Review:
Amy Chu's Summit series presents a fascinating portrayal of a new superhero and the super-smart team of MIT grad students and researchers that enable her to take her heroic actions. Potential oozes from these characters and concepts, and when the storytelling gets stronger, this could be an awesome series.
Our hero is Valentina "Val" Resnick-Baker, a super-powered ex-astronaut, settling into her new life as a lecturer at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the team assembled to study her powers and support her heroic actions.
Her support team of intelligent scientists and researchers is reminiscent of the Flash TV series and his supporting cast of scientists - only Val's team is 2-3 times larger than Barry Allen's. But the bigger the team, the bigger the security risk. And in these chapters she is betrayed and played perfectly, leading to her capture and - cliff-hanger! - an unexpected "cure" for her solar powers.
That team is one of the most diverse in all of comic-dom. White, Black, Indian, Asian, gay and straight, singles and blended families - it's a who's-who of minority groups, yet feels perfectly rational in the context of MIT-based scientists. And Chu has not only assembled this stunningly diverse collection of main characters but imbues them in these chapters with intriguing back-stories, nuanced characteristics and depth. Their relationships and interactions become one of the main strengths of these tales, although the crew is, if anything, perhaps a little too large and diverse. There is not enough story space for the reader to connect with the entire team.
Which is fine, as at least one of the team is not who they appear to be, and the betrayal nearly destroys the group and our budding new hero.
As mentioned, Chu's strength is in the relationships among the widely diverse main characters. The rest of the narrative suffers on occasion from rushed pacing, cramming too much revelation into too small a space and dropping jarring revelations on the readers. These weaknesses are learnable skills, and as Chu masters the art of graphic storytelling, her foundation of characters and relationships will blossom into ever stronger tales.
The artwork, led by Federico Dallocchio, is solid and engrossing. With rarely more than four panels per page, he has lots of room to work, and he makes good use of that room. Facial expressions and dramatic physical postures carry much of the drama of the visuals, aided by an occasional creative layout , as in the rays of semi-circular story-so-far exposition.
Summit is a fast and engrossing read, and with these characters and relationships, this book will only get stronger as the author's skills in pacing and comic storytelling mature.
Description:
The second arc in the Summit series, part of the Catalyst Prime superhero universe!
Having helping hands does wonders for one's recovery, especially when you have both superpowers and the media breathing down your neck. After beginning to recover from her experiences in space, losing her girlfriend Kay, and realizing she has superpowers, Valentina “Val” Resnick-Baker has found herself in a better place surrounded by new friends, Fiona, and a new job at MIT. Unfortunately—because life can never be easy for Val—there's a new threat on the horizon; one that's threatening to steal her suit and her powers. All Val may want is peace, but the world needs her to be a superhero.
Collects: Issues #5-9
Authors: Amy Chu
Artists: Federico Dallocchio, Will Rosado, Marika Cresta
Published By: Oni Press
Published When: Dec 11, 2018
Parental Rating: PG-13
ISBN: 9781549302855
Pages: 144 pages
Comments
Post a Comment