Jodi Scaife (162)
Issue #3 of The Hawk of New York picks up five years after the life-changing events in Issue #2. Eric has developed a life as a hardcore martial arts instructor whose harsh teaching only hides the desire to help protect his students from being taken advantage of by life. His need to avenge Mr. Olive and Tara still drives him, though, and he hasn’t forgotten the evil created by The Devil Marauders Motorcycle Club. Will he finally find his path to become The Hawk and protect the innocent and those he holds most dear?
After reviewing Sevara #0 last year, I never expected that the first full installment of the series would take place in a society that is a throwback to ancient and medieval culture with a few darker twists. The people follow the dictates of Mitan, who is hailed as a god, and humans are divided into kings and prones/slaves. When a young woman dares to run away from the palace, the king retaliates by cutting off the villagers’ water supply, condemning them to death by dehydration if the runaway is not found within three days. The royal hunters track the girl down, but a mysterious woman prevents her death and recapture. This protector possesses abilities greater than most humans, but why is she here and how will her presence affect the fate of the rebellious slave girl?
Falcio and his companions changed irreparably due to the events they faced in their debut story, Traitor’s Blade, but they still follow the teachings of the deceased King Paelis and endeavor to fulfill his final quests. Now that the men have successfully decoded the meaning of the King’s Charoites and discovered one of the hidden heirs to Tristia’s throne, life should be easier right? Not when you live in a land where treachery and betrayal are like breathing to most of the nobility, and not even your allies can be completely trusted!
The universe really seemed determined to keep me from reading and reviewing Rachel E. Kelly’s third installment in her Colorworld series, Lumaworld. I struggled with the storyline anyway, because the focus on terminal illness felt too personal, and then my Kindle suddenly died. When my replacement arrived, none of my progress had been saved, so I faced re-reading material that I’d found difficult on the first pass; however, I’m glad that I did, because the true theme of Lumaworld is hope: hope in miracles; hope in the unknown; hope that things will somehow get better even if you don’t understand how. It’s not an easy read, at times, but the message rings true and is incredibly important to all of us.
After the seriousness of the Combiner Wars mini-series, Windblade’s final installment to the tale adds some much-needed humor to the mix. Sure, the crew on Cybertron is facing some serious problems, but the key to their resolution makes me smile, plus it opens up the door to some amazing action in the coming issues!
After Outré’s foray into a wordless issue for Issue #4 of the indie anthology, dipping into the theme of desire for Issue #5 almost seems like low hanging fruit. Desire sounds so obvious and easy, but the contributors to Outré always manage to surprise me, and none of the four stories are as straightforward as the topic would lead readers to believe.
Transformers: Windblade - Combiner Wars #3 winds up the final plot lines from the Combiner Wars saga and plunges toward a satisfying conclusion. The various combiners are prepping to square off in Caminus, the spacebridge is revving up to contact another lost colony, and it’s anyone’s guess as to how things will end with all the high stakes!
The latest installment in the action-packed political machinations of Transformers #41: Combiner Wars takes an already tense situation and raises the stakes to impossibly high levels. Battle lines are drawn in the sand and alliances are made, but it’s still any Bot's game as to who will end up on top!
Twenty-two-year-old Zoe is on the fast track to a dead-end life. She has no goals or aspirations, her relationship with her boyfriend is on the skids, and she seems doomed to continue as a professional booth babe until she ages out of the industry. One day, as she struggles to find meaning in her mundane life, she spies a stranger watching her from behind the curtains of his apartment window. Zoe barges her way into Thomas Rocher’s life, never realizing that she’s discovered the scandal of the century: Rocher’s allegedly been dead since 2008! Penelope Bagieu’s Exquisite Corpse explores how far some writers will go for fame and how obsession with your craft affects those around you. As if that weren’t enough, Bagieu throws in a hearty dose of relationship drama that kept me reading until the final page.
Transformers: Windblade - Combiner Wars #2 takes the political machinations from the main Transformers storyline and brings them into even sharper focus. The number of serious players in this showdown continues to grow, but the central conflict between Optimus Prime, Starscream, and young Windblade definitely takes center stage when a crisis occurs that could affect both Caminus and Cybertron.
