The foundation of a proper relaunch?
Creative Staff:
Story: Phil Hester
Art: Brent Peeples
Colors: Morgan Hickman
Letters: Simon Bowland
What They Say:
With their universe being torn apart, Turok, Magnus, Samson, and Solar are lured by Dr. Spektor into a strange dimension where only the ultimate sacrifice will be enough to preserve reality. Do not miss the soul-searing climax to this critically acclaimed series!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The Gold Key Alliance series has certainly been a bit of an odd duck, albeit a very appealing odd duck. While I only relatively recently got into what Dynamite has been doing with the Gold Key properties that they have, my knowledge is largely from the old Valiant days in the 90’s where these characters made a huge impact on me after having fleeting knowledge of some from the original runs. With this book, Hester and Peeples have worked to recpature some of that magic by giving us new takes on the characters spread across the world in very different situations and settings but still tied to some of their core ideas. Each exploration of the characters were intriguing and could easily merit their own run but were still compelling in the slices we got – even Samson.
What this final chapter wants to do is essentially work as a relaunch of the franchise as a whole – which I’m fully in favor of, though I think it needs a serious guiding hand overall editor to keep it in shape with some strong writers. Spektor has brought in a whole range of characters from an incredible range of parallel worlds that has led us see some interesting iterations of them, which is pretty damn interesting all things considered. Having them show up in this place and then having to deal with a stampede of dinosaurs isn’t exactly the action aspect of a finale you expect, but it works well to highlight the characters strengths and how well they work together while also allowing some of the big picture elements to play out in establishing how this is all being wrapped up.
That mostly comes from the Solar that we know talking with the seemingly origin point Solar about how everything went so wrong, combined with Spektor talking about how the event spiraled out of control and Solar created a seemingly infinite number of worlds. The desire to bring it all back to the singular is important in providing stability, but there are some neat dark moments there – notably in how Spektor is the only one of his type there. I really liked the conversations the Solar’s have and Spektor’s time is spot on creepy with his self-assuredness in what he’s doing. Mostly, everyone is along for the ride of support as the Solar of this series brings everything back to its zero point. And that, thank Hester, puts a lot of these characters in what feels like the right settings and places, such as Magnus in 4,000 North Am with Leeja, Turok back in 1936 and Solar back in 1962 where everything is averted.
In Summary:
At the end of this book I’m hopeful for more series to launch out of it, especially a Magnus book in classic 60’s/70’s designs because I find that hugely appealing. But all of the characters are appealing here and have so much potential to be tapped even after multiple fits and starts. Hester did a great job on this series in presenting something tight and controlled yet still sprawling and epic while Peeples just kills it issue after issue with the designs and variety – especially in these epilogue pages! I’m simply left wanting more of all of it at this point and I really don’t know where I want to start with getting all of it. Very good stuff that should appeal to both new and old Gold Key fans alike.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: August 17th, 2016
MSRP: $3.99
