BY DAVID O LEARY
Punt Press must be lauded in their efforts in teaming up with companies around the world combining The Celtic Clan with various other super teams. The latest cross over comic featuring the Irish superhero team comes out of Nigeria in this instance with the first issue of Urban Warriors/Celtic Clan #1.
The Urban Warriors are products of Empire Comics, a company based out of Lagos, Nigeria and created by the Morah brothers, artist Francis and writer Michael. Launched in February 2010 with a #0 issue, the Urban Warriors has built up a loyal following and both publishers have to be praised for bridging a considerable gap by producing the first Irish/Nigerian crossover comic.
Honestly, I was delighted that the book didn’t descend into the usual cross over fare of the two teams meeting, fighting and then coming together to bring down a common enemy early in the story as seems to be the norm in so many cross company books. Morah and Flood bring a big amount of build up in the issue and the two teams only meet in the final scenes even though threads of the story could have dictated an earlier meeting. It also made sense having The Citizen be the focal character, as he is the one most clouded in mystique, is a total bad ass and one that you want to see stories revolve around.
Without giving too much away about the plot the story being broke down into two distinct acts came off great in no small part because of good planning with the first half of the book being based mainly in Ireland before the story moves to Africa for a coming together. With some nice pacing and tension especially in the Nigerian scenes, you can see how this book can make good on its sci-fi and superhero influenced potential.
The art in the book is by Francis Morah. Though in parts the art was a little loose Morah does have a good grasp of pacing and layout and it makes up for any shortcoming by being a serviceable read. The two aforementioned acts in Ireland and Nigeria open up with a picture/art mash up of each country that was quite eye catching before Morah took on full art then.
The book comes with several pin ups and the back of the issue and will be released digitally in August with print copies available in November. This also will not be the only crossover comic to feature the Clan either, with a planned cross over coming out of the US with Advent Comics planned for later this year with the huge COSMOS crossover event.
Culled from www.irishcomicnews.com
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