The Saviors #2 – Review

James Robinson (Writer), J. Bone (Artist)

The Story: Escaping from certain death, Tomas wants to know what exactly is going on with those weird alien reptiles.

The Review: Trying new things can be hard. While many people generally hold in a positive light any attempts of others to try different genres, writers and artists, it’s not always the easiest of process to just go out and actually get invested in something entirely new. It’s always a matter of quality, of talent behind the creative team, yet there has to be a willingness for the readers to try it out in the first place.

Despite my first reactions and my fears, I rather enjoyed the first issue of James Robinson and J. Bone’s The Saviors, a series that tries to breathe new life into an old story of alien beings in our midst without our knowledge. Presenting us their protagonist and a general sense of danger in ways that felt right for the most part, it made me feel rather good at the prospect of continuing with the series in the first place. However, first issues aren’t everything as there needs to be a good continuation of the story to prove that the concepts has legs of its own. Does the second issue prove that this has the potential to be interesting in the long term?

In some ways, it’s a bit of a tough question to answer straight away. James Robinson, the mind behind this story, does provide enough information and development to make sure readers might be intrigued toward what might happen next and what everything might actually mean in the long term, yet he stumbles a bit along the way as he tells the rather simple story in this issue.

In the non-verbal parts, the pacing and the sense of danger is done very well, presenting the difference between the lizard people and an ordinary human in ways that leave no mystery as to if a normal being could outfight them. The way Tomas tries to run away makes for some nice action, as does the manner in which he and Nate evades their offensive. It’s fast-paced, there’s a good sense of danger and it sets up the threat the antagonists represents in a simple, but effective manner.

Where the comic lose a bit of its luster in straight in the middle, with a heavy amount of exposition, stopping the action straight to answer some of the questions that could be connected to the premise of this series in the first place. While Robinson does try to add some character tidbits in the dialogue-heavy interaction between Tomas and Nate, it stops the natural flow of the story in ways that feels a bit excessive. While it does help to let the readers know a bit more about the actual premise and potential direction of the tale, it makes the pacing very uneven in this story.
Still, one of the main draw of this series is still as potent as ever, with J. Bone being very competent here in terms of visuals. With a certain blocky approach to lines and traits, the artist works very well with angular lines and nuanced traits, which helps tremendously in a title without any colorization. There is a certain restraint in terms of lines on characters, limiting the details to what is essential, making the little amount of excess seems like a rich addition more than anything superfluous. The design of the beasts, the neat, yet fast-paced progression during the action scenes and the fluid storytelling during many of the more danger-filled moments is done wonderfully.

However, the artist is also a bit hampered down by the scene with a lot of dialogue, with the text balloons overshadowing a lot of his work. The poses are also a bit over-the-top as well during this scene, which hurts the scenes a little bit despite the obvious reasons behind their inclusion. It does add a bit of motion to the interaction between Nate and Tomas as it does enhance the sense of panic that Tomas is afflicted with, but it does a certain disservice to the scene in general. It certainly isn’t issue breaking, as the amount of details that J. Bone puts in the background and sceneries makes up for this in spade, yet it isn’t a perfect issue by any means even for the talented artist behind this issue.

The Conclusion: There is a bit of an uneven pacing as well as some rather tedious moments here and there, but the concepts behind this story, the mystery and the art in general makes this issue worth it despite some of its flaws.

Grade: B-

Hugo Robberts Larivière