Comics
Review: ‘Lazarus’ #2
After an impressive first issue, “Lazarus” #2 continues to be an exciting and action-packed sci-fi thriller. Characters are deceptively playing their own mind games and even their dialogue has double meaning. The “Lazarus” series keeps running at full speed, and doesn’t even try hitting the brakes.
WRITTEN BY: Greg Rucka
ART BY: Michael Lark
PUBLISHER: Image Comics
PRICE: $3.99
RELEASE: July 24, 2013
After witnessing a group of thieves robbing her house, Forever Carlyle was shot right in the head. Forever came back from the dead a different person. She is starting to see the flaws in the system where power rests in the hands of wealthy families. As her reawakening continues, Forever even hesitates following her orders. Forever doubts she can continue to stay absolutely faithful and loyal to the Carlyle family. After resurrecting from the dead, Forever is starting to wish she never came back.
Writer Greg Rucka sends readers to a distant future that is quite believable and resonate. In the opening pages, Rucka demonstrates how the wealthy Carlyle family dabbles in politics. The siblings of the Carlyle family have their game plan against their father, Malcolm. Forever doesn’t even realize she is just a pawn, a lab rat, in their mind games. If Forever is supposed to be the shield and sword of the family, none of the siblings actually see her that way. If she doesn’t play by their rules, they will get rid of Forever.
Because she was genetically engineered to be the perfect solider, Forever followed her orders and never disobeyed. But ever since her resurrection, she is discovering more about her humanity. Her conscience is always in a battle against her instructions. Malcolm heightens the inner struggle, asking Forever how it felt to kill someone. She doesn’t know how to respond to Malcolm’s questions, as if afraid to speak her mind. Even when Forever spits out a plausible answer, she doesn’t even buy it.
When Michael Lark illustrates action sequences, he really knocks it out of the park. Lark carefully blocks out the action in the panels, so that the readers doesn’t miss a beat. When the Carlyle siblings fight, the sister slams her brother’s head against the table and twists his arm. While the sister is pinning her brother to the table, she uses her free hand to reach out and grab a kitchen knife.
Lark presents a future that is technologically advanced and poverty-stricken at the same time. When Forever is being given her medical exam, notice the clock in the background. There is a glowing hologram on the table telling you, the reader, what time it is. When Forever is on her road trip, Hollywood is clearly missing a bunch of its big white letters. The hills have now become a haven for homeless people and pollution has caused the grass to die.
Through the sci-fi genre, “Lazarus” #2 has a lot to say about the war between the Haves and Have Nots. The next issue looks really promising as Forever takes a road trip outside of California. Interestingly, we’re going to see what has happened to the rest of the world in this dystopian future.
4/5 Skulls
Reviewed by – Jorge Solis
IDW Dark and Paramount recently joined forces to launch limited comic book tales set in the worlds of Smile and A Quiet Place, and we’ve learned today that they’ll continue hanging around in those franchise universes with two brand new limited series tales.
Entertainment Weekly has exclusively revealed this afternoon that IDW Dark’s Any Given Smile debuts in September, while A Quiet Place: Rising Tides arrives in November.
First up, from writer Stephanie Williams and artist Pablo Collar, Any Given Smile puts a football-themed twist on Parker Finn’s successful Smile movie franchise.
The five-part limited series is “set in January 1995, during the American Arena League football championship game in St. Augustine, Florida. The rising superstar of the Sharks, backup quarterback Dupree, is feeling the pressure from his teammates, the fans, and also the city’s gambling underworld, to whom he owes a considerable debt. Meanwhile, a sports journalist investigates a string of suicides that may be connected to the big game. At the very least, they are connected to a sinister entity that preys on the minds of its victims.”
From writer Declan Shalvey and artist Luke Sparrow, A Quiet Place: Rising Tides will also be a five-issue limited story. The comic book tale “brings the creatures to the Florida Keys, where a father-daughter duo attempt to survive on water in a houseboat.”
EW further details, “This tense family reunion coincides with the arrival of the vicious creatures that hunt through sound. Grace and her dad find safety on the open ocean, but she’ll have to make landfall sooner or later; the father’s oxygen tank and their supplies are running low, while a hurricane swiftly approaches.”
Learn more about both comic books over on Entertainment Weekly.
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