A rushed but satisfying end.
Creative Staff:
Story: Ron Marz
Art: Roberto Castro
Colors: Salvatore Aiala
Letterer: A Different World Studios’ Troy Peteri
What They Say:
All secrets are revealed as Turok faces the ultimate truth of the Lost Valley, and his place in it, when he is confronted by a seemingly endless array … of Turoks! Will the revelations be enough to return Turok and Andar to their home? Or will the brothers be forever marooned in a land of hungry dinosaurs? Writer Ron Marz and artist Roberto Castro continue to deliver prehistoric perfection!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The latest Turok series draws to a close with this installment and serves a point similar to some other Key-character focused series in the last couple of years in showing the ties that bind. Ron Marz has given us an engaging series from the start with Turok and his brother dealing with being hunted by soldiers and then opening up to something far larger. It’s also been an absolute delight in seeing the range of dinosaurs that Roberto Castro got to work with, making for a great combination of material as his desolate western style landscapes felt great with dinosaurs running all over the place. The talents of the two with Aiala’s colorwork gave it a very good feeling to run with.
The events of the previous issue left us with a startled Turok as a range of other Turok’s showed up from across the multiverse and that has some of those with “our” Turok coming into the pyramid to find out what happened. Suffice to say, it makes no sense to them overall but Turok’s ease with them is a positive that helps them remain guarded and cautious but not gun-happy. Turok’s aware of how he opened this to happen but isn’t sure he can fix it but intends to, which of course brings back our alien/future-man villain who insists that Turok will end reality if he remains in control of the stone that handles all of this. Suffice to say, a fight ensues.
This is what plays out over the bulk of the issue as they tussle across places and amid a lot of rampaging dinosaurs as well. There’s a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth over Turok trying to keep the stone by his opponent and it sticks to being a tumble and mad dash between the two. But it wraps up quickly overall with Turok prevailing and intent on sending everyone back to where they belong except for himself. With the nod that this place is where the stone belongs and will be safe, he and his brother remain there and become the classic dinosaur hunters in the past. It’s a good setup and it leaves you wanting more of that series. But it all moves to this point so quickly that the rush of it just doesn’t work. I do like the piece with the others making their goodbyes since they’ve been an interesting group for a bit but I really wanted more of all of them together.
In Summary:
Oh, how I long for the day for characters like these to be able to sustain an ongoing in some form as opposed to the regular miniseries approach with the constant reinvention of the wheel. Ron Marz brings us a rushed ending here to wrap things up and it hits all the right points and executes it well. I just wish it had more space to tell the story so that it felt less like hitting the marks and more like telling the tale. Hopefully, another Turok series is on the horizon somewhere to explore but this one had a good run overall in what it wanted to deal with and reinforce the whole multiverse of possibilities for the characters so that the creative side can tell whatever kind of story they want without worrying about continuity.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: September 4th, 2019
MSRP: $3.99
