IDW's trip to prehistoric Earth or some near-to-that equivalent continues with today's release of Beast Wars #7. The issue begins a new arc called "Pod" and features the first appearance in this comic of Blackarachnia, and that's not a spoiler when she's on the darn cover. Her fictional debut is accompanied by another that's probably the hot topic when it comes to this particular issue, as a new artist takes over for a little while.
When the art's good (letters too!)
I'm personally a big fan of Josh Burcham's art style, but I'm also not blind - it's definitely a style and reading our boards here at Seibertron and elsewhere on the internet will tell you that style is not enjoyed by some fans. For those fans (who are wrong, but that's ok, I'm wrong on the internet a lot too) it may come as good news that issue 7 features Winston Chan as the interior artist, bringing along a change in that aforementioned style concept. Chan's beast modes are stellar, managing to find that careful point between realistic-ish animals and animals that are so large and out-of-scale with one another that they're completely unreal. SidVenBlu (yes, written like that) takes up the color work and brings major consistency with the opening arc of the series that helps make the transition from one artist to another much less jarring than I'd feared.
When the art's not so good
If there's an area where Chan's art has room for improvement, it's in the characters' robot modes. Something I'm not art-literate enough to describe just looks off about many of the facial expressions, but aside from that, some of the poses the characters are depicted in feel very stiff and artificial. It's worth noting that the action scenes were better than the talking scenes in this regard. Those action scenes are also bolstered by some of Jake M. Wood's best letter work to date - check the image before the one just above (with Dinobot and Optimus Primal from page 2) for an example. Multiple fonts, fun usage of onomatopoeias and nothing in the way of other things makes for a good time.
Art's usually not the first part of my reviews, but it's good to change things up, so this is also where I'll remind Seibertron.com readers that you can find all the cover images and full credits for the issue through our Vector Sigma Database page for Beast Wars #7.
I see Cheetor also started a podcast
As much as the art's changed and is rightfully the main point of interest in this issue, the plotting has changed very little, and by that I mean the decompressed pace of events. Eric Burnham's writing leaves little to be desired and gets out of the way when it needs to. The characters are further defined and more of each faction's situation is elaborated on. All of that's good to have, but just like with the "Savage Landing" arc, "Pod" is off to a start that makes it feel much like an episode of Beast Wars' first TV season, which is not as much of a compliment as it may sound like to some. If you see the switch in the book's credits where David Mariotte has moved to supervising editor while Jazmine Joyner takes up the mantle as editor and hope for a change to the pacing from that, let me go ahead and give you the bad news - there isn't any. This issue feels like it was plotted out for the trade paperback, just like nearly every issue of this series so far.
Verdict
If you say so
If you say so
Beast Wars #7 continues a story where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The series itself is quite enjoyable, but it's tough to find a single issue that jumps out as better or worse than others. It's strange that comics publishers will judge a book's success based on how many monthly orders it gets from comic shops while simultaneously creating a product that is best enjoyed by those shops' customers when they abstain from the practice of subscribing to boost those monthly numbers as they wait until the collected version is released. You have to wonder when this anachronistic business model will crack, but that's another tangent for another time.
In short, this was another enjoyable issue that works well as part of the series, it's still not something that shines extremely brightly on its own, and fans turned off by the initial art style may find more to like here than in previous issues.
Final Score
.
½
out of
.
½out of
Look out for this issue today, August 25th, where you can pick it up at the Seibertron.com eBay store or at your local shop, check here to find the closest shop to you.
