Starsigns #3 // Review
Rana and Clarence have reached the facility where the child is being kept. They have no idea where to find him, though...until they realize that the connection is within them. Finding the kid is only part of the danger. There are a couple of other people with great power who are looking for him as well in Starsigns #3. Writer Saladin Ahmed and artist Megan Levens continue a very sharp exploration into the superhuman in a series that picks up a bit of momentum in its third outing.
So much changed for so many people when the Zodiac began winking out of the sky. It’s changed more for some than it has for others. Gaining the power of Taruus, Rana has a whole different handle on time. Having connected with Gemini, Clarence has a rather strange relationship with the overall form of his own body. Both of them can feel others who have gained power since the celestial event. They’re both in search of a boy who can control emotions. So are a couple of others who seem to be much more in control of their own powers--and one of them has the power of Ares.
It’s a simple and primal idea: there’s going to be a superhuman for every sign in the Western zodiac. Some of them are more experienced and trained with their powers than others. There are those who would use that power to help people, and there are those who would apparently use that power to help themselves. It’s like a cleaner version of the original Kirby and Lee X-Men concept. The simplicity serves the premise quite well as Ahmed thrusts a couple of strangers into heroism and sets them up against powerful villains in a clash in the night. It’s nothing new, but it’s definitely something special.
Levens’s artwork follows the tone and style of Ahmed’s script with a clean and simple presentation of human drama. There isn’t a great deal of detail in the rendering, and some of it hits the panel at weird and unnatural angles, but it’s remarkably appealing nonetheless. Clarence looks like any guy who might be living down the block. Rana is casually beautiful with a great deal of inner strength that Levens places cleverly on the page. The superpowers hit the page in competent form throughout the issue. The momentum of the action feels more or less perfect in a single encounter that runs the entire length of the issue.
It’s so very, very difficult to completely start a new superhero universe. Ahmed and Levens make it look strikingly easy by choosing a simple conceptual framework for the action that seems strikingly familiar without enslaving itself completely to echoes and shadows of what has come before. The overall feel of it is actually really impressive. It’s a fun concept for action and drama that plays competently across the page. If Ahmed and Levens can maintain their momentum, Starsigns could really turn into something.
