By: Jonathan Hickman (writer), Nick Pitarra (artist) & Rachelle Rosenberg (colors)
The Story: A temporal war in which both father and son are key players is fought at multiple points in time.
What’s Good: We get a lot of Hickman’s big concept stuff as this story takes place in several decidedly different times: We see the son (“Dom”), in what seems like the era in which the story is anchored, then we see the father marooned in the pre-European Central America hanging out with a bunch of Native Americans and finally we have a jump into a third (and unexpected timeline).
It is this third timeline where the magic in this issue happens. There is a startling reveal on the final page in this timeline, but that isn’t really the cool thing. What makes me interested for the next issue is that by playing a little bait-n-switch with the reader’s sense of the timeline, Hickman has really jiggled our expectations. In a lot of ways, it reminds me of the final reveal in Pax Romana where you think you know what year the final scene takes place in, but couldn’t be more wrong.
The fun for the rest of the series will be to how the puzzle pieces fit together. How did the father and son come to end up in their “current” positions? Can we ever truly nail down the whole story when a temporal war is keeping everything in flux? Surely that Central American diversion for the father will be important, especially with the Native American chief saying that they have no word for “war”. Hickman is a strong enough storyteller that he should bring this story home strongly.
What’s Not So Good: Note that this section is not called “what is bad”. That distinction is important because although the art really isn’t working for me, some of that if personal preference and not that it is objectively bad. I’ve seen a lot of commentators say that Pitarra’s art looks like Frank Quietly and I really don’t see that at all. I see Geoff Darrow, big time. Or if you wanted to compare Pitarra to another more contemporary artist it looks like Ryan Bodenheim. Neither of those artists generally float my boat that much and this art isn’t doing it either. For the most part the pages are visually similar and boring: lots of envelope shaped rectangular panels; I want some funny shaped panels, things breaking through panel borders, etc. I want ENERGY! There’s a lot of missing backgrounds or very lightly done backgrounds too. Backgrounds aren’t everything, but when a comic comes out the same week as something by Sean Murphy (American Vampire: Survival of the Fittest #3) it is going to pale in comparison. There’s also just not much vitality to these characters, even though the action is very clear, I want to see a little more bristling energy coming from comic characters. These guys look lumpy to me.
And then the final blow for me with the art is that I really don’t love the coloring. I think Rosenberg was probably in a difficult position, because if she had gone with flatter colors, they would have overpowered the lineart. But the result we get is the highly shaded and highlighted art that I don’t ever care for. I just don’t believe that everything needs a highlight. If you doubt me, look around the room you are sitting in: How many highlights do you see on the objects in the room? My shirt looks the same color on top of my pecs as it does underneath. It’s a shame because colorists DO spend a lot of time chasing this effect, but it never adds anything to the work
Conclusion: I was really looking forward to this series and am a little disappointed so far. Based on Hickman’s track record of having written some incredible stories, I still have faith, but if an unknown writer had created these first two issues I would drop the series. And the art is holding things back due to my personal preferences, but if you are a huge Darrow of Bodenheim fan you might really dig it and thereby enjoy the entire series more than I am.
Grade: C-
– Dean Stell
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