The Myth of 8-Opus

(Thomas Scioli, 2001, 2003, 2008)
™ and © Thomas Scioli

Let’s get down to brass tacks. Every page of this comic book screams, “Kirby!” Jack Kirby’s influence is on every panel, pose, and object in this issue, and that overriding influence is its downfall. The non-Kirby-influenced pin-ups (by such established artists as Erik Larsen and Pat Olliffe) that make up several pages of the issue make the reader wish that the entire comic book had been drawn that way. Writer-artist Thomas Scioli is so inspired by Kirby that he has failed to develop a style of his own, and the work suffers as a result.

The plot is the only thing worth recommending in The Myth of 8-Opus. It’s a fast-paced story about a cosmic super-hero named 8-Opus fighting his evil doppelgänger. However, the dialogue—replete with typos, excessive use of exclamation points, and bad computer lettering—needs a rewrite.

— Steve Horton

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