The larger plot reveals itself – as does Faith!
Creative Staff:
Story: Jody Houser
Art: Francis Portela with Marguerite Sauvage on fantasy sequence artwork
Colors: Andrew Dalhouse
What They Say:
Just as she uncovers a conspiracy in the Hollywood Hills that threatens the lives of her fellow psiots and new friends alike, Faith must also deal with the return of her ex-boyfriend and one-time teammate Torque…and a volatile new alien threat that nobody saw coming!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The first half of the Faith miniseries did some fun things overall for me, though the second installment had to work through familiar structural stuff that wasn’t exactly the most engaging thing in the world. With the third issue I find myself back to how I felt at the beginning of it all in that there’s a good sense of fun and scale here while also playing to the kind of “hip” style that it wants to achieve. Adding in a fun couple of surreal pages of fantasy material with a SF TV show as illustrated by Marguerite Sauvage is just the icing on the cake. Though it doesn’t truly make an impact on the story itself, what it does is give us something fun and almost a little wacky to enjoy, which is a nice break in the storyline itself.
The first half of the book deals with the men in black that have shown up at Zipline to grab Faith, which of course puts her in a difficult position since she is trying to maintain that whole secret identity thing. Thankfully, she doesn’t try to pull any fancy moves and just gives up on it in order to protect the few people still at the office. The sequence overall is good in terms of dealing with the bad guys as it reinforces that those in charge are seeing them as expendable, but I really found myself enjoying the fallout at the office more as her boss and two co-workers now know the truth and are giving her the secret she needs – though she’s working for it a bit. There are some decent ideas worked around a bit here in regards to journalism and ethics – and content writers – that tie into secret identities and the public’s right to know, but it’s kind of tamped down as it progresses in order to find a new stability for Faith.
The back half after the dream sequence aspect takes us to the next level of the story as we get the deal on the group going after Faith and other Psiots. This “director” that’s orchestrating things has a classic old school kind of cult thing going on and we see the kind of simple fanaticism that’s supporting it with the members. The twist, however, is that Faith discovers that the group is actually made up of aliens that are pretty ticked about some of their kind being killed by humanity and they see Psiots as a way to enact some revenge. It’s not exactly convoluted, but being a minimal reader of Valiant books in general, or at least the area Faith and her friends are involved in, it felt like it came out of left field just a little bit when you were expecting a corporate/cult kind of approach. Suffice to say, Faith’s disbelief mixed with discovering a TV star she idolizes is an alien as well hits a certain sweet spot.
In Summary:
One thing that really got me with this issue, and perhaps it just felt a bit more noticeable this time around, is how strong the artwork from Francis Portela and Andrew Dalhouse is. It really reminds me of the early 90’s Valiant house style in a big way and I have a real fondness for it because it’s not like everything else on the racks when it comes to superhero stuff. But that’s Faith in a nutshell in general; while the core pieces are there from the standards of the genre, it’s self aware enough to avoid some aspects of it, play with others a bit more, and embrace it in the right way. Houser hits a lot of things in this issue – almost too much to be honest – but it makes for a good and dense read that makes the whole book compelling and engaging from start to finish. Definitely looking forward to seeing where it turns next and how it’ll all resolve by the end.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Valiant Entertainment
Release Date: March 30th, 2016
MSRP: $3.99
