★★★★★ 4
A fairly decent super hero romp
Format: Paperback
If Mister Terrific suffers from any one flaw it is that he is incredibly generic. Nothing about this book was particularly offensive and it provided for some fairly good reads but the villains Terrific goes up against are hardly that. Despite this weakness, I found the series to be a fairly good read and while the major ongoing storylines were clearly cut short by the title's untimely demise, the ending satisfactorily led into the current status quo for Mister Terrific on Earth-2. Whether his presence there becomes relevant or not remains to be seen (particularly with the depature of Earth-2 writer James Robinson) but as things stand now, Mind Games still seems to be valuable background reading for Earth-2 and also lays a bit of ground work for the plot in World's Finest, meaning that Mister Terrific is nicely connected to the two current Earth-2 based titles.
The pace of the book is fairly decent, with several short story arcs that see Mister Terrific facing different villains and an ongoing plot throughout that deals with Terrific's secret identity and the issues he is dealing with as the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. The writing is not always sharp but the supporting cast is fairly solid and its a tragedy that we probably won't see some of these characters again. Terrific himself has enjoyable, if somewhat illogical, inner monologue that typically involves him thinking through a problem and while the science is (often) fuzzy, Wallace does a good job of showing how science and tech form the basis of Mister Terrific's powerset.
I would characterize this book as a solid B-list entry. Fans of the character may appreciate it as well as readers looking for something a little different but it is by no means a must-read. I'll be keeping it on my shelf as an important book for World's Finest and Earth-2 (both of which I have pulled since issue #1) however. If you can get your hands on this trade (or its related single issues) for a modest price, it provides a decent couple of hours of reading. It is a pity that nothing stands out particularly well but I appreciated that so much seemed to happen in only eight issues compared to some of the tedious extended plots of other comics.
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Reviewed in the United States on September 7, 2013
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