“Revenge and Resurrection”
Creative Staff:
Story: Steve Orlando
Art: Patrick Piazzalunga
Colors: Carlos Lopez
Letterer: Thomas Mauer
What They Say:
Thirty years ago, THE PATRON died, only for the United Nations to replace him with a perfect robotic duplicate.
Now, the monster responsible for The Patron’s death has returned, threatening to expose the Project Patron team. But with one of their own dead, is the team strong enough to fight on?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Steve Orlando has had a lot of fun with Project Patron so far and that continues here into the third installment. We’ve got a couple of layered mysteries in it in addition to just the interesting premise itself with what the crew is up to with the Patron. Patrick Piazzalunga has been able to breathe a lot of good emotion and intensity into a lot of this as well when it comes to the crew that runs the Patron as they deal with first having someone new there and then the loss of Kone in the previous issue. The fallout from that here definitely works well to showcase more of what’s going on while also delivering some strong impact sequences with a fight that we get in this issue.
The death of Kone is really making a worldwide impact here as we see through the news that it’s been weeks since he’s been out and there’s no explanation for the damage and death that he caused. The other heroes of the world have always had a side-eye with him since he’s not really allied and socialized with them. But this is all noise for the crew back at the Project because they’re processing the loss of Kone and half of them don’t even want to talk about it. There’s a good mix of emotions about the whole thing and seeing it unfold while they dig into more of the programming of the Patron goes a long way toward exposing that this wasn’t an accident but rather an intentional event. And not a murder but rather a suicide, which seems strange until they make clear just how siloed everything is in this project.
With some good material throughout that, we also get a new incident that the team must respond to as Super Mechatron is attacking Vatican City. With a real hated for religion, this villain is going all out. But what’s welcome is that it isn’t the long-time members that are piloting Patron but rather Moro as they realize he’s the least compromised here over Kone’s death and the least likely to have some kind of reaction to being in control of the suit. It’s not the easiest first time run in the world overall but he handles it well and gets fully into being the snarky hero that battles it out over the city. It all makes the most sense but there’s still that thread of uncertainty that’s underpinning so much of this book because it continues to feel like there are two or three stories running underneath Moro.
In Summary:
Project Patron is evolving nicely here as a series and seeing the gang work through their issues due to Kone’s death plays out well. The larger villain operating in the background has a couple of pages here as he sets up for bringing a new foe to the table but it’s definitely subplot material in this issue. Orlando and Piazzalunga once again give this a good flow and look overall with the script and visuals making it an easy read but one that has some good meat on its bones to sink your teeth into. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing how it progresses and how far it really wants to go.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: AfterShock Comics
Release Date: June 30th, 2021
MSRP: $3.99
