The Adventures of Substitute Ivar and Neela, Timewalker
Creative Staff:
Story: Fred Van Lente
Art: Pere Perez
Colors: Andrew Dalhouse
Letters: Dave Sharpe
What They Say:
As history falls apart around her, only one man can help Neela Sethi save Ivar’s life –and time itself, and that man is…Ivar! Wait…what?!
Can Neela teach a new Timewalker the ropes of time travel as time collapses? Or will the universe finally meet it’s doom? Find out as Harvey Award-nominated artist Pere Perez joins New York Times best-selling writer Fred Van Lente for “ENDING HISTORY”!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Ivar is dead, but thanks to the magic of time travel, there are a few spares lying around, and Neela Sethi has the tachyon compass and the will to go searching for one. Unfortunately, the one she finds is quite green and quite unmodern. This issue begins with a scene that Archer & Armstrong fans should recognize: the moment when Ivar activates the alien device that gave his brothers immortality. Neela snatches him just at the moment he turns the switch, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Except that it’s also the future, the past, and the present. The kicker is that it’s not just one future, past, and present, it’s potentially all of them. Clown Vikings ravage the English coast, Lacrosse becomes a national sport, and the great Saurian Empire wages war against the upstart mammals. Typically, this should not happen, but “some idiot (who shall remain nameless)” invented a method that allows for the breakdown of the barriers between alternate universes, and now Neela needs Ivar’s help.
The problem she runs into is that this Ivar is young and arrogant and more than a little sexist. He makes the old Ivar look like a font of humility, and it drives Neela insane. As always, the interaction between these two characters is what makes the book so entertaining, and now their roles are reversed. Neela—dressed in the cyber suit her future self wore in Oblivi-1 and wearing a lab coat—introduces herself as “Neela, Timewalker” and she proceeds to teach Ivar the ins and outs of their situation.
To his credit, Ivar picks up on it almost immediately, being a super duper genius, and the story makes it immediately clear how he will help Neela, but it sure won’t be easy for her. It’s so fun to see them feel each other out, especially Ivar, who is intelligent enough to understand that he has upset and possibly insulted Neela, but is too much a product of his own time and place to accurately figure out why and how he did it. The conclusions he comes to are priceless.
This issue begins a new storyline and serves as a great jumping-on point for new readers. It establishes Ivar and Neela, the universe they inhabit, and the central conflict very well, while at the same time continuing the story from the previous issues. Sometimes jumping-on issues only cater to new readers, but Van Lente does a great job of making this fun and accessible for old and new readers alike.
Along with a new story, this issue also features a new artist—Pere Perez. In terms of style, Perez is very similar to Francis Portela, and that makes this an almost seamless change. It helps that Andrew Dalhouse is still on colors, but if I didn’t read the credits, I probably would have thought that this was Portela. I’m curious if this was a deliberate choice on Perez’s part, to match Portela’s style, or if the two are just very similar artists. Either way, the art works and tells a gorgeous story.
In Summary:
Ivar, Timewalker 9 serves as a good jumping-on point for new readers. If you haven’t checked this comic out yet, do yourself a favor and pick up this issue. This series is one of most fun and inventive comics on the shelf right now and there’s no reason to miss out. Dr. Josh gives this an…
Grade: A
Age Rating: T+
Released By: Valiant Comics
Release Date: September 16th, 2015
MSRP: $3.99