Sigil #2: April comic review #2 (of 2)
May. 15th, 2011 07:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ficticonsSigil #2 (of 4) - Mike Carey (story), Leonard Kirk (pencils, pages 1-15 & 20), Patrick Olliffe (pencils, pages 16-19), Ed Tadeo (inks), Guru EFX (colours), and Rob Steen (letters). The cover is by Jelena Djurdjevic.
This issue kicks off with a lot of action, with the crew of the El Cazador - the brigantine that our heroine Samantha "Sam" Rey found herself on - being overwhelmed by an enemy boarding party. Captain Sin, El Cazador's captain, provides cover fighting during which Woodvine (her first mate) takes Sam below deck. His goal is to destroy a map that the boarders are searching for and, when they are found, to give Sam a quick primer on the powers he says he knows she has.
Woodvine: "It's helpful at first to direct the force with the movements of your hand. An open palm for the shield function. A closed fist when you want to attack."
Sam maintains that she doesn't have superpowers, but as she closes a fist to demonstrate that she "can't even throw a normal punch", her hand glows yellow and produces a sort of flame-like look. She realizes with surprise that in this place and time, she just might actually have powers after all.
Then Captain October, the man who'd filled most of the two-page spread at the end of the last issue, finally catches up to them and knocks Woodvine out with his own (red-glowing) power-punch. Sam decides to try out her newly-discovered powers with a punch of her own, but it doesn't have the effect she's looking for. October is only amused, and with Sam in his grasp he puts some sort of grasshopper-like creature onto her neck. Something about it causes her to pass out.
When she next comes to she's lying on the deck of the Red Harvest, October's ship. He's lined El Cazador's crew up and wants the location of the treasure they were seeking, despite the fact that the map is destroyed. She sees him decide to take Woodvine away for further questioning while she and the rest of the crew that are still alive, including Captain Sin, are thrown (literally in Sam's case!) into the ship's cells.
The captain speaks to her, offering some advice when she breaks down in tears - and among other things asks her if it's true that she has powers similar to Woodvine's. Sam says that she thinks it is, but that ever since the grasshopper-like creature was put on her she "can't seem to put two thoughts together." So when Woodvine - looking severely beat up - is brought in and it seems that Sam's the next person October wants to "see", Sin uses the last bullet in her pistol to kill the grasshopper-creature. Sam manages to teleport out, taking with her a gift from Woodvine - his sigil-on-a-chain - and a rather cryptic blessing to "lead them" to the "Reina de los angeles. S-seven. Seven trees."
However, when she rematerializes, she finds herself somewhere she doesn't want to be - in the past, at her mother's funeral, and at a point when she broke away from the group around the coffin to be alone for a while. She wishes herself out of there in a sequence that reminded me of the way Billy Kaplan/Wiccan's powers seem to work - she mutters "Get me out of here get me out of here get me out of here!" before she finally gets out of there.
She finds herself in the correct time, her present, but still at school and still being looked for by bully Tamara Wachowski and her cohorts. She tries to hide, but is discovered due to a voice suddenly emerging from Woodvine's pendant, saying things like "who's using this corridor?" "are you in trouble, bearer?" and "please confirm your theatre". Sam has to run again, but she's still chased and finally ends up backed against a wooden stair railing. Someone in Tamara's group notices that the railing is giving way, but everyone else's focus is on Sam and Tamara.
Suddenly Sam attacks, knocking the wind out of her opponent with both her feet. But to do so, she had to lean on the rickety rail...and it was too much. She falls, as the other girls watch, into the space below. One of them had a grip on her shoulder before she fell, but all that girl ends up with as Sam falls is a piece of sleeve.
But as Sam falls, the sigil's power kicks into action again and she ends up splashing into the sea back in 1695. As she surfaces she finds herself near a ship, possibly the Red Harvest, and heads towards it.
My thoughts:
This is a good issue! Things continue to get interesting. There's good world-building and we learn a bit more about how "magic" (for lack of a better term) works in this universe.
Sam now has an important, if still somewhat cryptic, "mission" and at least some of the things she needs to work on it...but she still has the school bullies to deal with as well. She's also slowly growing in confidence, both concerning the magical elements of her story and with her enemies at school. We're also shown another glimpse of her non-school non-Sigil-related life through a flashback.
I like that this comic is still passing the Bechdel test and that it does a somewhat better job in this issue than in the last one. In this issue, not only do Sam and Captain Sin (who is the definition of kick-ass) have a brief conversation about survival in difficult situations, but it's evident that Sam really takes the Captain's words to heart. As she gathers her courage for the task ahead (just before the "To be continued" on the last page), she repeats something that the Captain told her earlier for (as I read it) strength and comfort.
I still like the art (seriously can't go wrong with Leonard Kirk pencils!) and I feel I should once again point out the great colouring. Patrick Olliffe also draws some of the pages and his work fits nicely in with Kirk's so that the reader isn't drawn out of the drama of the story. Upon closer study one can see the differences, but they aren't big enough to attract my attention in a negative way.
Overall? Good writing, good art =ficticons keeps reading (if she can still find the money for comics, but that's another subject :P).
This issue kicks off with a lot of action, with the crew of the El Cazador - the brigantine that our heroine Samantha "Sam" Rey found herself on - being overwhelmed by an enemy boarding party. Captain Sin, El Cazador's captain, provides cover fighting during which Woodvine (her first mate) takes Sam below deck. His goal is to destroy a map that the boarders are searching for and, when they are found, to give Sam a quick primer on the powers he says he knows she has.
Woodvine: "It's helpful at first to direct the force with the movements of your hand. An open palm for the shield function. A closed fist when you want to attack."
Sam maintains that she doesn't have superpowers, but as she closes a fist to demonstrate that she "can't even throw a normal punch", her hand glows yellow and produces a sort of flame-like look. She realizes with surprise that in this place and time, she just might actually have powers after all.
Then Captain October, the man who'd filled most of the two-page spread at the end of the last issue, finally catches up to them and knocks Woodvine out with his own (red-glowing) power-punch. Sam decides to try out her newly-discovered powers with a punch of her own, but it doesn't have the effect she's looking for. October is only amused, and with Sam in his grasp he puts some sort of grasshopper-like creature onto her neck. Something about it causes her to pass out.
When she next comes to she's lying on the deck of the Red Harvest, October's ship. He's lined El Cazador's crew up and wants the location of the treasure they were seeking, despite the fact that the map is destroyed. She sees him decide to take Woodvine away for further questioning while she and the rest of the crew that are still alive, including Captain Sin, are thrown (literally in Sam's case!) into the ship's cells.
The captain speaks to her, offering some advice when she breaks down in tears - and among other things asks her if it's true that she has powers similar to Woodvine's. Sam says that she thinks it is, but that ever since the grasshopper-like creature was put on her she "can't seem to put two thoughts together." So when Woodvine - looking severely beat up - is brought in and it seems that Sam's the next person October wants to "see", Sin uses the last bullet in her pistol to kill the grasshopper-creature. Sam manages to teleport out, taking with her a gift from Woodvine - his sigil-on-a-chain - and a rather cryptic blessing to "lead them" to the "Reina de los angeles. S-seven. Seven trees."
However, when she rematerializes, she finds herself somewhere she doesn't want to be - in the past, at her mother's funeral, and at a point when she broke away from the group around the coffin to be alone for a while. She wishes herself out of there in a sequence that reminded me of the way Billy Kaplan/Wiccan's powers seem to work - she mutters "Get me out of here get me out of here get me out of here!" before she finally gets out of there.
She finds herself in the correct time, her present, but still at school and still being looked for by bully Tamara Wachowski and her cohorts. She tries to hide, but is discovered due to a voice suddenly emerging from Woodvine's pendant, saying things like "who's using this corridor?" "are you in trouble, bearer?" and "please confirm your theatre". Sam has to run again, but she's still chased and finally ends up backed against a wooden stair railing. Someone in Tamara's group notices that the railing is giving way, but everyone else's focus is on Sam and Tamara.
Suddenly Sam attacks, knocking the wind out of her opponent with both her feet. But to do so, she had to lean on the rickety rail...and it was too much. She falls, as the other girls watch, into the space below. One of them had a grip on her shoulder before she fell, but all that girl ends up with as Sam falls is a piece of sleeve.
But as Sam falls, the sigil's power kicks into action again and she ends up splashing into the sea back in 1695. As she surfaces she finds herself near a ship, possibly the Red Harvest, and heads towards it.
My thoughts:
This is a good issue! Things continue to get interesting. There's good world-building and we learn a bit more about how "magic" (for lack of a better term) works in this universe.
Sam now has an important, if still somewhat cryptic, "mission" and at least some of the things she needs to work on it...but she still has the school bullies to deal with as well. She's also slowly growing in confidence, both concerning the magical elements of her story and with her enemies at school. We're also shown another glimpse of her non-school non-Sigil-related life through a flashback.
I like that this comic is still passing the Bechdel test and that it does a somewhat better job in this issue than in the last one. In this issue, not only do Sam and Captain Sin (who is the definition of kick-ass) have a brief conversation about survival in difficult situations, but it's evident that Sam really takes the Captain's words to heart. As she gathers her courage for the task ahead (just before the "To be continued" on the last page), she repeats something that the Captain told her earlier for (as I read it) strength and comfort.
I still like the art (seriously can't go wrong with Leonard Kirk pencils!) and I feel I should once again point out the great colouring. Patrick Olliffe also draws some of the pages and his work fits nicely in with Kirk's so that the reader isn't drawn out of the drama of the story. Upon closer study one can see the differences, but they aren't big enough to attract my attention in a negative way.
Overall? Good writing, good art =
ficticons keeps reading (if she can still find the money for comics, but that's another subject :P).