It’s another too fast issue of Manifest Destiny. Or maybe it’s just how Dingess uses the cliffhanger. He’s actually doing character development, both in scene and through the journal narration device, but it doesn’t get to go anywhere because the last few pages are all setting up the cliffhanger.
Most of the issue has a calm about it, even when the fantastic happens–in this issue, a baby giant bird attacks the crew and gets imprisoned (and, of course, Mama comes looking)–Roberts and Dingess keep it calm. The calm also affects the cliffhanger; because the lead-in is so calm, the characters don’t seem engaged enough to get to the cliffhanger.
And Manifest Destiny is about its cliffhanger. Roberts gets a whole page for them, they’re the advertising to get the reader back, the promise of something great. So a useless cliffhanger hurts the book.
The rest is great.
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