Wherein Spry learns that life isn’t quite like the game.
Creative Staff:
Story: Eric Heisserer
Art: Felipe Massafera
What They Say:
Eighteen-year-old Spry has just learned that he is a member of the hunted race of shape shifters known as Shapers—and that his newfound parents have been captured by the all-powerful Caliphate. Determined to rescue his parents, Spry discovers that the best bounty hunter in the galaxy owes his mom a favor . . .
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The opening installment of Shaper was one that I quite liked overall, but it took a couple of reads to really connect with what it was doing and to get into the narrative of it all. It had a lot it wanted to convey in a relatively short amount of time in order to get the journey underway, and that made for some slowdowns along the way while also just trying to get into the world design that’s underway. What it did was to play to a kind of classic space opera sense in terms of the adventure and youthful aspects and that made it a lot of fun to read multiple times in order to really draw it all together. The end result was a chaotic book that had me curious to see if it’s potential could be reached or whether it would just keep going at its current pace.
With the second installment, we do get things down to just two story arcs overall in play here and that helps to smooth things out a bit while also expanding it. The subplot is one that takes us to Spry’s father Orin as he’s been captured by Victus, who is intent on finding the shapers home world as the threat to all the Caliphate and himself comes from there. It’s done with a decent bit of classic villain menace on his part as a military type character, and he’s got Orin beaten down hard. But Orin doesn’t cave and the repetitive side about how shapers operate and that they know the bonds of family is stronger than anything else is reinforced well, through him, through another shaper we glimpse named Kaylen and the arrival of Spry’s mother as well as she’s been captured and brought to where Orin is. This is all secondary material, but we get a basic understanding of how all this works with the Caliphate and its power players.
The other storyline keeps us to Spry himself as he’s looking to put together what he needs to rescue his mother and take down Victus. It is all basic space opera, and there’s some twisted Star Wars echoes here as he goes to a bar to find Rand the Galaxian, a feared gunslinger of the galaxy. It instead turns into him being hunted by a bunch of others since they realize he’s a shaper and the bounty for those are high, but what we get out of it is an introduction to Rand himself. It’s through him and another from the cards that Spry realizes that the game that he’s loved has little to do with reality, but it’s fun in seeing Rand showing what he can do and just the kind of casual confidence he has. Spry’s family is what draws people in to help, since we learn that they’re well known among some and are owed for past deeds, but Spry is still pretty much along for the ride here. Which works well enough, though it has to change sooner rather than later as the situations changes.
In Summary:
The second installment of Shaper is a much easier and smoother read overall as it expands on what we know but doesn’t have to deal with throwing so much at us so quickly. Keeping it to two main story points helps, even as both move along at a breakneck pace in some ways, but it sticks to the old space opera feeling in how it unfolds. The writing is still solid and enjoyable, less convoluted here as it’s not trying to establish all that much that’s new, and the artwork has a great smoothness to it as we see the various locales and the kinds of aliens and other oddities out there. It’s definitely a fun book that hits some good marks, and continues to show the potential it has if it’s able to ge the time to stretch things out a bit and not rush forward quite so much.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: April 15th, 2015
MSRP: $3.99
