Go Away
(Spoiler free-ish)
(Spoiler free-ish)
Synopsis
NO TURNING BACK! Getaway has crossed one too many lines and made one too many enemies. Hunted down on his own ship, the master manipulator has one last trick of his sleeve—something so shocking, so audacious, that it would put the most evil Decepticon to shame. No one is safe as the Mutineers Trilogy reaches its jaw-dropping climax.
Self-awareness is good, I guess..?
Story
This week, we return to the Lost Light, and look at the ever-eventful continuations of the horrors contained within the mind, actions and direct respondents of one ship's new self-appointed captain. Welcome back to Getaway, Atomizer, and the Plotters' Club in the conclusion to the Mutineers' Trilogy - Lost Light #12. And, I feel the need to proceed with caution here, as I have yet to make my mind up about the issue. Bear with me.
I'm getting there
Looking at the things that work, then: the interlude and the main story, taken as their own beasts, are good frames within which the two threads operate, with a connection (or several, but one in particular) that is as obvious as it is likely to miss with everything else happening. They also both nicely set-up some more world-work that we are bound to see soon. Also, First Aid continues to delight, and the action sequences are, on the whole, placed down nicely.
well paced; painful, but well paced
Which leads me to the main concern: pacing. I've discussed this with staff, and there are wildly differing views, of no help at all, that the sequences are running to fast, too disconnected, and trying to gather together too many yarns and making a big knot out of them than a tapestry. There is undoubtedly a lot going on in the issue, and I feel like you can take that one way or another entirely, without necessarily discrediting the opposite view.
...basically
The better comments to reconcile the two parts of my appreciation for the book do not find their place in this review, for the simple reason that they are entirely based on the latter part of the book, and I do not wish to simply discuss plot. My concerns with pacing remain, however, and I will add a couple of extra, more potentially spoilery notes in the section at the end of this piece.
Art
The art on the issue is in the hands of two different artists, for a very specific in-plot reason too: Jack Lawrence on the main frame, and Andrew Griffith on the interlude section featuring the return of a fair number of characters. And where the first has no real criticisms from me, the latter's linework felt oddly out of place, compared to track record: it may have been just an issue of time, it may be the contrast between two very different styles, but it stood out in not the most positive of ways - that said, the layouts are excellent, and the scenes do play out well, the issue is almost entirely with the details.
I'm not sure why
Lending fuel to the idea that there may have been a time-constraint element to the issue's production, there are three colourists to look at for the art: Joana Lafuente, Priscilla Tramontano, JP Bove. The major contrast is only really to be found in the interlude vs main story, but even there something wasn't entirely in sync between lines and colours, and perhaps a darker palette on the Lost Light scenes may have helped consolidate some of the moments we're witnessing - though the hangar scenes looked really quite apt.
it's the little things
The lettering by Tom B. Long has some really nice moments, scattered through the book, that play with the more humorous moments (dark humour, at that) and the more action-heavy scenes, and never feel out of place - the dialogue is heavy, not helping with the density of the script, but placing flows well in the panels. The cover I thought most worked for this review is the Alex Milne/Josh Perez moment of frustrated anger (nicely cut at the thigh, too), but the other two main variants are definitely worth their presence, and the Ramondelli Megatron companion to the Optimus Prime one in a previous comic is nice enough as an RI. You can, of course, see them all in our database entry here.
Thoughts
Spoilerish ahead
I haven't shied away in previous reviews and general comments on the series (and this arc specifically) from expressing my dislike of how plots are created and made to work - especially with some of the character build-ups (except for First Aid and Atomizer), and the over-the-top rounding off of Getaway after issue #10. That said, and as ScottyP reminded me in the email discussion we had, liking or disliking the story valid criticism is not.
Sums it up for me
I, personally, cannot say I enjoyed the issue that much at all, but I recognise that point as extremely valid. So here is my critical thought on the issue: it is dense, definitely so, and the pacing is very very rushed but that may be exactly what it is supposed to do - except.. the problems with the visual side of things drag this down further for me, and I really want to know what happened.
The action-packed sequences on the Lost Light mirror the action of the interlude, with two different feelings of horror and frustration, seen from two very different perspectives, but not well executed enough to fully land, for me. As a whole, where this is most definitely not a book for an entry level reader, longtime followers may equally react very well or very poorly to the story, depending on your interest in the wider picture versus the more immediate character and plot work of the arc. Your Mileage May (Very Much) Vary.
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½ out of
½ out of Bonus content: Official Music Recommendations
