“The Ballad of Tartak Vil, Part 1”
Creative Staff:
Story: Daniel Jose Older
Art: Harvey Tolibao, Nick Brokenshire
Colors: Michael Atiyeh
Letterer: Comicraft’s Tyler Smith & Jimmy Betancourt
What They Say:
An angry mob of impoverished and destitute refugees have incited a fierce riot outside the mighty fortress on Bracrontas Zeen, Qort, and 5A-G3 infiltrate the stronghold to face the mysterious warlord Tartak, who may hold the key to finding more survivors of the Fall of Starlight Beacon. But the trio of heroes are sure to find more than they bargained for, as they try to piece together the events of the past year. Could any of their friends have survived the tragedy?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
I’ve struggled with a lot of the High Republic era works for a while but I continue to try various works to see what connects and what intrigues. This series, of the Phase III era, is something that complements what I’m reading on the Marvel side taking place at the same time. Here, Daniel Jose Older continues to plot the course of a few key characters and he’s joined by Harvey Tolibao and Nick Brokenshire on the artwork. With the color design from Michael Atiyeh, it’s an interesting book that reminds me of some late Grimjack-era works and the kind of very busy and filled-in world that’s full of life but can sometimes feel like it’s too much to take in for an engaging read as you’re drawn all over the page. It’s filled with all sorts of alien creatures and some great designs to give us a feel for them from a different period in time as well.
With the second issue, it feels like the struggle is even more since we’re largely dealing with the character of Lula and her journey since the fall of the Starlight Beacon. While mostly just knowing this era of characters through the comics, here we get to see how she survived the crash but seemingly lost a lot of her memory. There are a lot of wordless pages that we get here as we see how she manages and, from appearances, has a Nihil outfit that lets her survive and manage well enough in the time since to keep going. It is nicely done in a kind of Matt Wagner way watching as Lula goes through trying to survive as there are some great layouts and a good sense of progress made here even if I have zero connection to the character to make me feel invested.
Having her with Mikkian certainly works here and the two basically find themselves in a position of now trying to survive together and reconnect with Qort and the ship. It’s a lot of action and it gets fairly chaotic but it’s an appealing piece to read in terms of this part of it. The problem is that there’s so little connection to the characters for a new reader that I’m not sure how to really engage with it. You can get the broad strokes of it and it connects well enough with the first issue since we got on with Mikkian’s journey, and having Lula found is a big thing, but there’s just something lacking here to make it feel cohesive and connected.
In Summary:
I’ve enjoyed some of the other recent High Republic era books but they’re still fairly hit or miss for me and this one was a hard one to connect with. I liked the first issue well enough but I wasn’t deep into it, and this one didn’t help the track that it’s on. I really liked the artwork and the creativity done to do a kind of recap with no words but I still just have this kind of larger disconnect with these characters that’s keeping me from feeling invested beyond the general idea of trying to get people back together after the fall of the Starlight Beacon.
Grade: C+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: January 246th, 2024
MSRP: $3.99
