Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Story: Joe R Lansdale
Script: Mark Alan Miller
Artist: Piotr Kowalski
Release Date: 16 December, 2015

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Finally. The Steam Man gets in a stooshie and it is good. Not epic, but good. I’m still trying to decide whether it was the epic scene I was looking for. I think it’s safe to say that the first issue cried out for a big old beat ’em up to get us all whipped into a frenzy about this series. It didn’t happen, and I for one was left somewhat disappointed. Issue two improved spectacularly, but not in the ‘Big Ass Jaeger fighting’ way I was expecting/hoping.

This time though. This time I got the fight I wanted and it was almost worth the wait. Except, I think I was more interested in the struggle that the crew had to get the Steam Man moving again after it had fallen over. There was a sense of real human drama and it was good to see the relationship between the crew members.

After my initial disappointment in the lack of big bruising battles I thought that the real strength in this book would be in the humanity of the characters. There is still time for that to develop, and going forward that may still be the case, but right now it’s the sense of “where the hell is all of this going” that will keep me reading this.

It’s a slow burner, of that there is no doubt. There are a lot of plot threads lying around just waiting for Joe R Lansdale to start weaving together and so far he has been weaving a pattern that I haven’t quite got a handle on yet. Maybe it was the mood I was in, but I really enjoyed the human struggle in this issue, and the stooshie was a wee bonus.

I’m conflicted as to what to score this. For the last hour I have been changing the score as I type between a 3.5 and a 4. Hold on while I toss a coin…

Rating: 4/5.

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The writer of this piece was: John Wallace
John Tweets from @jmwdaredevil

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