Review – EI8HT #2 (of 5) (Dark Horse Comics)

Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Writers: Rafael Albuquerque, Mike Johnson
Artist: Rafael Albuquerque
Released: 18th March, 2015

After that blistering first issue – which Ceej slapped about the face with the fabled 5/5 so hard it caused slow-motion jowl-wobble – that set up not only a mystery most intriguing, but hinting at, and partially revealing, a richly detailed world blossoming out of its central reality-bending conceit.

Well, if you were sold on that first issue – as we all were here at BCP towers – then there’s certainly more where that came from herein. It’s a much more confident issue in terms of story-telling flourish, with an added story thread that stems from the purple present and snakes back into the green past – quite what’s going on there and why is anyone’s guess at this stage, but a shaky bit of dialogue from a traumatised character indicates that there’s certainly more to learn, and that helps layer on the already not-insignificant amount of intriguing in the pages of this series. Albuquerque and Johnson make deft work of juggling all these seemingly disparate elements, and there’s a beautiful flow to the plot that keeps you from losing track of what’s going on.

The art is still terrific – effectively working only with black, white, a sombre blue and a vivid red, the rest of the colour is dedicated to informing you precisely what time-stream you’re in, precisely clarifying that what we’re witnessing unfolding isn’t technically doing so in the order we’re being presented with. It remains a neat story-telling tic, as well as creating some gorgeously star art that relies on Albuquereue’s sharp pencil work and little else to get the business end of the story told.

But ultimately, we’re still firmly in the throes of scene-setting, and this answers no questions and raises far more – though it does so in a manner that rather successfully fleshes out the story going forward. Albuquerque is going somewhere with this, and it’s set to be a blast finding out where that is. But in the meantime, whilst the series as a whole does look set to have a top mark applied to it as a broader whole, it’s tricky to recommend this particular issue on its own. Still, certainly worth a look.

Rating: 4/5.

PREVIEW ARTWORK
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