Creative Staff:
Story: Ray Fawkes, Kyle Higgins,
Art: Johnny Desjardins, Jorge Fornes,
Colors: Mohan, Chris O’Halloran
Letterer: Taylor Esposito
What They Say:
The epic that will redefine the Gold Key heroes continues! The year is 2025, Turok has gone missing and Magnus is good and worried about that. When even a time traveling mission to confer with Doctor Spektor and the creature once known as Solar don’t yield any answers, Magnus must brave the unknown to track the missing hero down. Plus: An all-new Magnus backup by Kyle Higgins and Jorge Fornes that sets the stage for next month’s big announcement!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With a very affordable or free zero issue the last time around, The Sovereigns set up a lot of material without providing too much in the way of answers. Which is fine as I expected it to be a tease with the variety of writers involved and what it wanted to accomplish in trying to set up a new small shared universe of titles. With this issue, the focus is a bit smaller overall as it pushes events forward while having a clearer single voice with Ray Fawkes writing it and Johnny Desjardins handling the art chores for most of it. The book also comes with a brief backup story that puts things in motion for the new Magnus series that kicks off next month.
The central focus on Magnus here is a good one as it provides our view of the world in 2020 with him dealing with so many things as the one in charge of much of the world it seems. What draws him away from the dull and ordinary duties is some footage that’s come from the Lost Valley that shows the death of Turok. That’s a big moment to be sure and something that he has to confer with the others on, namely Spektor and Solar. His time with Spektor is one that makes clear some of the gimmicks and tricks of the day with how he doesn’t believe Turok is dead as he would have felt it otherwise. It becomes clear quickly that the Lost Valley is a place out of time and that opens up a whole host of other questions for down the line. I really liked the dynamic between Magnus and Spektor here as it paints a problematic relationship born over the years that will have to be dealt with.
Magnus also hits up Solar in her orbital base to try and see what she knows, though this is where she basically spells it out for him what the Lost Valley really is. I quite enjoyed the previous Solar series we had so seeing the character in this form is intriguing, especially the lettering job, and the changes that she’s brought to the world. All of this is working to get Magnus on the same page as to how the Lost Valley operates, and it does, but it sets off its own panic about what it is that’s stalking out there in it. Combining that with some time there in seeing what’s going on with Samson in the Lost Valley and the sense of a great and dark evil coming is made clear. While I would have preferred a little more world building in what things are like in 2020, just exploring more of what this Magnus is like works well and placing him as the central focus is a positive.
In Summary:
The Sovereigns works to flesh out three of its characters well here while still leaving plenty to dig into as time goes on, or in their own book like what Magnus is getting. It’s all more questions than answers at this phase by Fawkes provides some good clues as to how things operate in 2020 while Desjardins makes for a pretty engaging world through it while also giving us more definition of the main cast for this team book. I’m really curious to see how it will go and the talent involved in it makes it a very easy pickup to see what comes next as the layering is spot on and it’s asking all the right questions that you want answers to.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: May 17th, 2017
MSRP: $3.99