All paths lead home.
Creative Staff:
Story: Corinna Bechko
Art: Roberto Castro
What They Say:
With the scope of the plot behind Jane’s kidnapping laid bare, Tarzan and Sheena are faced with something even more sinister: the possibility that no timeline is safe from the depredations of an apocalyptic cult! But with few resources and even fewer friends, can they wrest their fates and the future of their homes from the hands of Laine and her power mad cronies?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
As we hit the penultimate installment of this miniseries, Lords of the Jungle shifts gears for the most part to a whole lot of exposition and character interaction material. Which is certainly welcome as these are fun characters to engage with, but it does slow events down a lot. Corinna Bechko has a lot of things to cover here with how the leads view the world and some of the backstory we get and thankfully Roberto Castro is up to the task of bringing it all to life. Once again, it must be said, Castro does some great work with illustrating the animals here as that’s an area that can be really hard to bring to life in a way that doesn’t come across as poor or cartoonish. He’s been the perfect artist on this whether it’s chimps or elephants and that simply takes a lot of talent and practice.
Wit this stage of events it’s all about getting back to where the portal is and setting things right. For Laine, she’s simply thrilled to be getting out of London through Heathrow, though she’s set up a range of things to happen through Worland, who can’t figure out what it is she’s trying to do since it comes across as so weird to him in this time period. The level of threat she presents through looks and words is strong, however, and that sells her as someone to be feared by someone like Worland. This also plays into the book later when we see some of the local tribes that she pressed into service through fear and intimidation to go against Tarzan and the others, though they’re not quite as fearful now that they’ve seen more. Laine hasn’t been the most compelling of villains as her arc has been more circumspect, but small moments like these work well to sell why she’s been able to accomplish what she has.
For Tarzan and Sheena, they’re intent on getting back to deal with the portal once the importance of it takes shape, but they’re also orchestrating things with a reluctant Luck in order to bring the elephant back home before the local police kill it after the recent accident. There’s some good tension between all three characters, particularly as Luck really is just problematic in many ways, and seeing how easily Tarzan is to anger toward him makes for some amusement. A lot of the book is the ship based journey and the wariness from Tarzan over the crew and this provides for some good exposition and catch-up between him and Sheena. At least until it turns to the attack on the ship by another and all around chaos. It’s well played visually as the action is strong and the dynamics of our leads as they act is great, but the story itself just felt like it was too drawn out after so much exposition and with so much dialogue amid the action as well. It all serves to get everyone on the same page for the finale, however, so it does what it needs to.
In Summary:
Lords of the Jungle works through what it needs to here in getting things cleared out and setting up for what’s to come while tightening up some of the plot points, notably with Laine. It’s a solid enough issue that felt a lot more dense and verbose than past installments which kind of slowed the flow for me a bit when it feels like it should be more of a brisk book when it comes to reading it. The book definitely continues to look great and is worth second and third readings just to go over the finer details of Castro’s artwork and designs as there are some neat touches to be had with the shading and line work in faces. And just to enjoy the artwork of the animals itself as that continues to be top notch. The series concludes in the next installment and I’m expecting a whole lot of crazy but fun chaos.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: July 20th, 2016
MSRP: $3.99
