Closer to the truth, but not without opposition.
Creative Staff:
Story: Matt Kindt
Art: David Rubin
What They Say:
Coming off the heels of a mummy packed cliffhanger, Boone Dias and co. battle their way through an enormous Copper Golem. With the last portal nearly in their grasp, the team has to get past a reality-warping goblin who is more than he seems!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The further I get into this series the more I’m curious about the first one and am left hopeful there’s more after this one. Matt Kindt is a writer who I can be hot and cold with depending on the work but this one is clicking for me with its weirdness and design of how the world is crafted here. I’m also a huge fan of David Rubin who I haven’t had a cold experience with and has left me just mesmerized by this series with its designs and color work that’s just so striking and well put together that you can spend a lot of time digging into it. There are so many little areas to soak up and such a great use of color throughout that it can be both haunting and silly – sometimes at the same time.
The opening half of this book is fun with the giant golem that they’re dealing with as Gandor is deep in the heart of it trying to stop it. That has Boone, previously thrown a different way, doing his best to navigate the interior of its body to get back to everyone as it’s all taking too long. It’s a little fuzzy here but seeing him arrive, panic about things, This has Boone coming up with some ways to help accelerate things since Gandor’s “magic” from his point of view isn’t going to cut it this time. It goes crazily big for a moment and really hits some fun visuals with the little blob creatures and the potential of what it reveals afterward with who may be behind all of this. While eliminating the portals is key there’s also the simple fact that it’s clearly being orchestrated.
When it shifts to the next and final portal, going into the forest of the fairies and all, there are some nice moments early on with the dialogue between the characters and noting just how dark and unlike other regions this place has become, giving it an edge. Where it goes strange is when they find a man standing in their path, claiming to be a storyteller, and intent on capturing them by entrancing them with a tale that only they see as a kind of weird version of themselves. It’s here that Rubin again gets to showcase his incredible talents as three of the members get old-time comic paper looking pages in cartoonish form with all kinds of neat nods to other properties in order to show a different kind of potential for them. They’re not surprising in how they view themselves in this way but Glum is the one that really hit a sweet spot for me in how it was presented.
In Summary:
Ether sets a bit more in front of us with the bigger players in all of this as Boone doesn’t just want to treat the symptoms but rather get to the root of the problem. That’s not really the focus of the rest that have been brought into this so they’re not paying it much attention. We get some good fun with the first portal here and then it gets a lot more dangerous in the back half with some really beautiful pages that present a certain kind of nostalgia in all the right ways. The combined talents on this book are pretty great in general but what they seem to bring out of each other makes this a kind of surreal joy to read as it’s unexpected even while familiar and delights no matter the page and what it’s doing.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 17+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: August 15th, 2018
MSRP: $3.99
