Busiek’s kind of showing his hand with Autumnlands this issue. Not the plot as, though some of it, but more just how the comic’s going to be, how it’s going to read. It’s magic talk around a bunch of anthropomorphic steampunks. Maybe I’m just sick of Busiek not knowing what to do with the narrator. When he just narrates, it’s really annoying.
The issue’s story is a lot of political maneuvering and double-crossing and so on. It’s competently done, but never interesting or original. There’s a lot with the champion, usually through the narrator’s eyes, with these little asides letting the knowing reader in. If you don’t want a narrator, don’t use one. Don’t undermine him, not unless you want the reader not to like him, which is a perfectly reasonable (if unlikely) possibility.
Dewey’s art seems a little hurried and he’s still no better at drawing the human.
CREDITS
Writer, Kurt Busiek; artist, Benjamin Dewey; colorist, Jordie Bellaire; letterers, John Roshell and Albert Deschesne; publisher, Image Comics.
Parker does a great job with the Arboria adventure–with Dale getting to hang out with some Hawkmen and then rescue Flash and Zarkov on her own. There’s a lot of personality for the Arborians–well, the people with the wings, less so for the sirens who don’t have wings. Parker keeps it relatively simple; maybe too much so, but it’s Flash Gordon and it works with simplicity.
So Planet of Peril turns out to be a sequel to the Terra Obscura series Hogan’s done. Those are great so I have high hopes for this one. And so far, Hogan doesn’t disappoint.