I’m going to put this
one in perspective for you. I haven’t read this book in awhile probably since the first volume actually. So returning to this issue was me being curious in what all had changed and what all had went on in the story since then. To break it down for you you have the earth’s greatest hero being the Plutonian going nuts and killing everyone in sight. Now it looks like he’s been imprisoned by these aliens called the Vespa and is imprisoned inside of a star that’s their insane asylum. With this visitor called Auroran visiting him while in prison as the issue starts up the Plutonian is waking up and he’s still there. While another character that was a teammate of the Plutonian called Survivor is setting up this offer of amnesty for this new group called the Paradigm for any supervillain wanting to join up. Another character named Qubit isn’t sure about the intentions of Survivor so he recruits the Plutionian’s arch enemy Modeus to investigate.
There’s your quick lowdown on what’s going on and here’s the quick info on this too is it’s Mark Waid writing with Peter Krause and Diego Barreto on art duty. On the writing end it’s solid stuff. I liked the conversation with Plutonian and Auroran in the asylum and the looking over the history of the Plutonian and giving for the new reader who could pick up this issue a chance to figure out what’s going on. So it’s fairly clever filling in the blanks for people who haven’t read it in quite awhile like myself. I’ve always been curious about the concept of this book and liked parts of it but I never could find myself fulling getting into it you know? It’s not bad writing I mean I can get where everyone is coming from for there’s a segment with the Vespa that was this great segment that’s cool and all but I felt no real connection to it. I understand that I haven’t read it in awhile but it should strike me on a bigger level and even to the new reader I don’t know if it would have that punch to it. I do find the part of the Plutonian though quite a bit more interesting in just the exploration of that character and the sort of adventure he’s undertaking with his mysterious new “friend” so to speak. This might sound like I could be bashing it but Mark Waid isn’t doing a bad job it’s just not totally clicking with all the stories that are going on so to speak.
On the art end it’s solid work. It’s not flashy but it tells the story nicely enough. The interesting thing that I didn’t even realize there were two artists which means they do compliment each other well. I did love the art on the flashback segments in the asylum that explained the bits of what lead to this sort of turn for the Plutonian. I make no qualms in saying that was my favorite part of this issue. The alien segment was cool and all but it didn’t totally work for me for some reason. Maybe it’s just my lack of connection to the book. It looked great I mean the designs were good, the storytelling was solid, but like I said something with it didn’t totally work for me.
Now reading this review you all probably think I hated the issue. I didn’t hate it at all. Just half of it didn’t totally click for me. Like I said it could be the fact I haven’t read it in awhile. I say it’s probably more along the impact level of an issue that’s great for people in the midst of the storyline. It’s new reader friendly in the fact that it has that great flashback segment. Outside of that it’s touch and go. Take a look at it and see what you think. It could be more your cup of tea than it was for me.
review copy provided by Boom! Comics
