“The Land Before Time’s Running Out”
Creative Staff:
Story: Sarah Hoyt
Art: Madibek Musabeko
Colors: Ivan Nunes
Letterer: Carlos M. Mangual
What They Say:
In hot pursuit of The Lady, Barbarella trashes yet another ship with nothing to show for it. Actually, things are worse than that—Taln is missing, Barbs finds herself caged… and on display in a zoo. Please don’t feed the animals! The danger lies not in who caged her, but what lies beyond the walls of this alien menagerie. Let’s just say they are very, very big.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The last issue took a bit of a sidebar to focus on Vix and their story which was a whole lot of fun and a delightful way to kind of step away from things briefly, especially if it allows the art team to keep producing such great work. Sarah Hoyt continues to bring to the page here an engaging story that explores a new world but also the familiar concept of love and just how many barriers it can break down when Barbarella is involved. It connects with past works while still feeling connected to the film in its own way. Hoyt is again joined by Madibek Musabekov and it’s great to have their work again as they produce such a drop-dead gorgeous book. With Ivan Nunes coloring, the designs look great for the characters with a kind of presence and sensuality that really works and there’s a good look to the worldbuilding that’s going on here throughout.
With the team heading to the world where The Lady is, it goes badly right from the start as there is no world and just a kind of spatial distortion. Which basically ends up atomizing their ship and throwing them to a nearby world where Barbarella and Vix wake up in a circus-like cage on display for the locals. Without translation for a bit, it’s decidedly a low-key kind of world and the pair do eventually figure out that this is The Lady’s homeworld, which Barbarella is only lucky enough to have avoided proper capture because those that found her didn’t think she was sentient. There’s some fun material as she orchestrates her initial escape and starts gathering information as the locals are just surprised she’s smart enough to do this, but lucking into someone who works for The Lady and understands who Barbarella is becomes key.
So much so that we learn that she’s even subjugated her own homeworld here which has left things in a problematic state as we slowly get the feeling for. For Barbarella and Vix, they’re mostly just trying to get to the spaceport and some power source so they can bring Taln back into play and it’s a fun journey as she gets a creature to ride along the way and takes a detour or two to add more background. But it’s not an issue where nothing important happens but rather we get a lot of small moments that flesh out The Lady and where she’s from without her even being shown. The fear she creates is palpable but it’s offset by Barbarella’s playful nature as she really does a great job of just trying to move smoothly through the world with a little luck and trust that things will go as she needs it to be, even against overwhelming odds.
In Summary:
Barbarella continues to be a fantastic book across the board. I really enjoyed the sidestory we had in the previous issue and it’s very easy to get back into the groove of the main storyline here as we reconnect with it after a small break. The arrival on The Lady’s homeworld reveals some key things about her to be sure and that’s going to be capitalized on more as Barbarella and her team figure out how to secure themselves a ship and some safety. Hoyt’s script here is a delight with its humor while Musabeko’s artwork is just gorgeous in every panel. I can’t wait for more.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: February 23rd, 2022
MSRP: $3.99
