drawn face for Avery and his reaction to what he understands is about to happen. But they can draw her ass just fine. But when it comes to drawing her face and how she reacts to her own mortal peril, it's like, honestly, it's supposed to be cast in shadows to look scary, but it just looks bad.

0:10:11
Unknown_01: And then he just smashes her skull, like how you would crash like Play-Doh between your fingers. It's kind of fucking brutal. There's more pages between that and this one where they have no issue drawing her body, but they do have an issue drawing her face, apparently. And I only bring this up because I know that comic books are like kind of ecchi in terms of what they show. And that's kind of the point.

Unknown_01: But I feel like it's a little bit inappropriate to do that with the girl who exists only to have her skull crushed.

0:10:57
Unknown_01: I don't know if that's feminist or what, but that's how it comes across to me.

Unknown_01: The next sequence is in like a house with his friend explaining what's happened. So again, we've gone from current time Darren situation years ago back to current time. But now we're in somebody's house where he's kind of talking to a friend about his trauma.

Unknown_01: OK, so we walk away from the therapy session. He goes inside this like military complex. And I don't know why. But then we have this. This is the exact same error as before. He's walking through a door and then there's an ambush. But we can see that the background has windows where like look at this. These eyes. I assume that these were bats at first because it's like, realistically speaking, if this thing has a body, it would occlude the windows. So why the fuck are the eyes just right there? Like, this honestly looks unfinished. Why are the fucking windows there? Or I guess that's not even windows. Those are monitors because they turn off at this point. Why are the monitors there? Oh, is he behind the monitors? Oh, that's what they're trying to say. He's behind the monitors. It just looked wrong, though, is the issue. Okay, I got it.

0:12:04
Unknown_01: But then this is what now they're in front of the monitors. I guess that's why you can see them because they're in front of the monitor. Where the fuck would they stand behind those monitors? The monitors are on the wall, bro. I'm sorry. This is just an error. Like, this is just like a space time fucking issue. They're flying bats in the scene. And then you get to hear and they're like giant monkey men. And wait a second. Why do they only have two eyes when they're in bats, but then when they're standing there, they have four eyes? Dude, I'm telling you, this is unfinished. These two frames right here are just not done.

0:12:38
Unknown_01: Yeah, that's not good.

Unknown_01: This isn't just me nitpicking. When I was flipping through it, when I got to the sequence, I was like, what the fuck is happening?

Unknown_01: So the monkey men start a fire, and then there's four guys on horseback to discuss what's happening. He got injured, by the way. That's part of the plot. But this is a great example. This right here at the very top is a great example of the –

0:13:09
Unknown_01: Lack of of organization or structure in the comic like we've just gone from dark office building to convention center which kind of fit the theme of like modern contemporary time to like evil demon monkeys.

Unknown_01: in a high-tech lab, kind of like Doom, and then we're outside, and it's like a Wild West in terms of how it looks. It's very jarring, and it gets even worse as it goes on. Then there is a hero introduction for some guy called Gooding, and I'm pretty sure he's the guy that runs the big base that they're in.

0:13:46
Unknown_01: Okay, and now we jump again. Gooding rushes into the building to fight the fire. Hard cut to the Alpha Corps headquarters. I want to stress, I don't think that these guys are ever introduced at any point in the first book. And if they are, it's only in brief. Like, I think they're discussing something. But I have no idea who these fucking people are.

0:14:21
Unknown_01: But we're at, like, another location. This is location number five.

Unknown_01: And they continue to hype up Yaira, which I think is like another standalone comic that's being done by the Isom, like the production team. But this is very apropos of nothing. This comes out of nowhere. Yaira is also mentioned very, like she has a very brief appearance in the first one. So it feels like they're really building up this character and how, like, as they say, rarely am I ever tested. And when given the opportunity, I gave her the out. She took it. And now we see that she ignored our negotiation. So she's like a big fucking deal is what they're trying to say.

0:14:53
Unknown_01: Smash cut back to the ranch. Mr. Gooding has put out the fire.

Unknown_01: There's also this page, which is like an advertisement for the in-world gooding services. And it's like, is this a reference to everybody being, like, pissy about the advertisement for his wife's stuff in the first book? Because someone told me that it's normal for comic books to have advertisements in them. So I guess he was just like, oh, my comic book is a real comic, so I'm going to have an advertisement too. Let me just advertise my wife's stuff. And then it's like in this comic is like, well, we still didn't have advertisements, but people didn't like that. We're paying, you know, $40 for a comic book and then it has an ad in it. So let's just do like a fake ad. That's my assumption of what this is, because otherwise it's just a little bit bizarre. It's not even like an adequate like chapter separator.

0:15:29
Unknown_01: Because, again, on the very next page, now where the fuck are we? I guess we're at his house, right?

Unknown_01: Yeah, like, just a hard cut from the ad to this. And I don't know why they felt the need to put a chapter separator here, because there's been all sorts of hard cuts, like three of them already, and there was no adequate lean into each other. So it's like, why does smash cutting to his license plateless truck...

0:16:14
Unknown_01: warrant a uh warrant a smash cut so now the timelines are merging again um this lady who's the lady by the way she's the woman who i think even wait hold up hold up okay i got the original isom here let me flip through it okay there's the iris uh

0:16:52
Unknown_00: Yeah, wait, hold up. The Projexus Headquarters.

Unknown_01: This is the woman in the first comic book who's telling Avery Isom about the missing friend.

Unknown_01: And she just captured Darren at her office. Keep that in mind. This is the woman who started off the sequence of events in the first book about the missing girl. And she just caught Darren in her office, okay? So then after the sequence, he goes, I'm going to kill him. And it's like, okay, well, good thing that they just caught him, right?

0:17:24
Unknown_01: He's back at his fucking office. He's back at Club Merc and he's at his desk. Like, that's not what the fuck. I will remind you how they captured him.

Unknown_01: Here we go. And even says projects. So I'm not wrong. He broke into the headquarters of the initial event. I'm going to I'm going to take a fucking picture of the original comic book and show you.

0:17:59
Unknown_01: OK, here you go. Sorry. I know it's like this is why I'm using a scan, because it's difficult to take a picture of my phone for this. But obviously, that's the same woman. So now it's really confusing. Now that I'm really thinking about it, it's not just some woman who Darren's retaliating against. It's the woman. The first person who knew that Jasmine was missing, that sent Avery after to get her. And then Darren goes to her headquarters in this extremely secure facility that's so on top of its game that they knew that he was coming. Specifically, and they even say in the book, in the second one, that the founder of Progenexus was aware that he was coming. And he knew and allowed the situation to unfold to capture him. But then when he is captured, and when the chief technology officer knows that That he is the guy that has Jasmine, who she is the friend with.

0:18:30
Unknown_01: They just let him go. They don't call the police. They don't kill him. They don't allow Avery to come up and let him go. And I'm reading through this on the second time, but I'm going to extra pay attention to the dialogue to see if there's any fucking reason for why they're doing this.

0:19:10
Unknown_01: So I really hate this frame. So he just got captured, right? And he's complaining to his goons, who are also all free, about how their plan got foiled, even though there are no consequences for their plan foiling. He says, so I pay all of you this money and you have the nerve to withhold information?

Unknown_01: Get out of this contract or get out. This contract is done in luck and good luck finding any work that's remotely comparable. And then this other black guy says, you don't think that's a bit of an overreaction, boss? And he says, shut up before I fire you too. And he's telling his except. So the guy that Avery beat up in the first book to get out. What I really hate about this is that...

0:19:44
Unknown_01: In a story, regardless of what kind of a story it is, you need a real competent threat in order to drive the story. I mean, to compare this to real life, Liz Fong Jones is such a contemptible villain in the story of the Kiwi Farms because he's so competent, because he's so interconnected, and because he poses a real genuine threat to the forum and to everybody involved in it. And anyone who knows me. So it's like, it's real easy to talk about how fucking evil he is because he is evil. Comparatively, Darren seemed like a fucking buffoon. He flies off the handle. He fires people he needs. He gets caught. Somehow he gets out. But at that point, it's like, he's less of a, of a villain and more of like, um, a Warner brothers cartoon villain, like, like Tom and Jerry. He's like, he gets skinned alive and somehow is okay. And it's just, it's like slapstick. Like, um, How can you take this guy seriously? And then it almost feels like the book is ashamed of having a normal guy as like a villain because they very quickly move on to some other kind of threat towards the end of the book.

0:21:01
Unknown_01: But before they move on, though, he says to this lady, hey, make sure Jasmine makes it back to my office ASAP. And his face is all shaded. So this is implying that he's going to, like, rape her or hurt her or something because she is forced to be, like, a prostitute in his Club Merc. And it's like, how the fuck was this allowed to happen? Yeah. This, by the way, is the only mention of Jasmine. It didn't even occur to either of them that he's still like a threat to this person that he apparently is after to try and save.

Unknown_01: And now this I don't even understand. So we cut from that, the office, to the Obertonic Arena. And there's like a fucking superhero rodeo or something. And I have no idea what the fuck this is. What is this? Why is this in the book? What is this? This is the part of the game or not the game, but the book where I'm like flipping through it. Like, what the fuck am I reading? And I'm getting impatient with it because I'm like, I'm now in another location I don't recognize with more characters I don't know. And I don't even know what the fuck this is. Is this like a like a WWE thing? There's like a squared circle thing happened. I just I'm fucking lost. Why is this in?

0:21:39
Unknown_01: And that whole sequence just terminates with this guy shutting off a TV. So it doesn't really seem to have any impact in the immediate story.

0:22:16
Unknown_01: So long story short, that guy goes through a magic portal, hooks up with an evil boss lady, gets this car, and then gets into a drive-by shooting with these other goons. Now they're driving down the road really fast based on the lines that I'm seeing. Kind of implies some speed. And the guy says, the boss sends his regards. And then they start shooting at him. Now I would like to reenact this in real life.

Unknown_01: The boss sends his regards.

0:22:50
Unknown_01: So some more shit I don't understand happens. This guy that we're following, I don't know if I'm supposed to recognize him. Like, there's so many fucking characters in this book, I can't keep track. There's, like, a fight over the steering wheel. He crashes out of his fucking window, and then it cuts again. And there's no, like, there's no, like, badge right there, like, oh... We're now at this location. Where the fuck are we? How did we cut from page 59, this car crash, to page 60, wherever the fuck this is? Is the guy from the car crash about to fling down this fucking stairwell? I don't understand what's going on, bro. I'm trying my best.

0:23:23
Unknown_01: So then like a good in person comes up and says, hey, let's go. So they hook up with this robot and the robot is like a jet. And you have to like stand in these little troughs. I remember watching this the first time. I'm thinking like, that doesn't make any sense. Like I get that Avery has to be cool.

Unknown_01: But, like, this thing is, like, shooting, like, rocket fuel out of its feet. And you're, like, experiencing multiple G-forces. And you're just going to, like, sit there and, like, hug his shoulder real cool. I don't know. I would be afraid of, like, I have a bad fear of unsecured heights. So I would be, like, hugging this fucking robot like it was the love of my life at this point.

0:23:58
Unknown_01: Okay, so now he's explaining the fire monkeys to this lady. He says, all right, forgive me for repeating myself, but I think it's only right that we let Mrs. Williard in on what happened today. When I arrived at the security house, the door was open. I walked in, and Sam was nowhere to be found. I was ambushed by two beasts, and they set the building on fire. She goes, what? And then literally fucking collapses because I guess her husband said, I don't know who her husband is, though. I apologize.

0:24:34
Unknown_01: By the way, I thought this was a 64 page comic. It's 115 fucking pages. Like, it gets fucking weirder. Like, we're only halfway through. And at the end, it's just absolute nonsense.

Unknown_01: So the geneticist man explains that the monkeys are like genetic freak mutant dangers or something. So he puts on the Iceland costume because now he has to be a superhero again. Now, he didn't have to be a superhero to find Jasmine. So he couldn't find a slave girl at a club where he was aware that she was at. But now that the giant flaming monkeys are running around Texas, he's like, oh, hell no. I ain't standing for no flaming monkeys. You think I want to have some flaming monkeys running around? Fuck that, bish. So now he's a superhero. Okay, gotcha.

0:25:12
Unknown_01: Personal aside, the obvious Photoshop Arial font fucking signs in this, like this one, and this one, this really bothers me. I don't know why. It's like they went in and changed it last second and just slapped on like completely unintegrated fonts. This feels unfinished as well. You have the fucking truck of license plate.

0:25:52
Unknown_01: Also, I don't want to complain too much about, like, art shit. Because a lot of the art is fine. And like I said, in the actual physical book, the colors really pop. The scan does not do it justice. But this in particular, I swear this fucking truck is like a 3D model. And I don't really care. I know that, like, the 3D model shit is like a big meme with, like, the retards. Like, Juju the Cow and the Pedophile. But the truck is really, like, standout-ish to me.

0:26:26
Unknown_01: In part because...

Unknown_01: These little like little hairlines you see these like hair is like right here and right here and right here It's like they had the model

Unknown_01: They put the model in, and then they added like this really lazy filter to it to try and give it a comic book-y look. And it's just those little scribbles are just so obvious to me. That's not drawn. A human being would never draw these little, like, because they look like pubes caught in the scanner or something. They look bad. It's like a human would not draw that detail.

0:26:57
Unknown_01: They just wouldn't. So that really, really stands out to me. And I'll give you a comparison of what it looks like to me. okay so this is the trailer for dustborn and there's a sequence where they put a filter on all the models to try and give it this like 2d like asteroids look and it looks really fucking bad see it you see how like cheap and shitty that filter is because they're trying they're just trying to very cheaply change it so that the 3d models are outlined in such a way and it just looks like really lackluster the effect um

0:27:34
Unknown_01: so that's what that reminds me of like the the pube thing it's just like this is just like a cheap shader like you can do this in unity for like no time at all okay and this is where this shit really fucking falls apart for me so he just put on his super suit and he goes to this nondescript castle as it says a castle smack dab in the middle of texas so imagine medieval fucking castle let me show it to you

Unknown_01: Medieval fucking castle, middle of Texas, surrounded by a fucking moat in the desert.

Unknown_01: To be fair to the goodings, it makes sense. This is the type of real estate you think a helpful person would prefer. This line of work, you either suspend your sensibilities or someone or something will do it for you. Just don't expect.

Unknown_01: Don't just expect the unexpected. You embrace the ignorance and learn to understand. I'm not seeing everything, and I can only be surprised by insisting that I have.

0:28:33
Unknown_01: And then he says, hello, I was sent by Gooding. And then there is a fucking, like, okay, this is the third fucking time. The fourth time, actually, because it happens twice. There are two growling wolves so that somehow, somehow he's on a fucking suspension bridge in the middle of the fucking desert in the middle of Texas surrounded by crocodiles. And despite the situation that he's in and how high, you know, his alertness should be, Fucking wolves sneak up on him on the suspension bridge. There's only one way to approach him. And there's no way he wouldn't hear like claws on the bridge. And then a fucking dragon out of nowhere. He's in the middle of the fucking desert. He can see a million miles in every direction because it's fucking desert. And a dragon out of nowhere in the middle of the night also catches him by surprise.

0:29:06
Unknown_01: This is a genuine storytelling problem.

Unknown_01: Eric July does not have the ability to progress the plot and storyboard surprises in a way that makes sense. It doesn't make sense when it's the girl in the convention and the guy comes out of nowhere. It doesn't make sense when it's the monkeys in the computer room. It doesn't make sense when it's the woman walking into her office. And it doesn't make sense with the fucking dragon. I can't suspend my disbelief. It doesn't make any sense. The situations where other people are taken by surprise exist only to further the plot in a specific series of events. And maybe if it was extremely narratively satisfying the way it was told, I would be able to enjoy it a little bit more. But with this, it's just the thing happens, she's taken by surprise, and then it's resolved on page 10, and it starts on page 14. what six six so in four pages this plot is taken care of and it's just that is really really lazy so then the animals the wild fucking animals attack him and he's fighting gators and wolves and someone says stand down and it is this black hoe Sidney Bloodroot and when I'm looking at this I'm thinking what the fuck

0:30:30
Unknown_01: The very first thing that jumps to my mind is the grave robber from Darkest Dungeon. It's like he took this character, and I'm assuming that she's based off like a trope, like the big pilgrim hat and stuff, but it just looks so much like her. And it's like, yeah, that, but black and show some tummy.

Unknown_01: You know what I mean?

Unknown_01: And again, this is the same book with the police and the gangster and the woman getting her skull crushed. And then we're like Sidney Bloodruth, the grave robber from Darkest Dungeon, but black. And she has a dragon.

0:31:30
Unknown_01: Does she do like the Skyrim yells too? Is she going to go Fus-Ra-Dah at any point? Like what the fuck?

Unknown_01: There's even like a library in this where she's like studying spells. And I'm just thinking like, what the fuck? And I honestly, I can't even be bothered to read all this text.

Unknown_01: Like whatever the fuck is happening at this point, I'm not invested in it. And I kind of want to compare this to the other comic that I mentioned. So this is Butch Killigan Volume 1 by Sven Stauffels. And Sven is both the writer, storyboarder, and artist responsible for the comic. And I love the art in this. I really love Sven Stauffels' style. The way that he draws is awesome. I've commissioned animations from him. He is a very talented artist, and he obviously has an interest in comics. And this book is the exact same length as Isom 2. It's 118 pages.

0:32:06
Unknown_01: But I remember this being much, much shorter. And it's because there's almost no narrative to it. And Sven is able to really take full use of the medium and like genuinely trip you with some crazy visuals. And this is one of my favorites.

0:32:45
Unknown_01: Like, and I think this is a homage to, like, some proper, like, fancy artwork. But it's just awesome. And it really gives you a sense of, like, the fucking fear and dread and, like, craziness of the story. And Sven is able to do that because he has a perfect mental conception of what he's trying to accomplish, whereas Eric July has his plot points and then he has to go through other people. And that's a limitation, but I don't think it's the sole fault.

0:33:17
Unknown_01: It's just that Sven has a very clear visual way that he wants to convey certain things and compared to this. And it's like, like the, the art in this, let me pull up a book again. Cause the art on this scan just looks really bad for this page. And I'm wondering, cause it's like so dirty looking, I get there trying to make it look like, Oh, this is like a dusty old, dusty old book where, um, it was a super secret library and all sorts of stuff. I'm curious if it's that fucking bad in the book.

0:33:52
Unknown_00: It is, actually. It's not so washed.

Unknown_01: The colors are much, much better. But it's still just like eight panels, and they're just in a library talking about monkeys. And I don't get it. She's just trying to take them to the monkey cave. So they fly to the monkey cave, and he's just, like, holding onto this poor dragon's foot. Like, he super jumps up and, like, grabs its foot. And I'm just like, what?

0:34:29
Unknown_01: Okay, so after pulling out that dragon's ankle, he just, like, airdrops in. Like, he's...

Unknown_01: He just jumped off the Fortnite battle bus. Remember, he had issues fighting two of these things in that office building. But then he found... And look, you can see the monkey up here. It looks like Sasquatch in that one photo where he's just from far away. So he just drops off the battle bus into the cave of evil monkeys and just starts whooping them.

0:35:03
Unknown_01: This is actually – the art at this point is really nice, and I don't want to undersell this. The use of red and stuff, I loved it. I loved how the drawing and the colors were. But I don't know what the fuck is happening is the issue.

Unknown_01: Again, the plot of Ice M1 is to find Jasmine. The main bad guy is rounded up immediately. And then let go for no reason. And then he's just suddenly out for vengeance for this woman's husband that died in the monkey attack. So then he's in the monkey cave. And she's using, like, blood magic. Which is also fucking weird. I mean, kind of cool, I guess. But what the fuck? What does that have to do with science monkeys? So he's just having a big monkey attack going on. He's, like, clobbering monkeys. Ah, no. Die, monkeys.

0:35:41
Unknown_01: Seriously, look at this. It's really, really cool in the comic book. But it's like it's that service of nothing.

Unknown_01: It's the exact same thing with like Darren. OK, you're building up Darren as this villain. But then Darren's caught and nothing happens. And then like, OK, the monkeys are attacking Gooding and killing people. OK, well, let's just find an old book in a castle somewhere. And then we're going to fly right on over to Monkey Town. We're going to land some fucking critical hits on the monkeys. Like, is there no restraint at all?

0:36:17
Unknown_01: So then they're fighting together and they're like, oh, my God, we're both like crazy people. That's awesome. And then he says, I assumed you would stay at range. But then she explains that she's the grave robber and she has a utility set that allows her to be effective at positions one, two, three and four. So then they wander deeper into monkey cave and there are lots of monkeys. She goes, unreal. That is so many monkeys. And then Avery's just like, you know what? I'm not done killing monkeys.

0:36:49
Unknown_01: So they go into the monkey pit and just start, like, killing all the monkeys. There's one, two, three pages of monkey murder. And then she, like, channels all her blood magic and goes, and starts murdering fucking, I guess, the wall there. She's blowing up, like, a door. Yeah, it's like a sci-fi door in the monkey cave.

Unknown_01: Oh, my God. They found them. All the dead people. And then this guy as well. Sam. He did it. Through use of his superpowers, he was able to bring the grave digger or the grave robber into the monkey pit and then save the bad people. He's still out there beating up monkeys, though. He had issues with two of them, but now he's got the suit on, so he's okay. And she can, like, create... You know how, like, in Frozen, there's that scene where Elsa makes, like, freezy sticks that she walks on? A grave robber can kind of do that with blood. That's kind of cool, I guess. Yep. Still killing monkeys.

0:37:54
Unknown_01: Now the dragon's killing monkeys. Then Avery goes, and he goes flying away from the monkeys.

Unknown_01: Boom. I hope you have enjoyed Isom 2.

Unknown_01: Eric, I did not.

Unknown_01: The plot was completely nonsensical. There's so much going on, but so little at the same time.

Unknown_01: There was a lack of visual storytelling.

0:38:28
Unknown_01: I thought that the lack of characterization to the girl that was murdered was a bit fucking tasteless. And honestly, after reading it twice now, I don't know what the fuck is happening. And there's nothing to, like, make me think, oh, I want to read Isom 3. And I did genuinely at the end of Isom 1. I said, oh, you know, I like this kind of down-to-earth plot about the missing girl. I'm kind of curious what happens. Does he find her? And now I'm in Isom 2, and I have no fucking – I have no clue what's going on. I don't know how Jasmine ties into anything. Apparently the characters themselves have forgotten that Jasmine is, like, a thing. So if they don't care, why do I?

0:39:07
Unknown_01: Why do I care? How could I possibly want to read Iceman 3 after this? Because it's like – it kind of feels like what happened with this is Eric July got access to the candy jar. He got a bunch – I'm not saying that he got high on cocaine. I'm saying he got a bunch of money. He had financial success because he tapped into a market that was desperate for someone who gave a fuck about what they wanted. And then he had all these financial resources and all this access to these wonderful artists. And then he as a writer is just kind of looking at this like, well, I need a story that has XYZ. Because these are my favorite things in comics. I like gritty crime that is interesting to black guys. And I like...

0:39:40
Unknown_01: super cool Elon Musk type people like Iron Man. And I like black witches and I like demons. And it's like, he just kind of matches together and there's zero restraint. It doesn't feel like there's anybody at his office talking to him and going like, hey, you need to like, Let this play out a bit. You have all these ideas and there's nothing wrong with being an idea guy if you can sell it, but you need to show restraint and you need to pace things out and you need to flesh out things so that when big action sequences that you're paying the best artists in the industry to color brilliantly and draw beautifully, when that happens, there's like an emotional payoff to it and people understand what's going on. Like, I understood what's going on in Butch Killigan, that when, you know, this sequence happens, it's like, I understand what's happening, and it's very rewarding to see the illustrations, and they're super creative. You know what I mean? So, like, reading through Isom 2 is just a challenge. Sure. It's so long and there's so much exposition and none of it is like developing anything that I'm interested in. And then the cool visual payoff at the very end is at surface of nothing. Like what the fucking monkey? Where where is he? Why is he in the castle killing monkeys? I don't get it. Um, I guess because they fucked with Gooding, but who the fuck is Gooding? Why do I care about his employees? Maybe he's an asshole. Maybe he's like a rapist or a pedophile or something. I don't fucking know anything about him. Why do I care? I know who Jasmine is. Okay. And I know who the family friend is and I, and I get that he's like a superhero, but He's like, okay, prove it. Finish. Okay, bro, you got like a quest list on the top right of your HUD that has like eight different things in it right now. And the first one is the beginner tutorial quest, find fucking Jasmine. And he's still haven't done it. And he's apparently the most incompetent buffoon fucking guy ever. You can clear out an entire dungeon full of fire monkeys, but you can't go kill the one monkey who's in this club firing his entire crew. No, that guy's too competent and cool and slick and hard to deal with. Fuck.

0:42:02
Unknown_01: Whatever, man. It was a very, very frustrating read. And I did. I sat down with the comic in my fucking hands and I got all comfy for it and I got a drink and a coffee and I sat down and I read it just like it should be read. And I wanted to like it because I don't want to say things that Juju the cow and Vito the pedo are going to clap. I don't want that, okay? It does not bring me joy to shit on something that somebody worked very hard on and that a bunch of people had invested themselves into. So I don't know if there's an Isom 3, but if this review is interesting to people, I'll fucking buy it and review it, I guess. I don't know, though.

0:42:36
Unknown_01: It's just bad. And I can see even from a non-comic book mind, like...

Unknown_01: And it is an issue with Eric July because the illustrations and stuff are fine. I was a little bit insulted by the 3D model of the truck because it felt really lazy. Like if you're going to use a model, at least go in by hand and add the details and the dirt and stuff yourself so it's not just a fucking lazy shader like a fucking video game.

0:43:14
Unknown_01: Aside from that, it's like you have everything you could possibly want except the restraint to dole things out slower, more methodically. And that's the thing that you can't make up in a story. Like everything, every piece of medium is supposed to try and convey an emotional state to the audience. And you can't do that if you have a meandering and narratively unsatisfying and very unfocused story by an amateur author and writer. You need people who know how to hit those beats and convey things in a way to draw in the audience and keep them invested. And I wasn't.

0:43:54
Unknown_01: I was invested up until I think after the flashback. After the flashback where he just leaves the – he literally walks out of his therapist office on a military base into a fire monkey confrontation. I'm like, bro, I don't know what the fuck is happening. I'm sorry. I'm clocked out.

Unknown_01: And the second read really didn't help any at all.

Unknown_01: So that's my ISOM review.

Unknown_01: Sorry, I'm not more of a positive poly. I really want it to be.

Unknown_01: But it is what it is.

Unknown_01: Thank you for your support on the Gumroad. I appreciate it. And see you next time. Bye-bye.