The journey takes some dark turns and an intriguing new encounter.
Creative Staff:
Story: Amy Chu
Art: Pasquale Qualano
Colors: Valentina Pinto
Letterer: Thomas Napolitano
What They Say:
Dejah Thoris, obsessed with finding the legendary Gardens of Mars, recruits her own expedition team of scientists. But once outside the palace walls, things don’t go as planned, and the Princess learns the hard way just how dangerous Barsoom really is.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Dejah’s journey is a fairly standard one for a character like this in seeing how the young royal, a prince or princess, learns more of the real lessons of the land. Amy Chu has gone with a background for her (that may be based in the novels, I’ve never read) where her father has had her educated in some ways but not put her into the world at large to really understand it and the dangers. That makes it new to her and is chipping away at some of her confidence while still having her play to the part. All of this gives Pasquale Qualano a lot of good stuff to work with as the journey takes us to a lot of different places as they try to find Ephysium.
The follow-up from last issue puts us right into the fight with the White Ape and Dejah’s hope of understanding them is pretty well dashed as it’s all action and violence, which isn’t a surprise. The loss of some of their party hits her hard as she never expected it and Sajad performs as you’d expect of the experienced old soldier type that has lasted through countless campaigns and actions. He’s got the gruff thing down and makes it clear to her that this is what leadership is in losing people along the way and doing your best to ensure it never happens. The group that remains, being either academic or sheltered in similar but different ways from Dejah, still can’t quite get why he’s always so on guard even with what happens at the start here. It’s an interesting if familiar dynamic simply because it’s all signs and portents of things to come.
As they do get closer on their journey, coming across the Black Mountains, it all takes a much darker turn for the worse with the sudden appearance of the plant men that overpower them and end up taking down, but not quite killing, Sajad. The thing that saves them are the greens that arrive in a royal ship, which makes it clear that it’s the one that Dejah saved earlier but she’s incapable of figuring out. His being a jeddak of a range of different types of greens is certainly interesting as is the reversal of fortune aspect of it. It takes a bit to get there, which is unfortunate because Dejah should be smart enough to figure it out, but I liked what we got in that minor journey part with her dealing with the greens that are all just following orders in saving them.
In Summary:
The series is working through a storyline that I like overall with the search for Ephysium and I really do like that it delves into the city of Thurd that the greens have taken over, providing nods to the Orovars that once dominated the world. But at the same time we’re going through a familiar hero’s journey structure that while not bad doesn’t feel like it’s really engaging as strongly as it should. Part of it is that I know I’m reading about a younger Dejah than the one I’ve been seeing the last few years but I also kind of expected a bit more out of her considering the world they live in, even with her father being as protective as he had. There’s lots to like here and I’m convinced that Sajad has a cope of Dune in his loincloth that he reads regularly.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: March 7th, 2018
MSRP: Free
