Everything is easier if you can be a dragon.
Creative Staff:
Story: Eric Heisserer
Art: Felipe Massafera
What They Say:
Captured by Tor Ajax, Spry and his mother will have to draw upon every ounce of their ancestral powers to escape their prison. Meanwhile, the Caliph has finally located the Shaper home world and plans to destroy it—and the prophecy of his death—once and for all!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Shaper has taken some time to take its shape, which isn’t a surprise considering the variety of things it wanted to throw at the reader and the general scale of it all. It took a few issues for me to feel like I was in the right rhythm of the book, but once you connect to that space opera side and run with it, letting some of the details drop to the side, it can be a whole lot of fun with its mix of what it wants to do. The series took an upwards turn in the third issue to be sure in getting events moving and clearing up what’s at stake, while also revealing some of the past about why Victus is so intent on taking out the Shapers after who knows how long of generally relative quiet while living alongside them.
This installment has some familiar Star Wars echos to be sure as it progresses along its two main paths that are currently running. In the forefront, we get to see Spry, having now been captured by Ajax, tossed into a cell across from his mother, Niva. The two do get a little time to converse about things after he wakes up from a dream/vision/conversation with his dead father about what he must do, but mostly it’s a bit about their powers and abilities. While Spry’s learning his shape changing thing, we see that his time outside of school for the last few years pays off with him learning a few technological tricks that gets him out of his bonds. But we also see through Niva just what a Shaper can do, and some of the potential dangers, as she shows how she escapes her bonds as well as taking out some of the enemy later on. The other big echo of course is seeing the destruction of Solace beginning while they escape, with a whole lot of lives at stake.
The other main piece playing out is with Rand and his group that Spry had hooked up with. They’re intent on paying back Ajax for what he did to them, so there’s some repair time going on and an affirmation of what must be done that clicks well for the group, with both Kaylen and Adagia completely on board. While they’ve worked well together, this pushes them in a strong way forward with a bond that will make for some good moments. While that doesn’t get to happen here yet, we get the start of what feels like a fight that should have a lot more importance if we knew the characters longer or in more depth as Rand is going up against Ajax again once they dock with the main Caliph ship. It’s something that feels right though with the history that exists and has been teased about a bit, but it’s very early in the series run for it to have a proper weight for the reader.
In Summary:
Shaper’s coming into focus in a pretty decent way here as it plays to some familiar space opera themes and designs. While that may draw out memories of some fairly popular other instances, it works well enough here to tell the the tale with the trappings that have been applied to it. The book is another one that I think will play better when read in a group of issues rather than monthly, but it hits some very good marks along the way here so that each month you get something that’s interesting and engaging while moving the work as a whole forward. I’m starting to like the characters more now as they interact with each other and getting into the vibe of the book as well. It’s one that took a few issues to really connect with but it now has a good, light kind of fun about it that has me wanting to see where it can go.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: June 17th, 2015
MSRP: $3.99
