Sylvester Stallone is one those actors whose exterior offputs a lot of people. His acting talent is truly undervalued. I gravitated to his star power through the Rocky and Rambo franchises. Since those, he’s made movies that have been hit or miss. One of my favorites was Cobra, a truly 80s action movie that dripped all the sleek hair, outfits, and overall style that the decade was notorious for.
Another movie of his which as very entertaining was The Specialist. In it he plays a hitman who can’t stay out of the way of Sharon Stone. These roles were the ones that he actually thrived in, a quiet but steady man of strength, one which everyone trusts and no one wants to cross. One of those movies was in the brilliantly executed Avenging Angelo. That film mixed film noir and gangster films into an entertaining blend. In Len Wein’s stark take on Christopher Chance, we get a singular unique story in Human Target.
We find Chance and Winston entertaining a job of protecting a disgraced mobster, Angelo Morelli. He needs to deliver evidence to the Feds before he can be killed. The job becomes more complicated as Morelli has left pieces of evidence which would incriminate his organization all over the world and it’s up to Chance and him to retrieve them all before anyone else finds out about it. This leads him to Paris, Geneva, Hong Kong and everywhere in between, as Morelli’s organization starts to figure out exactly what the two are up to.
Overall, Human Target is an action-packed miniseries which borrows form the source material and the television show generously enough not to forget how fun this character is. The story by Len Wein and Peter Johnson is pulse pounding, smart and well developed. The art by the creative team is awe inspiring. Altogether, a portrait of a man for hire who will stop at nothing to do his job.
Story: Len Wein and Peter Johnson
Art: Simon Coleby, Bruno Redondo, Jason Masters, Chris Sprouse, and John Paul Leon
Ink: Sergio Cariello, Karl Story, Cliff Rathburn, Jason Masters, John Paul Leon, and Sergio Sandoval
Story: 10 Art: 9.7 Overall: 9.7 Recommendation: Buy
