Lion Forge 2017
Written by David F. Walker & Sheena C. Howard
Pencilled by Ray-Anthony Height & Eric Battle
Inked by LeBeau L. Underwood, Eric Battle & Robin Riggs
Coloured by Veronica Gandini & Sotocolor
Lettered by AW’s Tom Napolitano
I am enjoying this immensely as we see, right now, three teenagers with enhanced abilities with three different viewpoints dealing with the same thing. Of course when dealing with teenagers things can be a might unpredictable and dare I say volatile what with raging hormones and the whole between child and adulthood looming. So that David and Sheena are managing to write this in such a way that is neither demeaning to them or making it overreacted to is a balance so few are capable of achieving.
So I do like that we open with two things happening simultaneously one is Kayla’s parents completely unaware of what their daughter can do while lamenting that the work they are doing for Foresight is putting her in danger, well they are scared by the organisation and of Gomez specifically. While we also see Abbie working on stuff while, kind of girl genius with a welders torch in an abandoned warehouse type setting as she listens to the news.
I’m also a huge fan that right now this is all still in a building phase, the development of not only the kids together with their new abilities but with their parents and Foresight, it’s all ground breaking and new so that we don’t get thrust into this with a prefabricated setting and all the players in place. We as the reader feel a part of this building process and that kind of perspective really hasn’t been shown before. Is it perfect, well no but then again what is but this is as good as it gets when dealing with something we have no experience with.
There is a rather large team working on the interiors here. Even if they weren’t all listed, above, you’d be able to see the differences. There is the heavy lined work that tends to feel heavier and scratchy at times versus the more detailed work with finer lines and feeling more traditionally super hero in nature. Regardless the use of page layouts throughout with their angles and perspective are well done. So I do wish more backgrounds were utilised here because when they are wow, that page with the roller coaster for instance was freaking stunning. They really do expand the story and give the reader a bigger picture of what’s going on.
So right now we’ve got three kids who have new abilities that allow them to do things that most are afraid of. Fear that is spread by Foresight so they can round them up, examine, dissect and figure out how to profit from their emergence. Yes this corporation is as bad as any government when it comes to rounding up those with abilities. It’s frightening how easy it could be considered normal for this kind of behaviour to be accepted. With what’s happening in politics these days the scarier part is that it feels like something we could see now.
I think that while the idea isn’t revolutionary the way things in the Catalyst Prime universe are coming together in ways that have me genuinely excited about comics. I haven’t felt this way about a universe since I first discovered the enjoyment comics can bring in my youth. This is must read material guys it’s honest and interesting with the right cross-section of those who gained their abilities.