Talent

I give Talent high marks for its premise. It’s brilliant. A bomb takes out a passenger jet and there is one survivor, Nicholas Dane, who has somehow taken on the memories and talents (there’s your title) of everyone else who was on the plane. This serves him in good stead when the ruthless gang that bombed the jet come hunting after him, because now he instead of just being a lowly English professor (and that’s really low!) he is a trained killer, among other things.

The potential such an idea has is immeasurable. But it remains potential. A great premise is not a great story, it’s just the start. And the story here is lousy. The criminal enterprise that’s hunting Dane is a clichéd conspiracy of hooded figures known as the Cardinals. I had no idea who they were or what they were up to. After four issues the series abruptly ended in 2006 and hasn’t been continued.

Nor do I have any idea of how Dane got his powers. A mysterious female figure appears to him on occasion to try to explain what’s going on, but things remain pretty . . . vague. Basically he has become an agent of something called “the balance.” What is the balance? “It is what it is. The balance of all things, light and dark – yin and yang – good and evil, if the concepts do not offend you. The balance is the power that keeps the two opposing forces in check.”

Wow. “It is what it is.” I do not think they put a lot of time into figuring this balance thing out.

What disappointed me the most about Talent is that the concept could have been taken in so many interesting directions. There’s so much talent out there! Nearly everyone you meet has a talent for doing something. I could imagine storylines where Dane is tapping into the talents of an electrician or a cab driver or a dental hygienist. But they don’t do anything like that. The only talents sampled are those of a hired killer, a champion boxer, and a woman who makes origami. Now the first two are very useful in terms of their particular set of skills, but also a bit dull. There’s nothing interesting about how their talents are put to use. Dane just beats people up and shoots them.

So in the end I can’t say I liked this very much. Paul Azaceta’s art is very chunky, turning people into shapes and thick lines, so you don’t get to read any emotion on the faces. Indeed, it can be hard telling some of the characters apart. And the story is just a mess. Is Dane only staying alive, or is he on a mission of vengeance? Or is something else going on? I guess at some point they had plans for taking this further but for whatever reason that didn’t happen so what we’re left with is something that doesn’t add up and doesn’t come to any sort of a conclusion.  But apparently it’s in development as a cable series, and they still might be able to make something good out of it. I hope they do, because as I say the idea here is great.

Graphicalex