U.S. Angel Corps
This author responded to a review on the site and his/her reply can be found here in the "Reactions" section. |
Original review author: | DrShaym and TheLuigiian |
Webcomic name: | U.S. Angel Corps. I'm not linking to it. (UPDATE: Not that there is anything to link to anymore anyway.) |
Author: | David Cheung |
Start Date: | July 5, 2010 |
End Date: | May 30, 2015 (circa) |
Genre: | Necro porn |
Defining Flaw: | The entire point of this thing is to eroticize women getting beaten up, raped, and murdered. Oh, and also to make money off it. |
Rating Summary
Background
U. S. Angel Corps is easily the worst comic I have ever seen. It's disgusting, immoral, and misogynistic in the extreme. I mean, I reviewed a comic featuring Jesus getting raped, but I have never seen a more offensive comic. This is, by far, the most sickening thing to ever dishonor the already tarnished word "Webcomic".
Now, it's one thing if you're just trolling and your comic is meant to offend, as is the case with Electric Retard for example (don't click on that), but it's worse when you fail to realize or care about just how repugnant your comic is. The thing about this comic is that it was made to make money by capitalizing on the disgusting fetishes of a repulsive niche audience, and creator Dave Cheung doesn't seem to care as long as he makes a little money.
This comic is commission-based, which is to say that Cheung only draws it when people give him money, which, unfortunately, some people do. Now, there's nothing wrong with wanting to make a little money off your work, unless, of course, this is what you're selling.
Downfall
It's really hard for me to decide what the worst part of this comic is. It could be the grotesque imagery, it could be the abject misogyny, or it could be the fact that Cheung is trying to capitalize on such grotesque imagery and misogyny. See, this is a guro comic. For those of you who don't know, "guro" is basically Japanese necrophilia porn with a special focus on gruesome torture and mutilation. The entire point of this comic is to show the female characters getting tortured, raped, killed and/or dismembered, not necessarily in that order. It's disgusting in every sense of the word. Observe:
If there remains any doubt in your mind about how bad this comic is after seeing those images, then I suggest you shoot yourself in the head because, clearly, your brain isn't working and is only wasting energy.
Really, I could go on and on about how anyone who gets off to this sort of thing should be ashamed of themselves, but there's so much more to talk about.
Art review
There is a little question regarding this comic of whether it is the worst webcomic ever. At the moment, as far as I am concerned, it is in a three-way tie with Billy the Heretic and Sonichu. Some might say that, unlike those two, Cheung can at least draw well. But in my view all that does is add insult to injury.
Or maybe it is the fact that it is drawn well that makes it so much worse than any one in a string of other guro webcomics we have reviewed here that look like they were all drawn with crayons by cross-eyed paraplegics. Seeing the details put into the drawing of streams of cum ,slowly drizzling down into gaping bullet holes, really adds something to the experience.
So some might argue that Cheung is a competent artist. All right, fair enough, but there is one big problem:
While Cheung actually bothers to diversify the faces of his male characters, this comic, like all of his other comics, has completely identical female characters. Yeah, their skin tones and hair are different, but they all have the exact same face. Same nose, same eyes, same mouth, same face. Not to mention they all have virtually the same body type as well. The only thing that seems to vary is their breast sizes. So yeah, Cheung can't even be bothered to draw different faces for women, even if they're of different ethnicities, so I would normally assume that everything he knows about female anatomy comes from anime or manga, but since he draws in a semi-realistic art style, I have to assume that he has actually taken an art class or two (in the time since he drew Chugworth Academy) and simply doesn't care. He just came up with one face that he likes and decided that all of his female characters should have it, otherwise they wouldn't be pretty. That brings me to my next point…
Writing and Story
The over-arching story goes like this:
There is a secret military organization (how original) that picks up unwanted, orphan children (always girls) and trains them to be super-assassins for the US government... This is all crap that you have all heard a million times. But wait until you hear the twist!
Every individual story goes like this:
There is a military unit that sends out hot, barely legal, scantily clad women to singlehandedly infiltrate and neutralize multiple enemies in hostile territories without any backup, weapons or equipment. Then they get beat up, raped and tortured to death until they piss on themselves and die. And often times they then get mutilated, dismembered and have their disfigured corpses fucked in a warm puddle of their own piss. I mean… I don't know what they're supposed to be doing, but they don't seem to be too good at their fucking job.
What kind of operation are they running over there anyway? These girls are alone, have no logistical support or backup of any kind and not even basic equipment. I'm not talking about a gun, either (although I would think that this is the first thing I would give someone I'm sending out to commit murder). I'm not even talking about a radio to call for rescue... These bitches ain't got no shoes on! I mean, I know this is nothing but a fetish comic, but the premise of it all is so goddamn ridiculous (not to mention nauseating) that it makes me laugh when I'm not already throwing up.
None of this makes sense, really. Who in social services allows these people to snatch up little girls? Why are they getting all girls instead of men? Why are they sending them out unarmed? Why are they sending them out wearing bathing suits?! Why?! And once they get there, the mission always goes tits-up, which is even more strange. How they get past the guards (or even to the location itself) naked isn't even the problem because once they get there, they usually fuck shit up beyond logic. How does the spy character get snuck up on and killed? How does the sniper get sniped and the hand-to-hand expert get her ass beat? I'll tell you how and why: To add to their humiliation. They are just girls, so obviously they will embarrassingly lose to people without even half their training. I can't think of any way this could have been made by anyone other than someone who seriously hates women. This is also why one character loses to a man armed with nothing but a towel and a toothbrush despite having a gun, and another ties up her opponent and decides to rape him, but he breaks free, kills her and fucks her corpse instead.
This is another recurring theme in the writing here. These girls just can't keep it in their pants. Missions are often compromised because one of the girls decided on sucking off their target instead of killing them and ended up dead. But it isn't always like that. Sometimes they just get raped. But that doesn't mean they can't enjoy it! While some desperately try to fight off their attackers - as the attackers rip off what little clothes they have on - to save their dignity, others literally enjoy being raped! They grunt and moan even though they know they will soon be murdered by the person who is molesting them and cum an entire river onto their assailant (if you are getting a boner right now please reach over to the nearest sharp object you have and stab yourself in the dick and then leave this site).
Once this is over the real fun begins! After finishing raping the girls, the bad guys either beat, kill or torture them. For a while, the girls scream and cry and beg for mercy, but in the end they all die. Their limbs are torn off, they are beheaded or mangled in some way and, as they die, their urine escapes them in a final act of indignation... Did I say "final"? I must have forgotten that after they die, their bodies - entrails still hanging out - are gang-banged by their murderers/rapists in every hole they have on their body (including the ones just added) with their blood and piss and tears used for lubricant before having their violated bodies dumped in an unmarked grave like trash, still covered in globs of warm jizz.
Was I graphic enough? Did I go into enough detail here? I really want everyone reading this to get just how abhorrent it all is. The amazingly asinine plot and writing would make this all hilarious were it no already simply repulsive.
The Objectification of Women
Aside from the fact that this is a comic that tries to eroticize women getting raped and murdered, in this comic, every female character has the same baby-like face and pornstar body even though the male characters are all unique. I get the sense that Cheung has little respect for women if he doesn't even give them different faces. Not only that, but Cheung also decided to make all of the female characters orphans, which is to say, they don't have families. I guess this is meant to make their deaths seem more trivial so Cheung's audience will have an easier time jacking off to them when they die. That's called dehumanization.
Furthermore, the women all have cutesy-sounding code names like Bubblegum and Princess, 'cause, you know, a woman should have a name reminiscent of The Powerpuff Girls, right? Hell, one of them is named "Bikini", because, you know, she wears a bikini. That's great, just give a woman a code name based on what she wears. I'm surprised there isn't a character named "Jugs". Again, the cutesy names, combined with the identical faces and lack of known relatives, add to the dehumanizing effect and turn the girls more akin to objects so that you don't feel sad as they writhe in agony while having their limbs slowly cut off. All of this reminds me of the movie "Sucker Punch" which used all these elements to critique the desegregation of women in a way that so closely resembles this comic I can't help but wonder if Zack Snyder came across it by some freakish coincidence.
Anyway, back to the point. The characters are only meant to die so that their dead bodies can be violated in a pool of their own, terrified urine (This literally happens multiple times). It's not even like Cheung plays it for laughs or tries to play it like it isn't meant to be taken seriously or sexually. You can see the characters crying in pain as they beg for their lives while being tortured. Dave Cheung is catering to an audience that gets off on seeing women get murdered and he's making money doing it.
If it weren't for the fact that these characters are fictional and none of this is real, this would be a textbook example of exploitation. Dave Cheung saw a group of people whose sexual fantasies include raping and murdering women, and he decided to capitalize on it (or so he says. He's been drawing this sort of thing long before USAC).
Author biography
I don't know Dave Cheung personally, but if his work is any indication, I suspect that he has little respect for women if not full-on contempt. Before he created U. S. Angel Corps, he worked on another comic, Chugworth Academy, which was heavily reliant on fan service. Strangely, in those days, he actually got angry when people asked to see his characters naked. What the hell happened since then? Well, in our review of that comic the writer suggested Cheung just drop the false pretenses of being an artist and just make porn. So I dread to think this atrocity is somehow our fault.
What else is there to mention about Dave? Well, he got in trouble with UbiSoft for drawing a sexual parody about Jade Raymond, he has managed to get a negative review on virtually every self-respecting webcomic review site, attempted to remove a number of them (temporarily succeeded in our case), abruptly ended a number of his comics and earned himself a bad reputation for the way he handles criticism (although I can't blame him for not liking the criticism leveled at him. I can only blame him for what he does to earn this sort of criticism). Lastly, prior to drawing necrophilia, torture/rape porn he used to draw child porn and sometimes combine all of the above into necrophilia, rape and torture child porn. He doesn't even deny doing it (not that he could, the evidence is widely available), but simply claims it was all for money and not due to personal interest in the subject matter. Still, even if he isn't into this stuff, the fact that he's willing to draw it for money tells me enough.
As of the time of this review, Dave Cheung has almost nine thousand watchers on DeviantART. I would like to point out that DA is a website where the most popular artist is Bleedman, and the most popular photo is a Death Note cosplay, so this isn't something to brag about.
Conclusion
David Cheung's work appeals to the lowest common denominator: a niche fetish community of loathsome degenerates, and that is not something to be proud of. Especially when the fetish community in question is necrophiliacs and the type of people who get erections when they see a rape scene in a movie. I'm sure this isn't the only guro comic out there, but the fact he can actually draw and spent all this time and effort learning how to do it somehow only makes it worse.
I would say I wish he would put his art to better use and make a non-porn comic, but we already saw his plot comics and told him he should just make porn instead. Then he made USAC as if to punish his critics by making the worst thing on the face of the internet and now I honestly wish he'd just quit.
Other comics by this person that are reviewed on this site
Links
- The TV Tropes article on Web Archive The original was deleted due to their content policy − I have a feeling Dave is to blame.
- Dave Cheung's DeviantART account.
- Webcomic Relief on YouTube also has a review of U. S. Angel Corps.
- Webcomic Police video review.
- Dave Cheung's Tumblr account.
- Dave Cheung's Patreon. Don't support it.