matteldritch92's review against another edition
3.0
The stories are nice and fun, but the artwork does nothing to help the storytelling. In fact, it hinders it greatly. The artwork is incredibly stiff and whenever there's any action scenes, it feels like you're just looking at still life photographs and not a climatic battle.
otterno11's review
2.0
Like a lot of my reads lately, stumbled on this at work, drawn in by some vibrant, colorful art, decided to give it a shot. A collection of comics found originally on the web, Athena Voltaire is a traditional “cliffhanger” style of neo-pulp adventure, and doesn't really offer anything you haven’t seen before if you’ve seen Indiana Jones, the Mummy, or other such nostalgic action romps.
As a pastiche, Athena Voltaire does not deviate from the script set up by these prior pastiches. All of the stories here follow the standard formula, using all the standard tropes; someone hires our heroine to go on an exotic expedition of some kind, there’s an occult menace of some sort, and the Nazis/vampires/Nazis show up to all be confronted by some big boss monster/fight. The goodies are good and the baddies are bad, and often, there’s a zeppelin. As can be seen, this brings nothing new to the hoary genre. Aside from the attempt to subvert the stereotype by having this two-fisted adventurer be a woman, little of the genre’s attitudes towards race and sex are challenged; aside from Athena, the only two other women in the story, for instance, are a vampire seductress and a Nazi she-wolf.
Aside from her gender, there’s nothing interesting about aviatrix Athena Voltaire; even Indy was afraid of snakes, but Athena is never challenged, which is part of the fun of one of these “cliffhanger” style as our heroes prevail against death defying odds; here, Athena never feels in real danger, she is never rattled and is less a character than a plot convenience. After never missing with a gun in each hand and outflying German and Japanese aces alike, the one thing Athena cannot control is her role in the story; she is purely reactive, from being hired by some old acquaintance or another to do a thing, being inevitably betrayed, to reacting to what the villains do. It is very much set up like an RPG session, with a plot setup followed by combat scenes every few pages as the PCs, I mean, Athena Voltaire and her sidekicks, respond to the next “encounter” the GM sends at her, along with a few info dumps.
The art is pretty solid, as befits an artist coming from a gaming book background, but often come across as a bit stiff, particularly in the expressions of the characters, who often seem oddly unimpressed by the gunfights and werewolf attacks happening around them. In the end, Athena Voltaire can be a fun little diversion if you're looking something in the pulp adventure vein, but there’s not too much beyond that.
As a pastiche, Athena Voltaire does not deviate from the script set up by these prior pastiches. All of the stories here follow the standard formula, using all the standard tropes; someone hires our heroine to go on an exotic expedition of some kind, there’s an occult menace of some sort, and the Nazis/vampires/Nazis show up to all be confronted by some big boss monster/fight. The goodies are good and the baddies are bad, and often, there’s a zeppelin. As can be seen, this brings nothing new to the hoary genre. Aside from the attempt to subvert the stereotype by having this two-fisted adventurer be a woman, little of the genre’s attitudes towards race and sex are challenged; aside from Athena, the only two other women in the story, for instance, are a vampire seductress and a Nazi she-wolf.
Aside from her gender, there’s nothing interesting about aviatrix Athena Voltaire; even Indy was afraid of snakes, but Athena is never challenged, which is part of the fun of one of these “cliffhanger” style as our heroes prevail against death defying odds; here, Athena never feels in real danger, she is never rattled and is less a character than a plot convenience. After never missing with a gun in each hand and outflying German and Japanese aces alike, the one thing Athena cannot control is her role in the story; she is purely reactive, from being hired by some old acquaintance or another to do a thing, being inevitably betrayed, to reacting to what the villains do. It is very much set up like an RPG session, with a plot setup followed by combat scenes every few pages as the PCs, I mean, Athena Voltaire and her sidekicks, respond to the next “encounter” the GM sends at her, along with a few info dumps.
The art is pretty solid, as befits an artist coming from a gaming book background, but often come across as a bit stiff, particularly in the expressions of the characters, who often seem oddly unimpressed by the gunfights and werewolf attacks happening around them. In the end, Athena Voltaire can be a fun little diversion if you're looking something in the pulp adventure vein, but there’s not too much beyond that.
skjam's review
4.0
Our story opens in Malaysia, as premiere pilot and adventurer Athena Voltaire and British agent Desmond Forsyth deal with a recently hatched garuda (a gargoyle-like creature. Once that’s taken care of, Athena heads back to California for a debriefing by her secret patron, millionaire Caine Foster. And then, a night at the movies as the new film The Adventures of Athena Voltaire is having its big opening at El Capitan Theater.
Athena is not overly impressed; the adventure depicted is on target, but the scriptwriters gave her an entirely different backstory. That doesn’t carry over in her treatment of male lead actor Carter Charles, who she agrees to a drink with–after she talks to her father, the Great Voltaire, retired stage magician.
It seems the elder Voltaire has come into possession of a necklace called Pele’s Tears, fashioned from volcanic glass. Legend has it that this talisman can be used to gain access through Pele’s volcano home to the Hollow Earth. It’s also claimed that the necklace has become contaminated during its long time away from Hawaii, and needs to be taken home to cleanse it.
The Great Voltaire imposes on his daughter to transport the talisman back to Hawaii, but there are those who would use it for evil, including Major Klimt of the Thule Society. Let the action begin!
This is the latest published adventure of Athena Voltaire, with the earlier continuity being collected in the Athena Voltaire Compendium. It ran as a three issue from Action Lab before being collected into this volume.
Good: I enjoyed the art and action, which is very much in the pulp tradition. Carter Charles makes a decent sidekick, and I especially liked the Hawaiian police detective based on Chang Apana (also the inspiration for Charlie Chan.) The story moved along at a good clip without becoming confusing. There are a couple of text pieces on fictional aviatrixes and stage magicians. This volume does not require you to have read the previous stories to understand.
Not so good: My main gripe is a presentation issue–this volume is exactly the three individual issues bound together, including the house ads for each issue, which results in duplicated pages. I would have preferred the ads to be shifted to the back, and duplicates eliminated.
I also felt the stinger scene was a trifle too obvious and ill-explained.
Recommended to fans of small press pulp adventurer comics.
Athena is not overly impressed; the adventure depicted is on target, but the scriptwriters gave her an entirely different backstory. That doesn’t carry over in her treatment of male lead actor Carter Charles, who she agrees to a drink with–after she talks to her father, the Great Voltaire, retired stage magician.
It seems the elder Voltaire has come into possession of a necklace called Pele’s Tears, fashioned from volcanic glass. Legend has it that this talisman can be used to gain access through Pele’s volcano home to the Hollow Earth. It’s also claimed that the necklace has become contaminated during its long time away from Hawaii, and needs to be taken home to cleanse it.
The Great Voltaire imposes on his daughter to transport the talisman back to Hawaii, but there are those who would use it for evil, including Major Klimt of the Thule Society. Let the action begin!
This is the latest published adventure of Athena Voltaire, with the earlier continuity being collected in the Athena Voltaire Compendium. It ran as a three issue from Action Lab before being collected into this volume.
Good: I enjoyed the art and action, which is very much in the pulp tradition. Carter Charles makes a decent sidekick, and I especially liked the Hawaiian police detective based on Chang Apana (also the inspiration for Charlie Chan.) The story moved along at a good clip without becoming confusing. There are a couple of text pieces on fictional aviatrixes and stage magicians. This volume does not require you to have read the previous stories to understand.
Not so good: My main gripe is a presentation issue–this volume is exactly the three individual issues bound together, including the house ads for each issue, which results in duplicated pages. I would have preferred the ads to be shifted to the back, and duplicates eliminated.
I also felt the stinger scene was a trifle too obvious and ill-explained.
Recommended to fans of small press pulp adventurer comics.
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