Every once, in a long while, something comes along and adds something good worth mentioning to our childhood memories. After a childhood spent watching the madness occurring in Springfield, The Simpsons Movie was something that was a pleasure to see. The same thing can be said about people that grew up with Tim Burton’s Batman movies as they watch Christopher Nolan’s Batman films. But for everything that’s good, there’s always so much bad: The Phantom Menace, Batman & Robin, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and, of course, The Transformers movie series. But, I have recently found something that tops all of those in stupidity.
Jurassic Park: Dangerous Games hails from IDW, usually known for their rather excellent adaptations of licensed material. Sadly, this mini-series is not one of those excellent adaptations. Having seen Jurassic Park in theatres at age 3 (and living in fear of the raptors under my bed until late last year), I was rather excited to see how it transferred to comic form. This comic promised a return to Isla Nublar, the original island from the first movie. I envisioned our hero seeing some of the old carnage from the first. Hell, maybe this would answer what happened to that geeky dude’s shaving cream can, right!?!?
Wrong.
Our story follows this guy whose name is actually escapes me right now. Since it’d be too much effort for me to get up and check the comic, I’m going to call him Juan Valdez. Juan works for the FBI and is trying to infiltrate a Central American drug ring as a mole. This particular drug ring is SO unbelievably badass that their headquarters is centered in the old Ingen compound on Isla Nublar, from the first Jurassic Park movie.
Of course, the drug ring figures out that Juan Valdez is a mole, captures him, and takes him to the island. The head of the drug ring (whose name also escapes me; seriously, this comic is uber bland and forgettable) tells Juan Valdez that he’s giving him a knife and releasing him onto the island with a 12 hour head start before the drug runners head after him to kill him.
At this point, I could really get behind this comic. This is a vaguely cool concept. Sure, I have a hard time believing that a drug ring would EVER think putting their base on an island full of FUCKING dinosaurs was a good idea; but comic books take a certain suspension of disbelief. But, then this comic takes a turn for the unbelievably silly.
Juan Valdez meets a girl out in the wild (whose name I also can’t remember. This is quite sad) that worked on the island when Jurassic Park first opened. She specialized in the embryonic development of the dinosaurs. She usually worked with the raptors. Therefore, a good deal of the creatures attached themselves to her as their Mother after they were born. This makes sense. But now she can control EVERY FUCKING RAPTOR ON THE ISLAND.
I can calculate this cover as the point I went "Oh God, why am I doing this review?"
She controls them by giving them verbal commands. Now, I could buy that she could train them roll over and sit, MAYBE. But the fact that these very instinct based creatures won’t eat Juan Valdez hours after she gave the command? I call BS. But that’s not even the strangest part of the whole ordeal. Crazy Raptor Lady (CRL, for short) tells Juan Valdez that he must be “Judged” by the island.
It was at this point that I facepalmed and screamed, “IT’S NOT LOST” so loudly that my neighbors came to check on me.
So, CRL takes Juan Valdez to this clearing filled with bones of the dead and leaves him there. Suddenly, a freaking T-Rex emerges from the jungle and begins running towards Juan Valdez. I smiled an evil smile at this point, hoping that this comic would soon end! Yet, the T-Rex stops and observes him before returning to the jungle. Evidently, the beast deemed him worthy?
I’m going to gloss over the rest of the comic quickly since it can cause a migraine. After this, Juan Valdez has a very Leon/Krauser knife fight with the drug head’s lead henchman that was actually well done and the high point of the mini-series. But, after that, the comic goes back to being ridiculous. CRL and Juan Valdez stage an assault on the drug ring’s compound , complete with her RIDING ON TOP OF A FUCKING TRICERATOPS. Words can’t express the silliness of this. So here’s a picture:
After that, the comic makes sure to get in one more silliness stab as the head of the drug ring reveals that he has a remote control stegosaurus, controlled via electrical collar. After Juan Valdez disables it, he and the CRL capture the drug lord. Juan Valdez, very fairly, no longer gives a shit about capturing the drug lord, takes the helicopter keys and leaves. After, Juan Valdez goes off on a motorcycle, gets chased by two T-rexs (no scene involving motorcycles and T-Rexs should EVER be boring, but it managed), and escapes the island in the helicopter.
Have no fears! This totally awesome looking scene only lasts two pages.
The series ends with the drug kingpin being left in the magic clearing by the CRL and being deemed unworthy as the T-Rex eats the crap out of him.
Oh yeah, spoiler alert. Don’t get mad. You were never going to read this.
This comic was miserable. It was dull, uninteresting, and failed to understand why Jurassic Park was such a hit. Jurassic Park portrayed how humans and dinosaurs would interact in modern days, very realistically. This comic takes a “magical” angle with a lady being able to control some dinosaurs and a T-Rex judging people as worth or not. That’s just not needed and really destroyed what could have been a vaguely decent comic series
I read at one point that this comic was based on a failed movie script.
Thank the Lord it failed.
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