Remote #5

   If you're looking for a comic to win the "most offbeat concept of the year" award, we may have a winner with Remote.

   It catches the eye with its cover featuring a 50-foot-tall woman barely covered with clothing made of American flags.

   But Samantha Stanton isn't a typical superhero at all. She's a radio announcer - one of the few left alive in this story set in a world based on the film Night of the Living Dead.

   But this series, despite some gory images and unsettling visuals, seems to be going more for laughs.

   As Samantha tries to keep her career and the entertainment industry going, she's harassed by a fanatical religious leader.

   But wait, I hear you asking. How did she become a giant? I promise you, you'll never guess.

   Here goes: that religious leader hits her with a school bus - and she immediately changes into a giant. Which doesn't seem to phase anyone.

   (So do we assume that, in the future, she'll have to track down a school bus anytime she needs to become giant-sized? Seems inconvenient. Perhaps it's a permanent condition.)

   The whole issue is disjointed - I felt like I'd walked into the middle of a movie.

   Perhaps that's because it was apparently assembled by committee - the credits include two plotters, four scripters, two layout artists, three artists, and three color artists.

   The result is a crazy quilt of a story that doesn't really work - although it does have a lovely cover by Ruiz Burgos.

Grade: C-

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