Ahoy Comics Mags 2019
Written by Tom Peyer
Illustrated by Peter Krause
Coloured by Andy Troy, Paul Little & Kelly Fitzpatrick
Lettered by Rob Steen
With Stinger grounded at the Bughouse, Dragonfly is left alone to face the brute force of Kaktus! Meanwhile, on Earth Alpha, Dragonflyman puts his life in the hands of his sidekick who controls his fate with the push of a button - literally! PLUS! An assortment of prose and illustrations to entertain and astonish.
I do not care what anyone says because this, this is bloody effin perfect in every way! The duality of the stories and how each of them has a different impact on the reader could not be written any better than this. Seeing the harsh, untrusting and relentless versus the bright, upbeat and caring with all the pain, happiness and everything in between is done in such a way that one can truly appreciate the level of talent, skill—Charisma, Uniqueness, nerve & talent—and ability not to mention love and passion of the writing here.
As a comics lover for the past X amount of years but I find myself looking at the two arcs and seeing the differences in ways that kind of surprised me. Earth Omega in particular as I marvelled at how Chip while being incredibly pissed at Dragonfly utilises that anger and does what he does. The kid may think he's not wanted or loved and that his mentor doesn't want him there though that couldn't be further from the truth. Men who cannot talk, discuss how the feel and come off as unapproachable as he does it is some of the most gripping storytelling around. The sheer power behind the writing is just mindbogglingly brilliant!
The way this is being told is sensational. The story & plot development we see through how the sequence of events unfold and how the reader learns information is presented in some spectacular ways. I'm still marvelled at how we see both Stinger's being portrayed and this leads me into the character development. How these four individuals are written and how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances they encounter/find themselves in really connects them and separates them beautifully. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing the twists and turns along the way it helps to create the books ebb & flow.
The interiors here match the story and while I admire the dual arcs as different as they are to see the same thing from Peter is a mic drop moment. The linework is extraordinary and how the varying weights are utilised to showcase the attention to detail is phenomenal. The way we see the backgrounds here is so very nice, sure there are a few blanks I wish weren't but hey. The way they work within the composition in the panels bring us this nice depth perception, scale and an overall 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 masters eye for storytelling. The colour is beautifully rendered as well. How we see the various hues and tones within the colours to show shading, highlights and shadow work shows some nice expertise. That sunrise, wowza!
There are so many surprises when it comes to the characters, what they see, do and learn and I don't just mean the heroes I mean within everyone we see. This is flawless done and the writing and the interiors and even the extras all bring something to the table to make this something more than what it appears to be.