By: Brian Azzarello (writer), Eduardo Risso (art), Trish Mulvihill (colors), Clem Robins (letters), Mark Doyle & Will Dennis (editors)
The Story: Everyone is trying to get Orson and “save” the little girl they think he has kidnapped.
Recap/Review: There are two things really impeding my enjoyment of this issue (and series). Sorry to say, they’re both art related problems. From the strict standpoint of aesthetics, I love Eduardo Risso’s artwork. He works with dark spaces so well, does wonderful eyes and cartoons enough with his characters that I can tell what they’re up to. But, this issue brought a nagging issue to a head. Namely, I can’t easily identify two of the main characters in many scenes. The first problem is with differentiating Tara (the kidnapped little girl) from all the other street-urchins that Orson (the Spaceman) hangs around with. They’re all small, light of frame and brown skinned with floppy black hair. In a many panels, I just can’t locate Tara and thus can’t really tell if it is Tara speaking OR one of the other kids. Would it have killed them to give some of these kids distinctive tattoos or earrings…or maybe make one wear sunglasses all the time…or wear their hair in a pink Mohawk? Tara is an important character and I couldn’t pick her out of a line-up.
A similar problem occurs during the flashback scenes that show Orson and the other Spacemen on Mars. I guess they need to look kinda the same since they’re genetically engineered creatures and they’re all wearing spacesuits, but it would still be nice to have some visual cues about who is who. We know that Orson is basically good and Carter is basically bad, but we only know that from their word balloons. And, because it isn’t easy to tell the characters apart, all the wonderful acting that the spacemen achieve through Risso’s art is lost because I can’t ascribe an attitude or emotion to a particular character. Again, distinguishing features would be good. Make one short and stout, another long and lanky, one with a big facial scar and the fourth with a distinctive hair color.
One almost wonders if there is a method behind this uniformity of appearance because the folks involved with this title are pros. They all know visually distinctive characters are important, so they must have a reason. I just don’t know what it is.
The story itself remains interesting. Even though much of the story is lost due to the problems mentioned above, it remains compelling. I still want to like this series. Orson reminds me a little of Lennie from Of Mice and Men. You just kinda know that this relationship between the simple-minded brute and the delicate little Tara can’t end well. We all like Orson a lot and dread what will happen when “they” catch him and Tara. Surely they all assume he’s kidnapped her (and perhaps more)…when all he’s really done is protect her. Orson really has himself in a pickle.
There is also a very cool reveal in this issue of how polite and decent society is walled off from the riff-raff. Spaceman isn’t a standard post-apocalypse story; they still have reality TV for goodness sakes! But, something bad has clearly happened to flood this world. I’ve wondered why this world had such a stark contrast between the haves and the have-nots and now we see the answer. Not much detail on the who/what/why of the wall, but it’s mere presence begs a lot of questions
Conclusion: Some hiccups in the visual storytelling are holding this story back. We shouldn’t have to work so hard to tell characters apart.
Grade: B-
– Dean Stell