Cloud Eagle

The next evolution of martial arts is upon us. As styles are perfected and evolved over time, the human body is adapting as well. Small but growing populations of martial artists are learning to tap into their chi to enhance their abilities. Dubbed chi-ters (cheaters) on the street, the premiere group of the new era is the Cloud Eagles.

Cloud Eagle tells the story of young people with super human martial art chi powers fighting.....A LOT!
If you are a bad guy, you should fully anticipate having your spine broken in about 17 places before you even know the fight has started. (Seriously, broken backs are one of the main health hazards for bad guy minions with these young ninjas about!).
How tough are these kids?
How about 20 deadly nerve punches in under two seconds?
http://www.drunkduck.com/Cloud_Eagle/index.php?p=445165
It can be hard to describe this comic without ending your sentences with "POW!".
Cloud Eagles art adds to the intensity of the action, with a really impressive sense of motion and impact conveyed in many of the drawings.
Cool blurring effects are used along with some beautifully drawn figures that almost leap out of the page (if there was much more of a sense of motion, you would have to duck while reading it)
The plot to Cloud Eagle is is fairly simple, you basically already know it from reading this review- Super powered teens use special kung fu to beat up criminals...a lot.
This is a reasonable set up and did not detract from the action.
What did detract was that the motivations of what people were fighting seemed to get very little explanation.
We are informed within one panel on the second page that the Street Dragons are a criminal gang.
We then see about 17 pages of them getting beaten, broken, sliced and stabbed by our yellow clad heroes.
Personally, this didn't sit very well with me. I found myself thinking "Wow, that was a bit harsh!" and "What if that guy had a family?" rather than cheering on the brutality.
The problem is not that I don't like to see bad guys get destroyed (I love to see bad guys getting destroyed!), but here I had not seen anything to explain to me why the street dragons are bad, and certainly not what makes them bad enough to deserve such a complete and total whomping! I would have enjoyed the fighting more if we could have started with some scenes of the bad guys DOING evil. If I had seen the Street Dragon's beat up an old lady and try to set fire to an orphanage, I would have been a lot more fired up to see them get snapped in half. As it was, I felt a bit sorry for them. Especially because the fighting was such a one sided slaughter. The Street Dragon's seemed virtually defenceless. I was left wondering if such gleeful violence was even needed against such pathetic opposition? Couldn't they have just tied these pitiful losers up?
Later on, other more powerful enemies began to spring out at our heroes, but these proved frustrating as most of them recieved very little explanation. Faceless shadow shamans, some woman who goes through walls, one of the good guys mind controlled x-fiance and some big face hungry man all leap out of the wood work to attack the heroes from every direction.
I found myself becoming a bit lost at this point. Enemies were popping up so rapidly and regularly, with so little explanation that I found myself becoming rather disinterested. I didn't really know who the bad guys were or why they kept attacking everyone, so the fighting just started to feel like carnage for it's own sake.
I also struggled occasionally to keep track of who all of the good guys were. Because they are all super human martial artists, all dress in the same yellow t-shirts and are all drawn from numerous complex angles, at times I struggled to differentiate who was who in any given battle sequence. I knew if a good guy was hitting a bad guy, but which good guy sometimes took me a minute. Varied uniforms for our heroes would be a huge help with this!
That is the biggest thing that hold Cloud Eagle back from being truly, ass stompingly awesome. I know that the characters fight, but I want to get more of a sense of WHY they fight, both the good guys and the bad guys. The closest comparisson I can give is the second matrix film, where neo fights 8 million agents smiths. There are lots of cool moves and awesome effects, but because they are not really fighting for anything, the battle is not very moving.
The same occurs in Cloud Eagle. Impressive action, but not the clear motivation!
A few other minor points-
The villain breaking the forth wall was interesting, but seemed to make light of everything that was happening. It is not a battle to stop the forces of evil, it is just a web comic, and even the characters involve think so.
The live actors between scenes was also interesting, but once again reinforced the fact that I am reading a web comic about none existent characters, further harming my suspension of disbelief.
Finally, and this is a big one....
Why oh why did there have to be a female character with Red Hair called "Burning Bush"?
Think I am just making smutty jokes?
Allow me to quote from the characters in the comic-

Someone
"As for his nickname for her, it's either derived from their faith or her red hair in a sexual nature."

Ouch! That bit marked the low point of the comic, in terms of poorly written sentence and just.....ewwww!

Final score-
6/10
Cloud Eagle has some awesome art and high octane action. It just needs to work on conveying the motivations and story behind the action before (like the Cloud Eagles themselves) it dives into the fighting feet first.

Cloud Eagle is very much a team superhero action comic.

Pro:
The artist certainly has a certain style and the style starts off very well and does a great job at capturing the audience's attention. I enjoy that, on certain pages, you can really tell that the artist is trying to be creative with the page compositions and the paneling (pages 1 and 3 are my favorite). For that I appreciate it. The speech bubbles are positioned very well and the comic in general is a very easy read. The sentenses (not necessarily the writing, I will get into that later) are well structured and flows very well. Oh, and "burning bush" was the best part of the comic.

Con (Critique):
The biggest critique I have with this comic (and sifueagle, please consider this) is that it has WAY too much exposition. Like I said before, the sentenses are well formed but NARRATIVE is not well written. Every character is explained explicitly. It's always he is like this... she is like this... It completely drains your characters of their life. The comic becomes nothing but a character sheet with descriptions. I remember a comic friend of mine once said "Show it, don't tell it". Show your characters through their actions, the words they choose, their facial expressions. She has Social Anxiety Disorder? Don't say "she has Social Anxiety Disorder", put her in a situation where that personality of hers comes out. Your audience wants to get to know your characters and the "get to know them" part is large part of the enjoyment. Also, the facial expressions of the two portraits on that page don't show any emotion or personality. They look a bit stiff.

I hope that critique helps. I can see that you put a lot of effort into the characters' personalities. And they have potential. It would be a shame if their potential are not realized.

Cloud Eagle starts with a testament. And testaments/exclamations are things that you expect in this cleanly drawn black-and-white webcomic. The story feels like a staccato of noirish flow that cut apart in flood of exposition baloons. The "Street-talks" and kung-fu styled movements really give the feeling that Cloud Eagle is, like threeeyeswrum said, a super heroes team story.

As clean as it is, the art sometimes feel flat and not dynamic. A fatal flaw for a sequential storytelling form that tells of fighting and superpowers. Panels are sometimes confusing. This really mar this interesting concept of street-superheroes story.

Characters developments are built with expositions shoved into the readers mind, not told through story developments. This really detracts readers interactions.

Overall, Nice concept but the executions could need some polishing :)

Cloud Eagle is perfect for those looking for a good, exciting, action orientated comic! The basic plot follows a team of various misfits and interesting characters, who fight crime in a city. I have not read the entire thing, since it is not really to my taste genre-wise, but I have a feeling that the comic will go further then this simple story in good time.

Each of the characters have a lot of personality and history behind them, and already in just the second chapter, their emotions and personalities are explored a little. This nice touch makes the characters and story more appealing to those looking for a bit of extra in an exciting story.

Visually it is perfectly suited to the genre of action. The artwork is clean and clear, in later chapters selective colouring has been used, its very effective too. And the paneling is fantastic. A lot of thought has been taken into pacing and timing. Each panel flows from one to the next, and are arranged in a way where they work as a whole on the page, adding to the detailed 'missions' the main characters take on.
The characters and backgrounds are decently drawn-- the action scenes are filled with fantastic angles and images of people mid-kick and punch! At times the artwork can be stiff and inconsistant. Particularly, expressions are subtle and sometimes not effective enough when characters are touching on more emotional issues, but most of the time it is unnoticeable, especially against well laid out pages and good body language.

Also, the relationship between text and artwork is better then a good deal of comics! At the beginning of the comic, narration is used to compliment the images, add extra to them, rather then simply accompany them. On top of this, as we get used to the narration, it is then used to add a twist to the plot itself, completely engaging the reader into this climatic chapter end! It is a very clever little technique, and I expect more will be used in further chapters.

Over all, although not for everyone, this action-orientated comic is perfect for those looking for something entertaining and exciting. I think visually it does everything a good action comic should. On top of this it has some interesting characters and touches on some emotional issues, that will entice readers who look for a little more substance with their excitement.

Cloud Eagle is a beautifully rendered bit of graphic story-telling. Its selling points are its fast-paced action, accessible characters, and consistently gorgeous art. It follows the story of the Cloud Eagles, an elite group of chi-wielding urban ninjas (chi-ters), as they defend the city from both its criminal world (the Street Dragons) and a competing faction (the Shadow Wings).

ART
No doubt about it, the comic is aesthetically breathtaking. It draws on the traditional styles of comic art (you'll get sound effects, speed lines, and shadow), but also incorporates the textures and details made possible by digital format. The artist knows the medium, and works it to perfection. The only potential complaint about the art is that the mildly overwrought style also lends itself to some moments of melodrama (such as on this page http://www.drunkduck.com/Cloud_Eagle/index.php?p=387503 ) that would be better avoided.

STORY
One thing I like about Cloud Eagle is that it hits the ground running and just keeps on going. The plot can get a little twisty (there are possible resurrections, twins, secret adopted children, chosen ones, betrayals, etc), but largely it stays focused. From time to time, because the consistent art style makes many characters (and there are a lot of characters) look similar, it's hard to tell whose story we are following, and who is telling the story. The shifting narrative voice, though refreshing, also tends to be confusing. In one instance, a self-aware narrator who has been watching the protagonists hijacks the captions for an ominous broadcast (http://www.drunkduck.com/Cloud_Eagle/index.php?p=371498 ). Longer periods of consistent narration would improve the story, but, as it stands, the plot material is more than enough to keep you reading.

CHARACTERS
Though many of its characters are well developed, Cloud Eagle seems to eager to introduce as many characters as possible, and then psychologize them for us. While I laud any webcomic that manages to represent a complex personality through a largely visual medium, I still find reading to be most rewarding when I see and explore the character's depth, rather than just being told about it. Moments like this (http://www.drunkduck.com/Cloud_Eagle/index.php?p=350120 ) give me the impression that the author does not want the reader to interpret the work for his or herself. Despite this tendency, we are still privileged to follow interesting characters with very inventive capabilities and personalities. They make the comic very enjoyable.

To get an idea of the scope of the comic, here's the character promo for the past/present/future: http://www.drunkduck.com/Cloud_Eagle/index.php?p=502896

OVERALL
Overall, Cloud Eagle is a graphically stimulating experience with a strong command of narrative voice. Aesthetically sublime moments like this (http://www.drunkduck.com/Cloud_Eagle/index.php?p=404822 ) surprise us, and draw us further into the comic's unique group of heroes. Undoubtedly, Cloud Eagle is a recommended read.