Valiant Entertainment 2020
Written by Alejandro Arbona
Illustrated by Jim Towe
Coloured by Diego Rodriguez
Lettered by Clayton Cowles
Teen hothead and star athlete, Bart Simms, is about to meet the Valiant Universe's greatest hero... himself! The can’t-miss superhero adventure of 2020 starts here!
The opening here is great and mainly because we have absolutely no idea what's going on. It's as if the entire Valiant Universe is involved in a major event and Doctor Tomorrow is in the thick of it. So what this does mean? It could mean a number of things and at first I thought we were reading a comic book with someone though that turned out not to be the case. Is this the future, a possible future or a different timeline altogether is something we don't know yet. That we don't know and that it engages the reader so our minds try to figure out what's happening and that is full of weird possibilities.
The main part of the story introduces us to Bart. It is a set-up issue really because this is a different version of Bart than the one that was first introduced. If I am completely honest I am not sure why we don't go back to him because his origin and when he comes from is super intriguing to me and I would've preferred to see that. Since that isn't the case lets talk about what we do see. I love seeing Gretchen not only pitch to Bart but as they do this they talk about physics. It's a tutoring session that happens around a sport they both love and I have to tell you if more people did this kind of tutoring kids wouldn't be as mentally challenged as they are. Plus what we see here, the physics, is a theme that plays out one way or another throughout the entire book and I thing how Alejandro does that is pretty damn genius.
The way that this is being told and how we see the story & plot development through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented well. While the opening garners interest it still remains an oddity to the rest of the story so far and that's disappointing. If we had just stuck with getting to know Bart it would've been more coherent. The Bart sequence flows really well through the pages and really brings out some nice character development in he and Gretchen. The pacing is pretty good and the ebb & flow that it creates makes this easy to fly through the issue.
The interiors here are nice and they look like an elevated version of an all-ages book in a more traditional comic book style. Kind of like the old Young Justice or Impulse books. Not generally my thing as I actually like to see hair done that doesn't look like a stiff wig but the faces we see and the facial expressions are extremely well done. That we see backgrounds utilised in some panels, I would like to see them in more, they do work within the composition in the panels to bring us depth perception, scale and a sense of size and scope to the book. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a decent eye for storytelling. With the way we see the faces and some other sharp detail versus things like the hair and such kind of compete against one another. The colour work is well rendered. I like seeing the various hues and tones within colours to create the shading, highlights and shadow work.
There is definite potential here and it's kind of cute and fun. I am not sure if this a YA or all-ages geared book and the talk of physics doesn't help determine that either. Regardless what we see of young Bart and Gretchen is the groundwork with which to work upon, build and grow this series. While not normally a fan of time travel adventures however the last page really does have me rather excited to see what's coming next!