
Action Lab Danger Zone 2015
Written by Shawn Gabborin
Illustrated by Antonio Ontiveros
Coloured by Dan Olvera
The Bodega Bay Inn has become quite the hotspot! Sure, there’s Samuel creeping around the place doing who-knows-what… and the puppets are being attacked by an unknown enemy… and Anthony gets VERY angry at a specific guest. But three of Mexico’s hottest Luchadores just checked in for the night! Nothing bad can happen there, right?
I love this series every time you think there isn’t a new direction this book can go Shawn just says yeah right think again. I can’t believe that with each issue he finds a way to keep the characterization going in a fresh new way that surprises me constantly. With Bodega Bay open for business and Anthony finding a home there you’d think all would start going well for him. That’s until Samuel shows up and the puppets start getting attacked.
I have to sit back and remember Anthony isn’t the most stable kid to begin with and there was a reason he was at that hospital when he found the puppets. Yes he’s the Puppet Master as well and that comes with a whole slew of other problems but he’s still a kid and kids don’t handle things very well all the time. They don’t have the life experience to do things subtly and control their emotions most of the time. So the continuing characterization here with him is utterly fantastic and it’s fun to see him go through the myriad of stuff that happens particularly in this issue alone.
Antonio does a brilliant job on the interiors here. He’s got a strong eye for storytelling and how to use pages and panels for to control the flow. The use of angles and perspective are great and when the Luchadores are introduced I enjoyed that style a lot. Plus the violence here is well portrayed without going too far. Also there’s an entire mood, tone and feeling they bring to the page that really suits the story.
Not only is Samuel doing his thing but Anthony’s father is still around looking to cause trouble as well. There are multiple stories that are on a collision course and it’s very fun to see how each is getting ready for the coming storm. Camille makes another appearance this issue as well and it’ll be interesting to see how long she can remain a thorn in the puppets side considering what we see this issue. After all it seems that the souls don’t die only the puppets bodies do and those can be rebuilt and reinhabited.
Shawn has created a new extension for the franchise here and kept that sense of tension and uncertainty to it that you never know if anyone will be safe for long. There’s a darkness in all of them that longs to be free and regardless of one's intentions sometimes nothing works out for the best and the vicious cycle just going around and round.