Barrier #5 finally translates Oscar’s dialogue. He and Liddy are both plugged into the aliens’ heads and, after Liddy’s flashback–revealing what had happened to her husband, though without dialogue–the aliens talk for a bit in Spanish then it’s Oscar’s flashback. With English dialogue. Given how important not translating Oscar’s dialogue has been the entire series,…

They get to talk again. The aliens dump them in a different area of the ship where there are other aliens and those aliens are mean. Barrier doesn’t refer to language barrier, does it? The issue delves into Oscar’s back story, undoubtedly much more if you can read Spanish, but there’s still some discernible information…

The aliens speaking makes human ears bleed to the point of deafness. Blows the ear drums? So now Liddy and Oscar can’t talk to each other. They just have to communicate with body language and expression. Or Liddy just takes Oscar’s stuff because… she can? There’s some “character development” like the revelation Liddy’s husband was…

So pretty much everything I liked in Barrier #1 is gone in Barrier #2. The issue opens at NORAD, with a couple officers talking in acronyms about how they’re not going to report a UFO even though they saw a UFO. Close Encounters it ain’t. Independence Day it ain’t even. Vaughan thinks the acronym-heavy banter…

As a visual piece, Barrier #1 is all kinds of awesome. Marcos Martin’s pacing is sublime; the comic is “widescreen”–or landscape–with Martin sometimes using the whole page, sometimes filling it with as many panels as possible, sometimes splitting a single “shot” into panels. The visual reading experience is sublime. The script? Eh. Barrier is from…