Dynamite Entertainment 2019
Written by Ron Marz
Illustrated by Roberto Castro
Coloured by Salvatore Aiala
Lettered by A Larger World Studio’s Troy Peteri
Turok and Andar pierce the veil and find themselves out of time, literally, in the Lost Valley! The Kiowa warriors are surrounded by hungry dinosaurs, and their only possible allies are the cavalry soldiers sworn to capture them. But all is not as it seems in the time-lost land, and the key to solving the mystery might well be the shadowy bounty hunter dogging Turok's trail.
I have been waiting for Turok to once more be amidst the dinosaurs or at least hunting them. What I wasn’t expecting was for Ron to go back to literally the first story ever told, over in Dell comics #596 of Four Color Comics in 1954. Small history lesson there for ya. For me this is what spawned things like Land of the Lost which were all in some ways inspired by the Land that Time Forgot. All of this does have a point I promise, the point being that while it’s been a number of years the legend this spawned from really is alive and well. Ron taking this back to it’s roots with a few tweaks to make it a combination of his own new vision melded with the past is extremely nice to see. This is why legends never die they just stronger with age.
The Blue-coats have followed the brothers into the vortex naturally I mean we are civil war era where men thought about money, and whores, above all else. Though the last person to come through remains a mystery still and I am not mad about that at all. This dude has to understand how all this works and I have a few theories running around in my head. That I am thinking of those theories means Ron is doing an amazing job pulling me in and making my work in ways that the page doesn’t tell it to. So yeah this is what amazing storytellers do they tell a story that has the reader become so involved that they try to become a sleuth or detective (6 of one…) trying to get ahead of the game. This also pretty much guarantees that the reader comes back to see if what they think is correct or not.
Roberto is laying down some incredible interior artwork here. The linework is utterly gorgeous and how he’s able to use the varying weights to create such attention to detail is sensational. From the faces, facial expression to the realness of the dinosaurs and the way the creases in the trousers look shows off such a steady hand and wonderful imagination and creativity on display. The utilisation of page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show off an amazing eye for storytelling. The way backgrounds are utilised makes me happy as they really do help to expand the moments and bring a size and scope to the story. The colour work here is marvellous! They have a natural hue when needed and really pop and make the creatures more realistic.
Aside from the fact that Ron is one of the modern eras premiere storytellers, Turok is one of the most interesting and complex characters that is still spotlighted today. That I see this story taking him back to basics and how the characterisation with him, Andar and the soldiers is developing is beyond anything I could have hoped for. This is the kind of Dynamite I expect to see on a regular basis it’s got that utterly amazing storytelling with interior artwork to match.