Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers 3 (October 2014)

Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers #3 Even though Casey is incredibly derivative–the Close Encounters nod is simultaneously cute and too much–Captain Victory continues to be a nice diversion. It’s not exactly a fun read, just because Casey doesn’t let his cast enjoy anything. There is some banter with the scientists on Earth who are looking at one of the spacecraft, but it’s over in a page.

Otherwise, the comic is very serious. And having Jim Mahfood do the adventures of a cat-man on a slightly hostile planet without any humor is too much. The comic has some great art–Fox some outstanding work–but Captain Victory isn’t actually ambitious sci-fi. It pretends to be ambitious sci-fi; Casey’s script is very traditional stuff. Even the artists’ page layouts are very traditional (even when trying to appear otherwise).

It’s an acceptable, enjoyable comic. But the artists deserve a balls to the wall script.

CREDITS

Writer, Joe Casey; artists, Nathan Fox, Jim Mahfood and Farel Darlyrmple; colorist, Brad Simpson; letterer, Simon Bowland; editors, Molly Mahan, Hannah Elder and Joseph Rybandt; publisher, Dynamite Entertainment.

Prophet 45 (July 2014)

Prophet #45 I can’t believe it… Prophet ends with a weak setup for the subsequent sequel series. I never would have guessed it, not even as the issue progressed and old John and new John started on their collision course.

They don’t exactly collide, they team up, which is kind of worse, because Graham and Roy are now playing towards a imagined reader expectation. I say imagined because I don’t think any reader wanted them to flush all their creativity and ingenuity in plotting for something predictable. At this point, I don’t think I’d be surprised if the lizard girl ends up with the android.

The pacing is all off on the issue, both narrative and visual. After a minuscule nod towards how they used to identify objects with footnotes, the action beings racing, then slowing to a full page spread, then racing towards the next.

For Prophet, it’s a stunning flop.

C+

CREDITS

Writers, Brandon Graham and Simon Roy; artists, Farel Dalrymple, Giannis Milonogiannis and Roy; colorists, Joseph Bergin III and Sandra Lanz; letterer, Ed Brisson; publisher, Image Comics.

Prophet 29 (September 2012)

Farel Dalrymple does the art this issue. It’s a younger Prophet issue, involving his adventures on a prison ship. Or the prison part of a ship. It’s a very big ship. Dalrymple finds all sorts of stuff to draw. It looks, no surprise, amazing.

I just noticed most Prophet issues are these stopovers. Graham has Prophet–both or all of them–on journeys and issues tend to be about a stop. Here, young Prophet is able to get out of control of the Earth mother he’s escorting. It’s a side effect of the main story, but it provides a big change. Only Graham created both sides of that change this issue.

His writing is never disjointed or episodic. Every Prophet issue reads like it’s the only one. It’s a very interesting approach.

Andy Ristiano’s backup is derivative but okay. His art style nicely contrasts the serious nature of the story.

CREDITS

Prophet; writers, Brandon Graham and Farel Dalrymple; artist, Dalrymple; colorist, Joseph Bergin III; letterer, Ed Brisson. Game Over; writer, artist, colorist and letterer, Andy Ristaino. Editor, Eric Stephenson; publisher, Image Comics.

Prophet 24 (April 2012)

Prophet #24
Prophet by Farel Dalrymple. Sure, Graham comes up with a great new approach to the issue, but it’s Farel Dalrymple doing some kind of even wackier sci-fi than normal Prophet. It’s indescribably wonderful.

The story is a bit of an odyssey. A new John Prophet–with a tail–wakes up on a toxic giant spacecraft and has to get somewhere. Graham has some red herrings–at least for this issue–and slips in a huge subplot almost unnoticed.

I suppose it’s technically derivative of 2001 and Moon but it’s so good it doesn’t matter.

Graham gets to the finish and ends it with more questions, though he never even tries to answer the ones he left open from the last issue. Either it’s building towards something or it’s not. The journey’s good enough on its own.

And that Dalrymple art. Just wonderful.

Sadly, the Shock Post backup is lame.

B+

CREDITS

Prophet; writers, Brandon Graham and Farel Dalrymple; artist, Dalrymple; colorist, Joseph Bergin III; letterer, Ed Brisson. Shock Post; writers, artists, colorists and letterers, Matt Sheean and Malachi Ward. Editor, Eric Stephenson; publisher, Image Comics.