This week the Wednesday Comics Reviews team tackles a light week for notable books, but some strong titles nonetheless, specifically Time Waits #3 and Godzilla Monsterpiece Theater #3! Warning: there may be spoilers.
Are you a weekly comics sicko? You’ve come to the right place. This is where The Beat’s review team writes about the new #1s, endings, and other notable issues out in shops from non-Big 2 publishers…enjoy!
Time Waits #3
Writers: Chip Zdarsky & David Brothers
Artists: Marcus To & Marvin Sianipar
Colorist: Matt Wilson
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Publisher: DSTLRY
Review by Jordan Jennings
Time Wait It is a simple but complex story. Chip Zdarsky and David Brothers craft a high concept time travel action story about a man sent to do a job but cannot go through with it. Blue finds peace and solace in the past and tries to escape his life as a corporate time travel agent. Yet, his past catches up to him as he is taken back to future to stand for a show trial and execution. It is in this future that we really get to see the twisted capitalistic hellscape that Zdarsky and Brothers have created. I am not a big fan of time travel plots in general. Don’t get me wrong, I like some stories that feature time travel, but most of the time stories that revolve around time travel as its central plot device often try to get too cute with time travel. Zdarsky and Brothers do well to make their time travel rules work and avoid the splintering timelines that many works of fiction like to employ. It isn’t cute, but simple and effective.
The world is in line with a lot of cyberpunk fiction you can find on the shelf, but there is a grounded sense of reality to it. Maybe it speaks about the current state of the world and the United States in particular, but this comic spoke to me in a few ways. It is very pessimistic at times. There is a sense of predestined events that cannot be changed. Those bad guys will always win, but the book shows that is not the case. In fact, it ends on a positive ending full of hope for the past and future. Yeah, Blue and company can’t change history, but they can find peace and raise hope in time of despair.
The character work between Blue, Grace, and Duke is solid. Zdarsky and Brothers work wonders with the 48-page format to get time to let softer moments breathe and allow the cast to their moments. The use of memories and flashbacks has been a recurring device in the book to fill the reader in on past events organically. Up to this point the flashbacks were mainly about Blue’s last job and training, but in this issue, we get to see Blue and Grace’s romance bloom. It is simple and effective case of show don’t tell but they give added weight to the final issue. Then the flashbacks begin to show memories that Blue doesn’t have yet, it becomes something special.
Marcus To and Marving Sianipar illustrate a beautiful comic full of small details and clean action work. There is a lot of world building in this issue in particular as it takes place almost all in the future which to this point hasn’t been detailed much beyond a shadowy room. This world doesn’t feel ultra futuristic either. There aren’t flying cars or blaster rifles, but instead a world that feels not too dissimilar to our own. Almost like a commentary about how run-away capitalism and corporate greed never breeds innovation to improve people’s lives but enrich the companies at the expense of the world.
The fight choreography in this issue is simply one of the best. It is clean, easy to read but full of impact. To and Sianipar use traditional comic panels too and don’t break the border once. The fact they are able to show this much kinetic force without doing inlays or panel breaks speaks to their skills.
Time Waits #3 is a strong final issue to an excellent series. This is a comic I’ve been looking forward to reading for some time now and it was well worth the wait. It is the complete package with writing and art complementing each other in every aspect. The character work is sincere, and the action is thrilling. I cannot recommend this comic enough. Hunt down all three issues and check this series out. You will be glad you did.
Godzilla Monsterpiece Theater #3
Writer/Artist/Letterer: Tom Scioli
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Review by Zack Quaintance
You know, as someone who writes about comics every week, I feel like I often throw around the phrase madcap break. I’m not willing to cop to devaluing it, but every now again, it’s probably overused in these pieces a bit. With Godzilla Monsterpiece Theater, however, I really mean it. It’s been a madcap break from the start, right on through to this week’s finale.
The first issue — as regular readers of this space might recall — got praised for the way it combined ideas (and even some direct passages) from The Great Gatsby with God-freaking-Zilla. And from there the story went on to (somewhat) organically weave in other famous literary figures from roughly the same era, ranging from Sherlock Holmes to Dracula to HG Wells and his time machine.
As the series progressed, the passages from Gatsby have mostly fallen away, but the fun level has stayed up. In place of the literary-Godzilla mash-up, we got bigger and wilder ideas. And now in this finale, we get many of literature’s classic monsters enlarged into kaiju and taking on Godzilla.
This rules and is just about as comic book-y as it gets. But what makes it all the more fun is that the love triangle drama between Jay Gatsby, Tom Buchannan, and Daisy is playing out too as this goes down. It’s great fun, and while the first issue was still my favorite of the three (you only get to experience the absurdity of this concept for the first time once), the whole thing was excellent, getting my highest recommendation once it’s collected in trade, due out
The Prog
2000AD 2416 (Rebellion): I’ve really been loving the genre-mixing story, Fiends of the Western Front: Wilde West. Now on its fourth chapter, this strip is by writer Ian Edington artist Tender Trevallion, and letterer Jim Campbell. This one has really been such a great mix of story ingredients, including vampires, cowboys, and Oscar Wilde. There’s a bit of dissonance to reading that list, but the story commits to it all so deeply, that it works and it works well. This week’s installment was a (surprisingly) character-driven one that reminded me of a bit of a good Hellboy story that makes full use of folklore and history and passage of time to increase its drama. Overall, I’m really enjoying this one. I read a lot of comics week to week for various pieces at The Beat, and it’s nice to get one like this that understands how to do fun things with the medium so thoroughly. Elsewhere in The ProgI thought Judge Dredd: Soft served up a satisfying finale to this three-parter that moves ahead a larger ongoing plot, and Hawk The Slayer upped its game, ending on an interesting note that will likely me having written more about that one next week. This week’s cover (above) is by Dave Taylor. As always, you can pick up a digital copy of The Prog here. —Zack Quaintance
Read more entries in the weekly Wednesday Comics reviews series!
Next week, the team tackles a big set of releases, including Seasons — a new book from Rick Remender and Paul Azaceta as well as the start of a new arc for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtlesand more!
