The truth revealed.
Creative Staff:
Story: Marguerite Bennett, G. Willow Wilson
Art: Jorge Molina
What They Say:
With the fate of Arcadia hanging in the balance, a traitor in A-Force’s ranks is revealed! But why would she sell out her teammates?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
A-Force has been a fairly fun series overall, though it’s one that I think worked best in its opening installment with the brightness and hope of it all. As we’ve gone through the dissolution and deconstruction of the team with all the events going on within Arcadia it’s lost a good bit of that shine, and rightly so as there has been a traitor in the midst. Seeing how everyone reacts to that situation as it unfolded, mixing in the Thors and how they deal with things being out of sorts in the individual area, and then placing the structure that exists above with Doom as the ruler who must be obeyed made it all pretty interesting. But something about the second and third installments kept it from clicking as well as it could for me, particularly with our starchild character, Singularity, that’s more a mystery than anything else.
Events here deal with the traitor issue itself as the pieces have started to fall into place with it and a couple of less than subtle clues come thudding into everyone’s view. That the resident trickster in Loki would be behind everything isn’t exactly a surprise since out of nearly all of the main characters that have been introduced here, she’s the only one with a serious villain background to her in her original form. And her mythology. Now, Loki obviously has her reasons for doing this (power, mostly) and was willing to sacrifice friends along the way for it so she largely stays true to character. But it’s also well played here because she has bonded with this group for the time that it existed and was a member of it with real connections. But there’s also that sense that it was all just opportunity to be used as well, especially with what happened with America that allowed her to push She-Hulk out of power.
This in turn allows the book to just have fun with the action side of it as the group uses Singularity and her ability to get close to Loki and go after her. With Valkyrie and the others at her side at first, it works well to give her the upper hand with all of it until more of the truth comes out and betrayal leaves quite the stink. The sequences have some great dynamics to it and it’s really just fun to see these incarnations of the characters going at it, particularly for the really old school Dazzler outfit that takes me back to when I used to collect that first series on the newsstand. With this being the penultimate installment of this particular series, it all leads up to that big point where Loki takes it further than they expected and sets up for the real fight to come. It’s all proper in scale and tone and Molina continues to capture the look of this particular part of the world well, especially with it dealing with the blackness of night and the oppressive tone that it sets through his camera placement.
In Summary:
A-Force moves along well here in bringing parts of the story to conclusion and all we’re left with for the next round is a whole lot of holding the forces of evil at bay as long as they can. There’s plenty to like with it as several of the characters get to do a little speech material, such as Loki and Nico, and there’s some decent if brief moments for Singularity as well with all her child-like ways in this world. The concept overall is one that I like, and I really like the characters and setting, but the execution has boiled it all down to something simple and something that you expected simply because Loki is Loki, no matter what. The air of mystery early on gave it a little potential that it could be something else but as the pieces came into focus and then we’re bludgeoned with them here, it ends up with something that could be mostly telegraphed from the get go. Still, it’s a fun romp and I’m looking forward to seeing the end battle next time around. But it doesn’t make me want to jump on the ongoing when that hits later this year.
Grade: B-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Marvel Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: September 9th, 2015
MSRP: $3.99
