Matt Brady Comic Reviews

So, while the series continues to be enjoyable and revelatory for Madman fans, newcomers might be left scratching their heads as to what is going on. It's hard to tell how appealing this might be to those who are new to the series, but hopefully everybody will be able to get on board for a big, cosmic, universe-saving space adventure. We'll see how it goes.

Art is provided by Mateus Santolouco, and he does a good job of providing dynamic, exciting action and character-based humor. Since so much of the series consists of interaction between Alex and Rachel, their facial expressions and body language are key to selling the readers on their relationship, and Santolouco rises ably to the task (cover artist Rafael Albuquerque, who draws Blue Beetle, would have been even better, but you can't have everything).

It's been a fascinating series so far, and hopefully it won't go off the rails before it's finished. Milligan can be pretty inconsistent in his writing, sometimes delivering phoned-in scripts when working on mainstream properties, but often coming up with fascinating, unique work in his more personal projects. So far, this seems to be one of the latter types of stories, and I'm looking forward to seeing what Milligan has in store.

So the writing could still use a little improvement, preferably going in the direction of the first couple of issues, but it's still a fun book, giving readers a humorous look at the life of the little guys in the world of mad science. For those who want to get caught up on the series, Oni has put out one collection containing the first three issues, and a second collection with the next three is due out this fall. I strongly recommend it.

So, not recommended. Poorly-realized characters, a facile view of human nature, and ugly art make for a bad combo. It could get better, especially if Powers lays off the politics and just tries to tell a big space war story, but it doesn't look like he's going that way. Avoid.