A solid conclusion.
Creative Staff:
Story: George Mann
Art: Joe Eisma
Colors: Michael Garland
Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
What They Say:
As the Celestial alliance crumbles, the Engineward leads her people in a devastating siege on the Sphere. But are the people of Shiptown prepared for the grave consequences of such an uprising and the sacrifice that’ll be required to bring peace and prosperity to Hellen?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With a gap of several months between the last installment and this finale, I’ll admit that I wasn’t ready going into it because I’d forgotten a bunch of it, having read a couple hundred other comics in-between. But it does come back quickly as George Mann weaves the tale with big moments but also enough character material as well. With that in mind, Joe Eisma brings that to life really well as the Celestials get hands-on here but we also get some good emotion out of the cast. There are almost always a lot of characters moving about here and that makes for a lot of work to keep it together and consistent well while adhering to the creative and enjoyable designs, especially for the Celestials.
With the finale, it has to go big in its own way while trying to deal with some character turns that aren’t unnatural but needed more tiem to be set up and explored. With Joss making her way to the seed vault here, she ends up getting a good bit of help from Gemini, though she doesn’t trust her at all from the start and situations lead to the two of them and Kreek running into more problems along the way. But Gemini does seem earnest and does listen to what she’s being told, especially in saying nothing sometimes, such as when she controls Joss’ father into helping them out briefly in dealing with Leo. It’s a weirdly convoluted section but it delivers Joss to where she needs to be and puts Kreek into one of the tougher emotional sections of the book.
We do see that as events progress and things change, that even those like Taurus realizes that what has been going on will no longer work and that the battle is over. Rather than continue the killing, he shuts it down in order to de-escalate the situation and let things unfold with what Joss has accomplished. Which really is to transform the world. It opens up everything here, with the narration by Kreek making it clear that this is a tale from a very long time ago. We see the progress that was made, the voices and people that helped put this world on a far better course, and the way so much of it came together by luck by ordinary people. And that Kreek has watched over it, lovingly, ever since. It’s a really nice emotional ending but one that doesn’t make light or ignore all that was lost along the way.
In Summary:
I was really wowed by Engineward at the start and it did a lot of neat things along the way. It charted its own course, not the one I thought it was going to go down, and while I wish it had been able to really go bigger and more expansive, the fact we got a twelve-issue run for something like this is still hard to believe. There’s a lot to like with this book and what it does as Mann’s scripts and larger concepts open up so much potential while Eisma’s artwork with Garland’s color design delivers a really solid experience through and through. I really enjoyed this a whole and those that get the entire series in one collection to burn through will get even more out of it.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Vault Comics | Amazon | ComiXology
Release Date: October 13th, 2021
MSRP: $3.99
