Old debts called in.
Creative Staff:
Story: Rob Blackie, Peter Blackie
Art: Daniel Maine
Colors: Carlos Lopez
Letterer: Taylor Esposito
What They Say:
The Clan Chieftains rebuke Cluthian’s bid for Chieftain status, so he turns to amass alien-tech weapons with which he may take what he wants by force. Te’a has gotten a taste for flying, and despite the class rules against her — she wants nothing more than to become a pilot. She convinces Gummy to pressure a mysterious underground operator to circumvent the rules, but in doing so, Gummy has made a deal with the devil (yes, Cluthian) that is certain to come back to haunt him and Te’a.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
I’ve struggled with the first couple of installments of Clans of Belari though I think that Rob and Peter Blackie did as well as they could to get everything in place for the story that they want to tell. Both come from the Netflix series Frontier and have crafted something complex here to work with. This installment feels like it works better and clearer with what it wants to do and while the characters still feel distant and flat, they’re at least identifiable at this point. Daniel Maine, who has worked largely at a publisher that I don’t follow personally, has produced some solid-looking stuff here to capture some of the weird elements while also giving us some pretty solid character designs and interesting locations.
The first half largely focuses on Te’a as she’s proving to be quite the problematic pilot. We see how she’s incredibly skilled and talented at flying and that’s gotten her moving up quickly through the ranks. But she’s also reckless and doesn’t follow orders well. When her clan leader gets a call from another leader for assistance in helping some asteroid miners that are going to die, she refuses. But Te’a disobeys the orders to stand down and does the rescue anyway, forcing her bosses hand in order to not discipline her while her boss actually makes out well because of it. But Te’a complicates too many things by doing this and it’s pretty much glossed over here in what it would do in reality. But it allows her to establish herself more, but she’s certainly not going to be trusted by her superiors.
The other half of the book focuses on Cluthian as he’s now ready to get himself set up as the seventh clan head. His intention is one that’s out of bounds for many but he’s now organizing his people to hunt and search for as many aliens weapons and tech scattered in the area that he can get his hands on. It’s a solid plan that won’t exactly sit well with other clean leaders at times but he can make a real power player case. What changes everything, however, is when he finds a gate ship/device of some sort that will allow him to not just be a clan leader, but the leader of all clans and stand above everyone else. Power is going to his head quickly upon the realization of what ancient alien tech they’ve found and he intends to exploit it heavily.
In Summary:
Clans of Belari works a lot better for me with this installment as it feels like it has a clearer voice and narrative with what it wants to do. We know Te’a fairly well at this point so her story connects well and you root for her as she does the right thing, and gets recruited in the final pages for something else. Cluthian, on the other hand, has a good concept but we’ve not connected with the character so it’s just to the side of cartoonish in how he’s operating, and how he’s killing people. It’s not bad as it does set up the growing rift that the series will deal with, but at the same time it’s not compelling because still don’t know him nor have a great handle on the big picture of the setup.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: AfterShock Comics
Release Date: September 15th, 2021
MSRP: $4.99
