The Vigil #2 // Review
The leader of the group calls himself Arclight. He has a military background. It was a rough time. There aren’t very many superhumans who make it out of the military without a few scars. It’s a recurring theme throughout the superhero genre. It’s a recurring theme throughout history as well. Writer Ram V explores the themes of military trauma in The Vigil #2. Artist Lalit Kumar Sharma tactfully and tactically puts the second issue of the series onto the page with the aid of colorists Rain Beredo and Lee Loughridge. It’s a strong, sober look at power and responsibility in a world that’s deeply tied to our own.
He was known as Captain Khan back then. He was serving in the Strait of Malacca: a tiny strip of water between Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula. There was a chemical plant. A leak. An explosion. Contamination stretched out for 30 square miles. People died. One year later, they’ve got work for him. He’s chain-smoking when he gets the call. Not finished grieving. Shoot ahead to the present day, and he’s powerful. He’s the head of the Vigil. He wears a suit and a mask. And he’s sneaking into Camp Weston...
Ram V gives the darkness of the series a firm grounding in certain realities of those who serve. There’s real darkness in the heart of the series that the writer is diving into with a great deal of success. It’s all just so...dark, though. The best series of this type temper the darkness with some kind of appeal that goes beyond the intensity of the powers and the relatively cool look of Arclight’s costume. It’s the second issue, and Ram V is still laying the groundwork in the series, and there’s a hell of a lot of trauma to go through before things can really get moving. The final page of the issue shows a hell of a shift. The Vigil looks like it’s going to take a hard turn into the weird…
Sharma’s layouts are impressive. There’s a clever use of parallel images and echoes of certain elements of iconography that give the series a look quite unlike anything else on the comics rack right now. The substance of what’s being presented might be a little morose and heavy, but Sharma’s work with the story makes it feel visually appealing on some level. Beredo and Loughridge lend some style to the visuals. The color of Arclight's energy is dazzling without being overly flashy. It’s a mute kind of fantasy that inhabits a dark and shadowy space to deliver somber visuals to the world of the Vigil.
It’s still too early to predict quite which direction Ram V is going to take the series in. The darkness is nice, but it needs to have something to contrast against it for it to have any definition at all. These ARE super-heroic types, and there DOES need to be some sense of wonder for it to feel appealing enough to keep the pages turning. For the time being, however, Ram V has a story to tell. And it’s a story covered in pain and shadows.
