Publisher: Image Comics
Writer: Frank J. Barbiere
Artist: Chris Mooneyham
Release Date: 19th March 2014

The creative team of Barbiere and Mooneyham has done it again! Honestly, the story telling and artwork of this book could not be any better. This story combines so many different aspects of literature and film that it just catches my attention with each passing issue.

This issue finds the “Lost Coastlines” story coming to a crescendo and gearing up for a thrilling finish. We find the cast of characters now on a mysterious island filled with giant Crabs and a mysterious shape-shifting figure. The setting of this chapter of the story reminds me of the old movies I used to watch with my mother, stories filled with giant unbelievable creatures that stranded people face on mysterious islands. And the fact that they have the ghost of Sinbad inside one of the characters reminds me even more of all those movies I loved as a child. If that wasn’t enough, a strange apparition appears and spews some poetic story about greed corrupting and fate deciding who lives and dies. I mean… tell me you don’t want to come along for this ride!

Barbiere, as I stated above, has managed to remind me of fond childhood memories watching classic Ray Harryhausen movies filled with monsters and heroic characters. By adding elements from these movies into the adventures of Fabian Gray, in my opinion, it just doesn’t get any better. These are the reasons we love our comics, the fact that they provide an escape into another world and offer an opportunity to go along on the adventure. Barbiere crafts his stories extremely well even when the main character remains absent for the majority of the issue.

Mooneyham’s artwork continues to capture my attention and dictate the pace that Barbiere’s words set. There are a few action scenes in this issue and each are done so well that you feel you are watching them on a big screen or – more accurately – are watching them play out from the bushes of the jungle where you are cowering in fear as the heroes of our story take care of business. There is also a pretty amazing two page spread of Fabian on the waves heading to the island that I find myself not being able to keep going back to look at. The detail and the movement that is there are incredible and compliments where the story is heading very well.

This is a story I think most any comic fan would enjoy but also anyone who has been a fan of the classic action adventure movies like “Sinbad, and Jason and the Argonauts.” For me it embodies all of these things I have loved for years, and it is intelligent and just an amazing piece of fiction brought to life by an extraordinary artist.

Rating: 5/5.

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The writer of this piece was: Shane Hoffman (aka “Hoff”)
You can also find Hoff on Twitter.