A lot of Faith, the comic, not the character, comes down to her boyfriend, Torque. Being majorly behind on Harbinger, I had no idea they were dating. I never liked the character and they seem like a questionable fit, which is what the comic turns out to be–Faith realizing her place in the world.
Writer Joshua Dysart takes it seriously too. He puts enough work in so the dumb boyfriend moments like Torque feel like natural dumb boyfriend moments and not artificial ones engineered to move the plot along. They do look like those types of moments, but they aren’t. Dysart keeps the comic sincere.
Artist Robert Gill does a good job too. He doesn’t have a lot of action to do, but he handles it well when it does come up.
Dysart uses a Twitter device. It’s distracting… if only because I couldn’t stop thinking about character count.
CREDITS
Writer, Joshua Dysart; artist, Robert Gill; colorist, Jose Villarrubia; letterer, Dave Sharpe; editor, Kyle Andrukiewicz; publisher, Valiant Entertainment.
Dysart has an interesting solution for returning the title to its characters. He manages to do it rather cleanly too, extricating it from the Harbinger Wars crossover. Dysart also wrote that crossover and, while this issue isn’t exactly hostile to being a crossover issue, it definitely returns the focus to what the series is about.
Dysart brings Harbinger Wars into the station and it’s entirely unclear why they bothered with the trip at all. Besides–apparently–cutting down on cast members, the crossover event did very little. Dysart doesn’t even seem to pretend it did anything. He leaves a lot unresolved so readers have to keep going with the main series (the point of a crossover book after all); it means there’s nothing to do the story itself. Dysart can’t fake it and make Wars seem worth it.
Why is Dysart even doing this issue? It reads like a summary of an action scene, which suggests he or Swierczynski will cover the actual action in either Harbinger Wars or Bloodshot. Probably both, actually, given what doesn’t occur in this comic.
Why am I reading this comic book? I mean, Dysart does script a good issue. It’s a little light, he’s split between way too many things and the issue isn’t oversized, but why am I reading it? It’s not escapism. It’s painfully realistic superhero comics. Introduce this likable character to kill them–seeing terribly abused kids murdered by paramilitary, blood hungry goons–fun times.
Could this issue have uglier art? Maybe Evans and Hairsine split responsibilities? One was responsible for the heads, one for the bodies and poor Stefano Gaudiano got saddled with the task of trying to make everything seem seamless?
I love how Dysart makes sly jabs at the Valiant Universe (or whatever they call it), pointing out how bad ideas are from the nineties. It’s a weird thing, which doesn’t break the story–possibly because he’s already got the debriefing framing and it allows for a lot of colorful commentary.
Dysart sort of splits the issue between the kids and Harada. I say kids but I guess they’re all eighteen plus, right? Peter and the gang. Only the Harada stuff is mostly set in the past, with Dysart fleshing out the P.R.S. history with him.
I’m not sure what I should be getting out of Harbinger Wars. Dysart thinks things out–he structures the issue around some government types interrogating some bad corporation types. Some psiot kids got free or something, kind of has to do with Harbinger–oh, right, the good guys from Harbinger need to protect the kids from the bad guy. Bloodshot is in it too, working for the bad guy right now but I’ll bet he switches sides eventually.
Now here’s a great issue. Dysart manages to turn the all-action issue into something with some content, probably because he’s got enough characters doing different things it can be a rewarding reading experience.