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Bionic Review: Dynamite Comic’s The Bionic Man vs The Bionic Woman (2013)

Posted in comic books, Six Million Dollar Man, TV shows with tags Bionic Man, Bionic Review, Bionic Woman, BW Comic, comic books, pop culture, reviews, SMDM Comic on March 24, 2014 by Paxton

In my reviews for Dynamite Comics’ The Bionic Man and The Bionic Woman titles, I mentioned that they are separate timelines. The Bionic Woman happens years after the end of The Bionic Man title. The point of today’s comic is supposedly to bridge the gap between the two titles and see why Jaime Sommers has “gone rogue” from OSI. Today I’m reviewing Dynamite’s The Bionic Man vs The Bionic Woman mini-series.

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This 5 issue mini is written by Keith Champagne and drawn by Jose Luis. At first glance the art is fairly strong so let’s see how the story holds up. Since this is a short mini, this review is going to be a little shorter.

Essential Plot: A giant bionic guy is killing people and stealing their hearts. Jaime and Steve have to stop him.

Characters: The story, of course, focuses on Steve and Jaime, and they are portrayed roughly the same as they are in their own titles. We also get a cameo from Oscar. And another “new” bionic menace is introduced. Again.

Story: I guess I liked the story, with the bionic serial killer, but honestly, it’s a little tired. Another bionic menace that only Steve and Jaime can handle. The first story arc in The Bionic Man involves a prototype bionic man wrecking havoc and the second story arc involves bionic Bigfoot creatures. The Bionic Woman comic involved an organization stealing bionic parts that eventually get used to create a bionic bad guy. This story device has become a little old. Part of the problem I think is that Jaime and Steve are a little too powerful at this point. It’s like having every Superman story feature an evil Superman. Let’s think of something else.

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Differences from the TV show: Steve Austin has only one bionic arm in this comic (see below) as opposed to the two he started with in his own comic. Otherwise, the differences that I mentioned in the previous comic reviews still stand.

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Art: The art is actually pretty good. Jose Luis brings some good action art and the characters are drawn faithfully. I even like the design of the evil bionic serial killer. Lots of pretty art to look at in this comic, even if the story is constantly trying to put you to sleep.

Overall: Overall, I was disappointed. While the art is great, the promise of this timeline and title bridging story was completely wasted.

Bionic Review: Dynamite Comic’s The Bionic Woman (2012)

Posted in comic books, TV shows with tags Bionic Review, Bionic Woman, BW Comic, Cavalcade Comics, comic books, television on March 19, 2014 by Paxton

I’ve taken a bit of a hiatus on the Bionic Reviews, but I’m back now and I have one to give you today and another to throw out end of this week or beginning of next. So, let’s get started…

In 2011, Dynamite Comics started up a new Bionic Man comic featuring a story taken from an unproduced Kevin Smith movie script. The comic did well and eventually Dynamite decided to spin off the character of Jaime Sommers into her own comic, The Bionic Woman.

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This comic is written by Paul Tobin and drawn first by Leno Carvalho and then followed in committee by Juan Ramirez and Daniel Leister. As of this moment, it looks like issue 10 will be the final issue. The Six Million Dollar Man Season Six has launched, the original Bionic Man title is done and so I assume this title is finished as well. If SMDM Season Six does well, I assume we are going to see a The Bionic Woman Season 4.

Essential Plot: The Bionic Woman doesn’t start directly after Sommers’ appearance in The Bionic Man. Issue #1 jumps about 5 years into the future. Jaime is already bionic. Her accident happened many years ago. Jaime was an OSI operative and something happened that caused her to quit OSI and essentially “go rogue”. This same split happened with her and Austin with whom she previously had a relationship, but doesn’t anymore. The first issue picks up with Jaime on the run from an organization that is tracking and killing people with any sort of bionic enhancement. Most of these issues involve information gathering and Jaime tracking down man after man in order to discover who this shadowy organization is that is trying to kill her and take her bionics. Throughout the story she is accompanied by a friend named Nora and we get several cameos by Steve Austin.

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Characters: This particular Jaime Sommers is characterized as a very accomplished covert agent, highly trained in hand-to-hand combat and very proficient in the use of her bionics. She is also very proactive in her search for the people trying to kill her. This is very different from the TV show and I have to say, I like the difference. It keeps the story moving forward and gives us lots of action on the way. The Nora character that tags along is sort of annoying. Jaime is constantly having to make sure she doesn’t die.

Story: I liked the idea of a shadowy group killing and stealing bionic implants for sale on the black market. I was not in love with the Nora character tagging along nor was I in love with the completely unnecessary cameos by Steve Austin. They seemed to serve no purpose. But the overall story is pretty solid, even if a lot of the page to page dialogue is groan inducing.

Differences from the TV show: Jaime is given full bionic implants in both legs and the right arm. She has the bionic ear, like in the TV show. It is also implied that Jaime may also have bionic eyes, which were not a part of the TV show. Another very cool enhancement that this Jaime has that not even Austin gets is the ability to interface wirelessly with computers. It’s an ability that may have been borrowed from the TV show, Jake 2.0, which was a spiritual grandchild of the original Six Million Dollar Man (Lee Majors even made an appearance).

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