A glimmer of hope!
Creative Staff:
Story: Ryan Ferrier
Art: Alejandro Aragorn
Colors: Chris O’Halloran
Letterer: Ryan Ferrier
What They Say:
The ax-swinging wasteland warrior RIDER leads a ragtag group of rebels on a mission to overthrow the reign of a menacing cabal. With time ticking down, and a deadly assassin on their heels, the crew returns to their base to restock on weapons and reunite with PILOT, a powerful telepath who holds the key to stopping Father’s mysterious plans.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Death Orb has had a decent bit of fun so far as it got underway as the settings were appealing with its coloring and sparseness while the action had a fun kind of end of the world feeling to it. Ferrier works this issue more like a transitional piece going into the back half of the run as the pieces are moved into place. This slows things down a bit, not necessarily in a bad way, and gives us a chance to reconnect before moving forward. Aragorn has another solid job here in the art department with a really good look to it and the action throughout which with the color work really does make for an enjoyable read. I love the color design a lot as it gives a good kind of starkness to a lot of the scenes.
Getting to Pilot was the main drive the last time around with the group that Rider had fallen in with and there’s definitely some fun action at the start. With her bodyguard being a pretty intense ninja-type that she’s able to soothe, eventually, there’s a lot of chaos as they try to get everyone on the same page and calm down. Pilot’s able to get things together well enough here but there’s a decent level of distrust all around. What helps with the main plot thread that we’re following is that Rider gets Pilot to try and commune with the nearly dead head that he has, which has been fairly quiet recently. Discovering that, at least according to it and Pilot, that his wife is still alive reinforces his desire to keep going and that means still sticking with this lot.
A lot of what we get past that is just preparation for moving and resetting the group to move forward now that Pilot is a part of it. It’s not bad but it’s just not all that compelling when you get down to it. Things are a little more interesting with its focus on Father as part of the larger subplot going on as he talks of the Orb that’s coming and the further cementing of his own position and power, something that was threatened previously but dealt with fairly easily overall. I really like what Aragorn brings to these pages as it’s very distinctive with its backgrounds and the costume design for the characters but also just how oppressive the whole thing feels. It left me wanting more of this and exploring this part of the world and storyline more.
In Summary:
Death Orb has a quieter installment all around and one that feels a bit looser and undefined. While there’s the push forward a lot of what we get is wrapping up events from before with Pilot now brought into the fold and calming down the action side. Everything is in place to move forward with new information and new people to work with and Rider’s even more intent on finding his wife, which is no surprise. It’s just not an issue that feels like it pushes us forward in a must-read kind of way, though I did find myself wanting more of Father’s storyline to understand them as the villain proper as opposed to how little we really have so far. All in all, a fairly standard middle of a miniseries installment.
Grade: B-
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: December 5th, 2018
MSRP: $3.99
