You've Been Warned: Marvel Preview #16

Boy, did I ever get bait and switched on this one! A quick scan of the cover led me to believe this was a Sherlock Holmes tale. Considering that a couple of earlier issues in this try-out series were actual Sherlock Holmes stories, who could blame me? What I got, however, was a dull modern day Holmes-clone named Hodiah Twist. I get it. This was supposed to be a clever nod to Arthur Conan Doyle, but it completely misses its target. The main problem is the author: Don McGregor. The older I get, the less patience I have for his overly verbose prose. He pushes word balloons to their absolute limit. In terms of the artwork, Colan's storytelling is a bit of a mess, especially as the action ramps up over the last few pages. Overall, this was should have stayed in the unused inventory heap. The second story 'Death By Disco' seems to be fondly remembered by fans of the Gerber/Colan team. It is not terrible, but I have never been a fan of Lilith and Gerber seems to have been taking advice from McGregor in terms of his prose. This is essentially a 5-page story stretched out over 20+ pages. Colan's artwork is quite nice here, but this is definitely a sub par effort by this particular team. Required reading for completists only.