Scout Comics 2019
Written & Lettered by Adem Kiamil
Illustrated by Ton Lima
Coloured by Derek Dow
As Sanaxus steps up the manhunt for the One-Percenters that escaped Eden, one of the roups being hunted finds themselves making new friends in the city. Meanwhile, Neve and the others try to come to terms with the harsh reality of their new situation at Omega, and Freya proves that she can handle herself!
This is quickly becoming more and more of a favourite series for me. With each new issue Adem manages to find new ways to keep us on edge as the people at Sanaxus run rampant with their hatred of the One-Percenters and experimenting and treating them like lab rats an no longer considering them human. There is a mix here as well of people who are terrified of no longer being the top of the food chain and must eliminate any perceived threat, see scared shitless, then there are those who are jealous they aren't among the One-Percenters and want to be. So they experiment and see if they can either induce powers or find a way to replicate them in normal humans. These are the nastier ones in my humble opinion for they will stop at nothing to gain the power they so desperately want and can't understand why they don't have them.
The opening for this issue is extremely well done and it follows up on the “troublemaker” separated from the group when it got to Omega. This only reinforces what I believe about this whole company from what we've been shown thus far. I mean last issue she really showed her true colours to that moment where you wanted someone to make her a permanent victim. Why does the villainy always feel ten times worse when it comes from someone like her I wonder.
One of the things that this made me think of and feel like is this is a modern day concentration camp. Unlawful, unsupervised and downright inhumane treatment of prisoners who have done nothing wrong but exhibit a gene that scares the wrong people. Yeah it isn't actually too far off what we see in the United States already happening with so-called illegals and whomever is next on the hit list parade. That should be the scariest thing of them all the real world scenario of this. Art imitates life or does life imitate art?
I am a fan of the interiors here. I like the way we see the linework being utilised to create this attention to detail. I do think that there are too many open backgrounds here. When they are utilised they do wonders to expand the moments and bring a nice sense of size and scope to the book, so even if you don't think it calls for it, it does matter if we see them or not. I love the way the city looks in these pages as if it becomes another character in the story and that's what I want to see more of and since I know it's within the skill set of these folks I hope we see this applied to Omega as well. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show as sensational eye for storytelling. The colour work is equally as impressive. The lights and their various shades casting that hue onto buildings and people is incredibly well done. The utilisation of those light sources to create the shading and shadows and how the colour blocking is so successful at showing the variations is great to see.
The writing is superb, the way the reader is engaged from start to finish of the issue as well as how we well we get to know the characters shows that Adem knows what he's doing, how to craft a story and tell it believably. This is what I imagine should have been the X-Men had they been created today instead of when they were. Exciting, bold and dangerously close to reality Category Zero is home to some of the worlds most dangerous beings, who like and caged animal with their back against the wall is going to defend itself to the death.