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FIREBREATHER #3 is due out March 5th, and it's the strongest issue of the series to date. It weaves all aspects of the series together nicely, and provides a solid reading experience. It's not just a mish mash of ideas and subplots. FIREBREATHER merges teen angst with big monsters in a thoroughly entertaining fashion.

The issue starts with Duncan spending time with his father and getting in touch with his dragon side. It moves quickly back to home and school life, though, which involves a small cast of characters that are easy to like and sympathize with. Duncan's peer counselor, Jenna, provides a nice base of sanity in the melodrama that is high school. She'll probably also be the romantic interest for Duncan if the series continues after this initial four issue arc.

Phil Hester may be best known for his artistic skills, but his writing skills are sharp, as well. Even his talking heads scenes have snap to them. Characters have attitudes and aren't afraid to show them. Quips come quickly, and conversations never come from the standard superhero storytelling template.

Andy Kuhn, meanwhile, is doing the best work of his career. While REX MANTOOTH and FREAK FORCE were both fun in different ways, his art on FIREBREATHER feels more natural. His teenagers make sense, and his monsters and dragons have life in them. They aren't just meticulously constructed beasts, but are characters who are alive on the page.

Bill Crabtree's coloring is vibrant, adding color without dragging the book down. Too many comics these days go for too dark a color palette. While it's called for in many books, it isn't here. Crabtree is smart enough to know that, and colors the skies in purples, oranges, and pinks, with ground cover to match. It errs on the side of being too colorful, but that's something I can live with these days.

INVINCIBLE is a great companion title to FIREBREATHER. INVINCIBLE #2 came out last week from the word processor of Robert Kirkman and the easel of Cory Walker. This book is slightly more traditional, in that its lead super powered teenager, Mark, is a mere human who would be considered a mutant in the Marvel Universe. His father has super powers, and he developed his at puberty. Now, he's coming to terms with these abilities and that leads him to this month's adventures, a run-in with a teenaged superteam. This is the book that puts the fun back into teenaged superheroes.

Nearly the first half of this story is taken up with Mark's father's "secret origin story" (think of Krypton crossed with Erik Larsen's Vanguard and you'll have part of the idea), while the rest focuses on Mark (as Invincible) and his new friends. Kirkman shows a light touch, even when a character rambles on about his origin for a half dozen pages. Characters show attitude and personality as well as powers and costumes. There's a surprisingly low level of angst to the series. This is more about a boy who enjoys having his powers as a birthright and wants to do the most he can with them.

Bill Crabtree also colors this title, lending a similar scheme as he does in FIREBREATHER. It's a bit more subdued with INVINCIBLE, though, but I think Walker's more restrained art style has something to do with that. The coloring in this book stays better focused, with an overall attention to the kind of shading and shadow work that you might see in Japanese animation.

SHADOWS #1, on the other hand, is a mixed bag. I had high hopes for this one, based on the initial premise outlined in PREVIEWS and the original five page preview. In the end, though, it's going to be seen as The X-Files with a privatized team concept. Four characters hunt mythical creatures (that aren't so mythical) on behalf of a fifth character, who's wealthy enough to afford to hire them.

Jade Dodge's story in the first issue begins the hunt for Bigfoot, who turns out to have some complications of his/her own for the team to find. The Bigfoot story has been done to death by now, so I was looking for one of two things in this issue. The first would be a unique twist on the topic. That didn't happen. Yes, there's a change-up thrown at the reader near the end, but it's hardly the most original thing in the world. The second thing was strong characterization. While the characters seem to have their own personalities and some issues within the group dynamic, I was never drawn to any of them, and didn't get the same level of characterization as even The X-Files had with two main characters after a half dozen episodes. Dialogue services the story but isn't spectacular. The text page at the end talks about how the characters have secrets and "tortured pasts" that the plots will serve to act as a catalyst on. I haven't seen enough of that yet in this first issue to make me eager to read the second.

The art by Matt Camp is passable, although many characters have heads too large for their bodies. Colors by Guy Major are a surprising problem. They're too dark, and I don't think it's just a printing problem, the way it was with VENTURE #1. Yes, the printing on paper is much darker than in the preview on-line. The night scenes are still far too muddy, and the daylight scenes come off awkwardly, as if there's no overall color scheme. It's coloring the parts without keeping an eye on how it affects the whole. And just to pour salt on the wound, the lettering also looks like it came off of a dot matrix printer.

Finally, the X-FILES comparison is stretching it a bit. I think everything that deals in the paranormal is automatically compared to THE X-FILES now. When the show was at its peak, numerous comics series were introduced that compared themselves to the show, just because there might be a ghost in one of the early storylines. That misses, I think, what made X-FILES so special. It was the fact that you had two characters (with good chemistry) that represented polar opposite sides of each argument. One had solid scientific evidence and speculation to back up her theories, while the other had case files and mythologies to prove the lore and "extranormal" possibilities in every situation. At the end of the good episodes, you were left with the question still up in the air. While you tended to agree with Mulder (and a little twist at the end might prove him out), Scully's scientific analysis was equally as strong. One of the ways the series went off the track was when the writers had to stretch themselves too thin to keep Scully in the disbeliever department. When she finally converted, the original charm of the series was gone. Doggett was a great character, but he was a streetwise cop, not a rational scientific thinker. Instead of being the informed opposition, he was a man who just seemed too set in his ways. And the viewers knew too much already to believe him and not Scully.

This isn't to say that every supernatural series must follow the X-Files premise. Far from it. Things would get boring if they did. SHADOWS needs to make its own way.

My biggest problem, perhaps, is that the comic shows you Bigfoot in the full light of day and doesn't take an intelligent position yet as to the evolution of the creature or an explanation for its existence. It merely shows Bigfoot as a big boogey man monster to be afraid of, balanced against the team's desire to prove its existence for mercenary purposes. I'm not hooked.

But, heck, Hollywood is interested.

SHADOWS is an on-going series on a bi-monthly schedule. I'm going to stick with it for as long as this first storyline takes to tell. There's potential for something good to come out of it. I'm hoping for better characterization in the next couple of issues.

SHADOWS #1 arrives on comics store shelves near you this week.