Comic Review: The Mighty Golden Patriot By Yellowflash and John Dillard

Popular YouTuber Yellowflash recently produced an independent comic published and delivered by Eric July's Rippasend fulfillment service. Similar to July himself, Yellow Flash built up an audience as a Youtuber before producing his first comic. There has been considerable interest in this comic--partially because of Rippasend's involvement.

SOME BACKGROUND:

ERic July shocked the comics world three years ago by leveraging his Youtube audience to raise millions via pre-orders of ISOM #1, launching the Rippaverse with a boom. Most comics fans in the indie sphere applauded his success, while many others evidently have nothing better to do than hate on him full-time. Some are building audiences simply by ragging on July and the Rippaverse daily.

I don't follow industry gossip much, but it looks like Yellow Flash also gets his share of hate. Thus, it's a safe bet that many spread the buzz about this book because they wanted it, and Rippasend, to fail.

This is Yellow Flash's debut comic. The blurb and the trailer appealed to me because I have an affinity for the Golden Age of comics, and this had a very Golden Age vibe.

STORY:

An American fighter pilot flying a recon mission in North Africa is shot down by flack. While evading and escaping the Afrika Korps, he takes refuge in a cave where he finds a piece of an ancient Egyptian amulet ("the Wunderwaffen") the Germans are searching for.

The amulet transforms him into a superhero, complete with a uniform change a la the original Captain Marvel. He uses his newfound powers to prevent the Germans from slaughtering some innocent villagers. All Germans were Nazis, you see, even under Rommel's command. The Germans have deployed some retro-mechs who do battle with Golden Patriot. Lucky for him, there's a buxom badass blonde M.I.6 spy embedded with the German exoskeleton drivers.

In 1943 the clash between freedom and tyranny was about to boil over??? The war began in 1939. America joined the war in late 1941. Which the writer seemed to know when he wrote the top caption box. I'm curious what his definition of "boiling over" is.

(Retro-mech and guided missiles qualify this story as speculative fiction, which is fine. It's enough of a divergence from reality that it's obviously intentional.)

"Lord Blitzkrieg," a winged, superpowered Nazi, possesses the other half of the Wunderwaffe. He knows Golden Patriot must have the missing section of the amulet. Commence the battle royale.

Where? The writer tells us the hero spies a cave, but the artist doesn't show us a cave.

ART:

Dillard's illustration is superb. The book is chock-full of eye candy, though some better research and better cooperation between him and the writer was needed. Read my captions from the art scans for a couple examples of what I mean.

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR:

I wanted Golden Age adventure and wonder. I got something close to typical Golden Age caliber storytelling.

The whole package hits you like $24 paint-by-the-numbers fan fiction. The plot points and characters were dropped into the appropriate slots simply because they are factory-stock for the formula. Some of the tropes are not as cliché as others, but nothing seems to be here because it was developed from the ground up.

We are told this is 1943, yet the notch count on the fuselage purports this pilot has flown in both the European and Pacific Theaters. Uh, no. Not until 1945, but rare even then.

This may be Yellow Flash's first writing effort. If so, it's commendable for not being as awful as most first attempts. It's not horrible, but it's definitely not great, either.

The loudest critics of the current state of the Big Two are careful to specify they have no problem with the ubiquitous cultural Marxism, but "we just want good comics!" If by "good comics" they mean shallow characters, derivative plots and safe storylines (hero and obligatory warrior womyn punch Nazis), then comics like this will fare much better economically than any work that makes significant waves in the status quo.

American fighter pilots carried an M1911 (not a revolver like this guy). They never carried hand grenades. Are you for real? Much less grenades designs that wouldn't exist for some time. The US issued the "pineapple" style grenade through WWII and Korea. Period-correct German grenades are the "potato-masher" style.

The writing would have benefited from some research into military history. Or the military, and history, if you prefer. Unfortunately those are two major pet peeves for me. I figure, if you're gonna put it into your story, then put in the effort to at least get the basics right.

Caveat: sometimes the artist will get details wrong and they slip through into the final product because the writer was tired or distracted and paid for the page before realizing what happened. I don't believe that was the case here, but who knows.

Here they have a bomber as one of the planes scrambled to intercept enemy aircraft (or superheroes, I suppose). An actual German interceptor fires a guided missile (!!??!!) at the German bomber because Golden Patriot is standing on its engine. Sounds legit.

There are too many mistakes to list here, but I'll put captions in the page scans for some of them. Aside from that, I'll just mention that a character in a US Navy officer's uniform is referred to as "General." And Americans repeatedly refer to Germans as "Jerries." The British called them "Jerries" when speaking in polite company. The American euphemism was "Huns" if they were Lost Generation WWI vets. For the GI Generation it was "Krauts." Jeez--even the Sgt. Rock writers got that right.

CONCLUSION:

I didn't buy this comic because I wanted to be disappointed. I know that's how some people roll, but I wanted a good read and for Yellow Flash to knock it out of the park.

It would be a good book for a kid you would like to get interested in reading--especially if they are drawn to action, superheroes, and/orWWII (if they don't know too much, that is). For anyone else, I can't recommend it, especially for the cost.

I have kicked off Tales of the Earthbound, a planned series of graphic novels. The first one, Threat Quotient, is drawing closer to a crowdfund campaign. I share episodes online every week and you should treat yourself to a superheroic escape.