The series draws to an awkward close.
Creative Staff:
Story: Rob Blackie, Peter Blackie
Art: Daniel Maine
Colors: Carlos Lopez
Letterer: Taylor Esposito
What They Say:
Separated, Te’a and Gummy find themselves on divergent paths. Under pressure from Cluthian, Te’a is forced into carrying out a mission that most pilots wouldn’t even dream of attempting—but Te’a is not “most pilots”.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The Clans of Belari has been a struggle at times throughout its run, 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. After the third installment felt like they were getting a better handle on things, the fourth arrives and presses the end button. 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.
With events here, it’s at this point where it starts to raise more of where the property can go. We get Cluthian’s moves becoming more pronounced and that has the council not pleased about it at all as he’s breaking past all the rules. Cluthian makes it clear to Te’a that he intends to take down the council and that she might as well get used to working for him, though he does intend to kill her as soon as she completes the mission he’s assigning her. But to get her to trust him more, he takes her through a tour of his place, which is certainly impressive and it makes clear that his being a clearinghouse for everything means that he really is in a position of real power. Even worse for Te’a is that she finds an old friend of sorts in the down below layer and agrees to take on the job if it ends up freeing her.
The actual mission itself is something that never comes across too clearly beyond the end result of her bringing back a device of infinite power for Cluthian to orchestrate his plan with. The mission does show off her skills pretty well and you can see the guy sent along with her to kill her afterward realizes she may be a lot more useful alive and under their control. But, naturally, she’s not aligned with that and makes things a mess before taking flight from Cluthian and creating a really big bad that will make sure she’s dealt with. That’s what sets up for more, but it has such an awkward execution throughout the entire book in what it’s doing, trying to cram enough in there to justify it at the expense of cleaner storytelling, that it just becomes too muddled by the end and lacks the impact it needs, especially since there’s no firm commitment to more.
In Summary:
The series is, quite simply, unfinished. I don’t think it even ends at a solid chapter point where you can say, at least it told this particular tale. It ended, essentially, after the introductory chapter before getting to the first chapter. And as much as I was frustrated by the book at times in how well it was managing to present itself and its ideas, this just hits hard. There is a tease of more to come eventually, some day, but it’s presumably based on overall sales and in seeing how the trade does. I don’t really expect more of this to make it out, though I’ll be pleasantly surprised if it does. It is something that can work well but it needs some tightening up in the execution to really make it work right. I won’t say I feel burned by this series with how it cuts out in this fourth installment, but it hasn’t left me with a great feeling.
Grade: C
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: AfterShock Comics
Release Date: October 20th, 2021
MSRP: $4.99
