
Valiant Entertainment 2016
Written by Jody Houser
Illustrated by Pere Perez
Fantasy Sequence Art by Marguerite Sauvage
Origin Sequence Art by Colleen Doran
Coloured by Andrew Dalhouse
Lettered by Dave Sharpe
Well for those of you who haven’t read the previous story no worries as this does a great job on catching you up on Faith’s story to date. It pretty much gives you everything you need to know so you jump right in and enjoy and well there’s a lot here to enjoy.
After we catch up on how she got to where she is now we start of with a Mythos & Mayhem campaign. Yes Faith is a geek and she’s proud of it, loves her comics and D&D gaming so it’s nice she’s finding friends that she hangout with and have somewhat of a normal life with. Also that Jody through this in is fantastic because let that geek girl flag fly proudly we need to see more women like this!
I like how events are able to be tied together and something small can turn into something huge. Also that Faith is so incredibly naive and innocent that she doesn’t understand how law enforcement works or the apprehension of criminals even in the midst of an act it just demonstrates the kind of person she and how much further she needs to go still. Speaking of that with her boss and Jay knowing her secret there’s a lot more going on here that she has to contend with that she’s totally not prepared for. So how she’ll be able to keep acquiescing to people before she learns to stand up for herself will be interesting to watch.
Faith isn’t your standard hero, she’s a girl trying to figure it all out who has a penchant for daydreaming. I love when receives an invitation and has that flight of fantasy and then calls, skypes, with Archer about it and doesn’t like his reaction to it. Her history so far with meeting her idols as it were has proven to be well questionable at best.
The interior artwork here is great. The use of pages and panels to control the flow is well done and the use of angles and perspective make things interesting. Different artists for different segments didn’t disrupt anything and really nice set apart the fantasy stuff from reality where Pere really has this great grasp of everyday people, those who don’t go to the gym and have the look that goes with it. The use of backgrounds are well done when we see them and help complete the bigger picture and give us that mood and feel of what’s happening.
The writing, story development, pacing and characterization here are fantastic. Jody gives us enough stuff here to keep exploring, fleshing out her world and to expand her social circle. I like that with everything that’s come before this feels like a great introduction as well as a continuation and either way new and returning readers can slip right in and enjoy what’s happening.
She’s not like other people Faith and it will interesting to see how she deals with the real world and her version of it and along the way maybe do some good and save the city.