By: Scott Snyder (story), Yanick Paquette (art), Nathan Fairbairn (colors)
The Story: Some people would consider a Garden of Eden in the sky kind of romantic, Ivy.
The Review: I gave Animal Man’s counterpart to this issue a thorough thrashing in my review the other day. This arc has been one of anticipation ever since Snyder and Jeff Lemire’s collaboration was announced, and for it to start with less than a bang makes you feel a bit cheated. Rotworld leaves our heroes with only one inevitable choice of action: go back and reverse what has been. That inevitability saps the arc of its thrill almost from the start.
This issue doesn’t do a much better job of convincing you any other option is possible. With the world laid waste, its very geography altered (“This ‘desert’ is Louisiana, Holland,” Ivy informs him bitterly), and everyone dead and grotesquely deformed, even if Alec and Buddy somehow manage to defeat Arcane and the Rot by themselves, what would be the point? I can only see a way back if the Red, Green, and Rot all work together to put things right—which isn’t a bad possibility, come to think of it. I just take issue with the predictability of the story’s direction.
Still, there’s always the chance the arc will surprise all of us, and in the meantime, Snyder delivers a slightly more solid issue than Animal Man #13, though both share very similar structures. For anyone following both series—and you almost certainly are—there’s a lot of repetitive information and a familiar pattern of events: the hero meets his surviving peers, they lead him to their embattled HQ, some fighting and blame-gaming ensues.
Speaking of which, I just find everyone scapegoating Alec and Buddy a little unconvincing. The Parliament of Trees knew what happened to Alec (“Once you and Baker were trapped inside the Rot…”), so why wouldn’t they clear that up to second-in-command Ivy? Why promote the idea that Alec “abandoned” them? The Parliament claims they “might have” been able to stop Alec from rushing in so blindly and causing all this to happen, but hindsight is twenty-twenty even for trees, I suppose.
One interesting thing to note is the Parliament seems, in their resignation to refugee status, somewhat more centered and less strident than before. Given how much grief they’ve given him before about not rising up to the occasion, the absence of anger of any kind here seems that much more noticeable, considering that Alec basically failed them in the worst possible way. And their pity for Abby’s fate also seems unusual, after their previous prejudice towards her.
This again gives me the sense that not all is at it seems. There’s just a lot that doesn’t gel together in this story. If Arcane literally had Alec and Buddy where he wanted them, why wouldn’t he just kill them off, rather than release them? Certainly he had no problem doing the same dozens of times before. And why would Snyder portray Abby’s tragic fate so casually, almost as an afterthought? For such a major character, this seems like suspiciously light treatement. I just think we’re being led on here.
It feels like forever since we’ve had a Paquette-drawn issue on this series, and while he can’t make up for all the shortcomings of the script, he makes for a much more convincing issue. The Rot hordes look less corny and much more fearsome, and I think it’s because Paquette has a greater mastery of physiology than, say, Steve Pugh. Anatomical features are distinctive and thoughtfully chosen, rather than randomly cobbled together, making for a much more horrific, believable set of monsters.
Conclusion: A little more integrity than its sister issue, but not much more so, and a lot of it has to do with Paquette’s gorgeous—stylistically, not substantively—art.
Grade: B
– Minhquan Nguyen
Some Musings: – I imagine prior to her eco-terrorist days, Poison Ivy was a rather anal-retentive coworker in the office.
– I also really like her new look; very much in keeping with her traditional appearance, but with a warrior’s spin. I never got all that fond of her new costume on Birds of Prey.
Grade
Conclusion