With friends like these…
Creative Staff:
Story: Chuck Dixon
Art: Larry Stroman
What They Say:
Detailed with providing humanitarian (and all other species!) support to refugees fleeing a civil war on the planet Harkilon, Force Nomad is hoping for a push-over peacekeeping milk. Instead, smugglers are using the refugees as cover and it only takes one itchy trigger finger to turn a diplomatic mission into a SNAFU of galactic proportions!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The first installment of Alien Legion: Uncivil War was a tough nut to crack even for an experienced fan of the property, mostly because it had been so long since new material had come out. While it was relatively easy overall to get into the groove of it, even if you maybe had only a passing remembrance of the characters, the fun was just watching the diversity of creatures going at it, the fast paced nature of the action and dealing with a story that has a whole lot of moving parts going through it. For better or worse, the second issue has a feeling much like the first as things expand more with the incursion and issues dealt with, leaving it to be more action than full on story beats to sink your teeth into. But admittedly, sometimes you just want to watch Force Nomad do what they do best.
With some maneuvers being handled in space with what’s going on with the various crafts, convoys and the whole protecting of Union space, the bulk of the book takes place inside the main ship where we saw events go down in a bad way the last time around. With two different aspects of Harkilons now inside with the more primal mainline race and the seemingly more evolved Sylvan Order types, it’s become a mad dash to try and ensure they don’t get further into trouble with the Harkilons as they overrun the ship. With so many aspects to deal with, it’s good to see forceful and competent leadership here as Sergeant Pile sets the teams to doing what needs doing, with a team going off to secure the command side and others trying to track down the Harkilons who are moving into some unwelcome positions. Of course, Pike also has to deal with Jugger Grimrob, who is his own special kind of trouble with what he causes and the two of them are essentially constant opponents even on the same side.
The book is largely filled with a whole lot of chaotic action as one would expect considering the events taking place. Putting some of the story beats to the way Pike and Grimrob interact with each other, and are forced apart for awhile, does make for some good tension that underlies a deeper history there. Throwing in the whole Harkilon aspect itself with all the primal ones going at it and some of the Sylvan ones helping out only adds to all of the insanity going on, which Stroman really does a fantastic job of capturing. It’s not gory or brutal in that regard, but the evidence of what kind of fighting goes on in a ship like this is made clear with the casualties and damage. The varied story that’s told with Jugger and Pike is definitely what drives it, and attempts to engage you more with the story as they’re the most personalized of the bunch, but it still feels superficial. What it does do is keep things moving though.
In Summary:
While I’m still not invested heavily in the story of the Harkilons, especially as what we learned in the first issue is put to the side here to focus on the action, I’m enjoying the overall nature of the book with what it’s doing and how it’s trying to tell a solid action story within an enviroment we don’t see often. It’s filled with an array of characters that are going through the grunt level aspect of the fight, being what Force Nomad is, and we do get a little taste of some of the high level politics and operation aspects as well, but for the most part it’s just a mad dash of action and chaos. Dixon’s script keeps it moving but you don’t really connect with the characters, which is unfortunate since it doesn’t have enough of a foundation here. Stroman’s art definitely makes for a visual delight across the board as he handles such a wide array of characters and locales. Hopefully things come together tight in the next two issues.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Titan Comics
Release Date: July 23rd, 2014
MSRP: $2.99