Valiant Entertainment 2016
Written by Fred Van Lente
Illustrated by Francis Portela
Coloured by Andrew Dalhouse
Gen Zero and Keisha find themselves trapped in Adele’s mind - her Heroscape. In her mind, she is the hero - and she loved Stephen, Keisha’s deceased boyfriend! As Gen Zero struggles to get out of Adele’s mind and back to their bodies, a new threat emerges in the form of the Cornermen! After defeating the Cornermen and returning to the real world, Gen Zero finds that Rook is even more upside down than before!
I like this series it’s got some great talent working on the book. While it seems a little slow to me, four issues of buildup and so far very little payoff, that’s okay because the characters and characterisation that Fred’s delivering is really rather strong. There’s so much that’s going on here what with Keisha wanting to be a part of Generation Zero so much so that she’s forgotten her brother, who is aware of the Cornermen. It’s something that I’m kind of surprised by that she’d let him sit there after school knowing his special needs and not finding a way to get to him.
Actually Kwame needed more of a spotlight because even though it was Keisha’s boyfriend that started all this it’s been his seeing these Cornermen that really make him more of a target. There’s something special about the boy and if that’s because of his condition or not remains to be seen but it does raise some interesting questions.
I’m a huge fan of Frances’ work. The attention to detail that he brings to this is amazing and the small things, like the officer’s eyes, that we see really make moments stand out. The use of backgrounds here really flesh out the scenes beautifully and do a lot more to give us the bigger picture. The use of page layouts utilising angles and perspective are wonderfully done. The sheer amount of detail and the colour work here from Andrew are simply stunning to see.
Things are definitely heating up here and it looks like the town of Rook holds more secrets than anyone could have possibly guessed. We start to see some of those secrets being revealed here and the implications are staggering.
There are some moments in this issue that really do some great things regarding these characters, their background and what they’ve been through in their young lives. These young people were to be used as weapons in someone else’s war and never had a childhood of their own. This kind of thing well it’s kind of traumatising and it goes a long way in explaining the kids and how they live their lives now and their interaction with Keisha.
This isn’t your typical story there’s a lot of story going on here and the action right now is secondary. It’s a thought provoking look at what happens to the innocents when they are used in someone else’s greedy desires. It is not what I was expecting but it’s definitely a much more fascinating route to establish a series.