A slow sprawling fight across time continues.
Creative Staff:
Story: Stephanie Phillips
Art: Francesca Fantini
Colors: Lauren Affe
Letterer: Troy Peteri
What They Say:
The killer time-travel adventure continues with cowboys, ninjas, soldiers and even a trip to New York City’s Central Park! When Maya’s fellow assassins arrive to kill World War II hero Virginia Hall, Maya has to make a decision: Watch Virginia die, or turn on “friends” and get herself killed in the process?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
As we get into the fourth installment of this series we’re finally getting a few answers, or least a little more background information that feels like answers. But there’s still a larger piece that’s missing that’ll come to light soon, I’m sure. Stephanie Phillips is keeping things going with separate time travel stories so that we get different eras to focus on that will have the people there collide eventually so it works pretty well. Francesca Fantini continues to do a solid job in bringing these various periods and areas to life while working with characters that are definitely out of place in each of them. It’s easy to figure out where we are and each character continues to be solidly distinct in a really good way.
The initial piece focusing on Isak in 2200 BCE is definitely interesting as Henderson has found himself there as well and has quickly taken control of at least a small group of worshippers who know that he’s definitely not like them. Isak’s mildly impressed since it does show some ambition but the reality is that it just means that Henderson is someone that he can take advantage of. It’s going to be easy to underestimate the cowboy and it’ll surely bite Isak in the ass eventually, but the negotiation that we get between the two plays well in this period and is fun to watch unfold as Henderson thinks he’s got the advantage at first. Or, at least until Isaki ends up brutally and quickly killing several of those protecting Henderson from this era.
When it comes to Virginia and Maya, their time in 1875 has the team from the organization there to assassinate Virginia and bring back Maya but that just has Maya eventually snapping and rescuing Virginia again, even though she doesn’t really say why. We see a pretty good fight that puts Virginia on the rope and more of what Maya can do, but we also get some good backstory once the fight wraps up. Having Maya talk about protecting sacred books in 220 BCE and how she’s on some bigger journey here paints an impressive picture but it still feels like it’s skirting around why she’s actually doing all of this with Virginia. The past has a lot of good details and Virginia is definitely drawn to it but there’s something missing that really makes it seem like it has a strong point other than just background fleshing out.
In Summary:
I continue to like the larger concept and what we understand of things so far, which is something that this installment adds more of in a pretty good way. But we’re still short of some key elements so that we know what the plan is and what Maya is really up to when it comes to Virginia. It’s interesting watching her struggle with saving her but she also finally breaks and reveals at least a little of her past. And i continue to like seeing how Henderson handles himself in the past and you know that Isak is going to manipulate him in a big way like the tool that he is.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: AfterShock Comics
Release Date: August 19th 2020
MSRP: $3.99
