To my surprise Tom King and Greg Smallwood stuck the landing on V2 of their HUMAN TARGET 12-issue series. Chris Chance is dying, he and Ice have figured out how did it but can they settle the score and resolve their feelings before time runs out? Although it draws on a Justice League era I’ve never been fond of, it still works.
MECH CADET YU Vol 1 by Greg Pak, Triona Farrell and Takeshi Miyazawa is a cheerful anime-mecha style series that doesn’t reinvent the wheel but makes the wheel work well. Only elite space-force cadets are supposed to bond with the mysterious mecha arriving on Earth, which makes protagonist Stanford, the academy cleaning-lady’s son, an outcast when he bonds. But of course, when the aliens arrive, he and a few other misfits are our world’s last hope … Thumbs up.
ATHENA VOLTAIRE AND THE SORCERER POPE by Steve Bryant and Ismael Canales doesn’t reinvent the wheel either but the story of the eponymous relic hunter helping two British agents recover an occult McGuffin was much less engaging — I’ve seen this kind of adventure too often and it doesn’t have the energy of an Indiana Jones film or a good movie serial.
GODSHAPER by Simon Spurrier and Jonas Goonface, is more imaginative. In the 1950s, technology dies and everyone gets a small personal patron deity. Ennay is one of the exceptions, possessing no god but having the power to reshape the powers and forms of other deities. This is, of course, of interest to the wrong sort of people … Intriguing but the ending really rushes to make everything work out well.
HEART HUNTER by Mickey George and V. Gagnon is set in a realm where everyone lives forever unless they meet their soulmate; while some welcome the chance to die, others hire heart hunters to kill their soulmate and ensure immortality. Psyche, a heart hunter, accepts a hit from the ruler but of course discovers this particular job is more complicated than it looks. Good but I completely lost the plot threads midway through. However Gagnon’s Kay Nielsen-inspired art is a pleasure to see.
Jessica Abel’s TRISH TRASH: Roller Girl of Mars didn’t work for me at all: the story of a blue-collar worker trying to bust out of her drab life by entering the roller derby doesn’t gain anything but being set on near-future Mars.
PRISM STALKER Vol. 1 by Sloane Leong is one that’s more interesting than enjoyable. Vep is one of the a group of alien exiles taken in by other aliens. The price is serving as the front-line force colonizing an alien planet; Vep’s conflicted about doing so but refusing will have bad consequences. One where I might read V2 but I won’t make an effort.
Like Mech Cadet Yu, EVERYDAY HERO MACHINE BOY by Irma Kniivila and Tri Vuong is geared for a juvenile audience but it worked for me anyway. In what I presume is a deliberate Superman riff, the protagonist crashes to Earth, killing an old man but the man’s wife, realizing machine boy is innocent, raises him alone. When he goes off to school he makes a friend, unleashes a giant mecha and discovers worse things waiting in the wings. I was in the mood for something warm and affectionate and this did the trick.
#SFWApro. Art by Dick Giordano (t) and Gagnon, all rights to images remain with current holders.
