Book Review: Daomu

Book: Daomu by Xu "Kennedy" Lei, adapted by Colin Johnson with illustrations by Ken Chou

Source: Borrowed from Publisher/NetGalley for an honest review

Publication: February 17, 2015

Description:

Sean Wu had no idea of the secrets kept by his estranged father — until his death kicked open the gates to a mysterious world of international tomb robbers and ageless myths!

Now the sole heir to this critical legacy, he must survive the darkest terrors haunting the most sought after treasures buried within a globe-spanning labyrinth of ancient catacombs in order to solve his father’s murder and perhaps even save the world…

Based on the best-selling Chinese novel series Daomu Journal, written by Xu “Kennedy” Lei, this original graphic novel collects the sold-out series created by the celebrated art directors at Concept Art House, with over 20 million fans declaring Xu ‘China’s Stephen King’.

This 244-page hardcover features a soft-touch textured cover with embossed elements, highlighting the strikingly rendered painted artwork on both front and back cover.

The epic storyline is supplemented by concept artwork and additional design material further exploring the world of Daomu.



Rating: 2 stars

Review:

I would say Daomu is like Indiana Jones but with monsters and mythology. This was okay but I think the story suffered from stiff writing and trying to add in too much back story. This is another comic where the thought boxes and dialogue bubbles cause distraction by taking up a lot of space on the page.

Daomu started out good with the story opening with Sean Wu reconnecting with his absentee father at a diner but then a masked and nearly indestructible man shows up and murder his father. Sean was rescued by these two people and one was a lady name Lyn. This tragic event leads Sean into the world his father had tried so hard to keep him away from.

Sean traveled back to China for his father's funeral and afterwards he found out the family secret, it turns out the family comes from a long line of tomb raiders. Although Sean was still mad at his father, especially after seeing the huge mansion his dad had been living in while Sean and his mother had been living in poverty while in America he was still curious enough to enter the family trade.

He was soon on his first expedition with his Uncle Tsai and their two very unique guards, Pan and Kilan. The story dragged for a while with the group in the underground cave fighting off various monsters including murderous vines.

After Sean survived the ordeal he ended up teaming up with some shadowy organization that Lyn is a part of. Of course his uncle found out which resulted in this big reveal.

Sean is a complete idiot in this story but for some reason he's considered some kind of chosen one with something being special about him. Even the twist about who Sean really is didn't improve this story nor him becoming insta-competent near the end.

I have a real complaint about this story besides it being a fast paced bore, my problem is that the only or main female character Lyn was only there for her body to be on display. She added nothing to the story she was a damsel in distress with Sean always coming to her rescue. As for the artwork for her, there were several scenes where the artist drew her in typical cheesecake form with all her boobs showing pretty much all the time. Seriously, why do female characters continue to be she shown in this way? It's ridiculous that her scuba suit could not be zipped up.

Overall, the artwork (aside from Lyn) was the best part of this story although the art was wasted by being surrounded by a thick border around each panel and the page. The only character I liked was Kilan because he was interesting and the only character who I thought could actually handle any of the weird situations that was happening in this story.

This story ended with a cliff hanger and it didn't leave me real interested in wanting to read more of this story. Perhaps if Kilan was the main character but other than that I'm not in a hurry to read the second volume.