Review: Double Take Comics: Fire Vol. 1 (All Ten)
By Dustin Cabeal
That title is probably confusing so let me clarify and tell you that this covers the first ten trades for all of Double Takes titles including Rise, Slab, Soul, Spring, Medic, Honor, Dedication, Home, Remote, Z-Men. I had hoped to review them all separately, but alas, I didn’t find enough to say about any one of them that I haven’t already said in my five individual reviews for each title. I’m sorry, but this reviewer can’t force himself to rewrite the same thing over and over. Instead, I will give you a list of links at the bottom for each individual review for you to enjoy.
Now you’re probably wondering what the point of this review is. That’s a fair question, and so I’ll say that I wanted to comment on the changes and improvements that were made in these trades because it’s worth noting.
Double Take promoted these trades with improved art and story and they honestly deliver that. Books like Soul have significant improvements with the art and story. The first two issues of that book felt like filler instead of the slow burn they were going for. Now it’s tighter with the story and clearer as well.
Then there’s titles like Remote which have been cleaned up but didn’t need much polish. Same can be said for Rise, which only had a few pages touched up. The thing about Rise was that dialogue was added to clarify events and the plot.
Overall, the art, while mostly the same, has a cleaner and consistent look to it. There’s still slight changes here and there, but overall every book sees some margin or improvement either with the pencils, the layouts, the inks or the colors.
If you haven’t read any of the Double Take titles, this is an excellent opportunity to do so. You benefit from trial and error in some cases, but also in the fact that you can read the first five issues of all their titles and be caught up entirely on their shared universe. For ten bucks each, that’s not bad at all. If you already gave them a chance… well you’re a comic reader, and they’re not known for second chances, but I would say give it another shot. And if you’ve already read them, well, these would just be for the bookshelf and nothing more.