Book Review: Knight Rider vol #1

Book: Knight Rider volume #1 by Geoffrey Thorne with illustrations by Jason Johnson with color by Sai Studios

An additional story written by Shannon Eric Denton with illustrations by Brian Denham and color by Milan Parvanov

Source: Borrowed from Publisher/NetGalley for an honest review

Publication: June 9, 2015

Publisher: IDW Publishing

Description:

All secret agent Michael Knight wants to do is take his girlfriend Katherine out for a night on the town. Of course, Katherine is the brilliant scientist he's been assigned to protect along with her top secret PROJECT: RIDER. When a team of mercenaries crashes their date, it's up to Michael and the mysterious Bishop to keep Katherine and the Rider out of their hands. What follows is a high-speed, high-casualty race through the streets and mountains of California in which loyalties are tested, alliances betrayed, and a global conspiracy is revealed. And, of course, at least one talking car. Knight Rider: A shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a man who does not exist.


Rating: 3 stars (for the second story only)

Review:

There are two stories in this volume and the first was really awful.

Oh boy, the first story was very clunky and not to mention boring and poorly written. I barely finished reading it, but I'm glad I did because the second story was so much better (more on that later). Now back to the first one, it's a very generic spy story that's filled with boring characters, tons of technobabble, text messages and chess speak. There is an unnecessary back story for KITT the car the could have been left out.

The story finds Michael Knight tasked with trying to guard and protect Dr. Katherine Beachum who is currently working on a project for the secret organization that Michael works for. The doctor had been targeted by a shadowy group looking to acquire her experiment.

I found Michael to be poorly written and pretty much lousy at his job while his coworker Tabitha (Michael's Bishop) was better written. Dr. Beachum is smart but a bit of ditzy damsel-in-distress at times.

The art for the main story was very generic however the color was very good. This was nothing more than a filler story that at least introduced a good character, Tabitha.


For the second story the art and the writing improved so much, too bad this wasn't the lead story.

In this story, Michael and Kitt were checking out one of the company's buildings to see if any of them had been compromised following the incident in the first story. This was a very well-written action packed story with Michael appearing smart and capable as well as has a good personality. The author even managed to add in some well placed humor.

I wish I could get back the time I wasted on reading the first story but at least the second one was good.