#randomcomicbookreview

I bought this comic-book because of the Neal Adams cover. Nice surprise after discovering he is the author of interior pages also. Even not being a Continuity Comics' book, Ms Mystic is property or Adams, according the credits. In fact, it had a reprint/relaunch on Continuity a few years after.

The basic concept lies on a group of ecologist super-heroes. At the beginning of the book, we have a resume page that tells the story so far, more than enough to understand everything. We are in the middle of Ms Mistic (and friends) origin story: She comes from another dimension, brought to our planet by accident by a group of tecno-ecologist scientific warriors, while they were in the middle of a battle against the security forces of a specially toxic factory. The second issue starts with an inconscious Ms Mystic exploring the story of Earth in the astral plane. There, she makes contact with Mother Earth (really) and convinces her to provide elemental powers to the team, that is fighting (and losing) in the physical plane. Voilá: We have a full brand new super-hero team. The narrative/stylistic core of the book can be found in its central pages, where the events of physical/astral planes are narrated in parallel along double pages, dividing both narrative lines with a strong black line.

The astral section is based on a psychedelic near-Metal Hurlant imaginery, with our heroine naked but "convenient covered" in the fashion of Barbarella. Mother Earth looks like she comes from a Victor Moscoso poster. In general, coloring is outstanding in comparison with the average comic-books of that time, supported by a equally superior paper quality.

The physical battle section is more conventional, with a general design fully valid as base to create a toy line, with the homogenic super-hero team uniforms, the techno-monster evil warriors and action vehicles.

It's remarcable that, in oposition to other sensationalistic covers by Adams, this one reflects a literal scene of the interior. In fact, the cover is used as first panel on page 24. Also in the cover, we can watch a clearly intentional joke from Neal Adams, depicting the elemental super-team as if they were the Fantastic Four.

This second chapter of Ms Mystic finished in a thrilling way, with the main character cruelly impaled by the death device where she was restrained (it would not be possible in a Comics Code Approved book). I've had enough curiosity to look for the next issue on the Internet and dowload an old scan. I'm not going to spoil, but I can say that the #2 was the last one penned by Adams before passing his role to one of his clones.