Action Lab Danger Zone 2020
Written by Jason Martin
Illustrated by Winston Young
Coloured by Geraldo Filho
Lettered by Jerome Gagnon
Mature Readers’ Only
The start of a new story arc! She may be the most wanted “woman” in the galaxy, but she’s also the most dangerous. And now that Amalgama is hunting her bounty hunters, does anyone, or anything, stand a chance?
I am not entirely sure what I absolutely love about this series but then it really doesn’t matter because I do love it and I will not pass up the opportunity to read it. Sure she’s scantily clad and yes she swears with every other word out of her mouth but ya know what she’s unapologetic, has three voices in her head and seems to have fun regardless of what or who she’s destroying. There is this infectious quality to what we see throughout the book that just elevates the enjoyment for the reader.
I am a huge fan of the way that this is being told. The story & plot development we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is laid down extremely well. While we think that this is pretty straightforward it really isn’t as there are layers to the story that permeate throughout the entire run so far. I like it because while you can understand them when you see them you can still read this as your introduction and not feel lost at all. The character development we see is seriously good, strong and entertaining. Normally we get to see how they act and react to situations and circumstances which help to flesh them out more but honestly I think here the more telling moments are seeing her with Troo. The pacing here is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing a day in her life it is easy to see how all of this works together to create the story’s ebb & flow.
How the book is structured and how this affects the flow of the story is so well done. This is the unconventional conventional challenge and it works on so many levels. What I see here shows a level of talent that you might not expect because to do this with the quality of storytelling that we see is insanely good. I know too many of you don’t take Action Lab seriously enough, but with multiple Eisner nominees, awardees and books that have been optioned for film and television you need to be reading this.
The interior artwork here is really rather wonderful. I love the way we see the linework here and how the varying weights are being utilised to showcase the detail work. There is also this incredible display of creativity and imagination as well in not only some of the character designs but in the utilisation of Amalgama’s abilities as well. I am also a huge fan of the way we see backgrounds being utilised within these pages. They add ambiance, atmosphere and bring us this depth perception, sense of scale and that overall sense of size and scope. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show this remarkable eye for storytelling. The colour work is fantastic. We see some beautiful gradation effects as well colour blocking happening here and the various hues and tones being utilised really makes this super gorgeous.
Girls just wanna have fun and every girl has fun in different ways. Amalgama is a girl who like the Honey Badger doesn’t give a damn! That is a part of her charm and her appeal is the whole no fucks given attitude. This is one of my favourite series and I never expected that to happen so what have you really got to lose? Give it a go will you.