Thundercafs #9 // Review
Cheetarah is running. She might be patrolling. She might be scouting. Mostly she needs to clear her head. She’s going to have to be careful, though. Third Warth isn’t a terribly stable place. There’s all kinds of danger lurking around outside the protected fortress in Thundercafs #9. Writer Declan Shalvey continues an exploration of the beloved 1980’s action series with artist Drew Moss and colorist Martina Pignedoli. The intensity of the action mixes with interesting grandma that seems to expand on some of the basic promises that had been explored in the original cartoon. It’s a very thoughtful expansion of the source material
Reptilians. Vultuemen. And now monkeyans. Third Earth is crawling with mutants. Cheetarah might be in a little over her head as she’s tackling that the danger all alone. However, everyone else seems to be dealing with something else that might be equally significant. And where there’s a significant, there’s also danger. In the process of investigating things , Cheetarah sees plans drawn-up for an attack. They’re planning an attack on the Thundercats’ ship. Naturally she’s going to ask when the attack begins.. It may already be to late. Cheetarah is going to have to scramble if she’s going to be of any help at all.
Shalvey constructs the script to this particular issue with a clever rhythm. Opening intrigue in action is followed by a little bit of quiet drama before everything explodes at issue anchors everything that happens before it. And there’s a slight solid flow of action from the beginning to the end. Individual characters managed to make an impression over the course of the trip from one cover to the other. Cheetarah and Liono end up being a couple of more prominent characters here, but nearly everyone of the central cadt factors in in some way.
Moss and Company, bring the action intention to the page white capably. Some of the classic visuals from the original animated series, make it in. Not all of the action necessarily has the impact it could. It’s very difficult to get the feel of acrobatic.kinetics onto the page in a way that delivers the kind of impact needs in order to really bring across the feeling of the intensity of battle.Miss is particularly successful in this with Cheetarah. There are a few, rather clever bits of layout that serve her speed and agility quite well.
Once again, it’s nice to see what essentially equates with 10 to 15 minutes of an animated episode in a single issue. The formulaic approach to script writing that was necessitated by a 1980s after school syndicated animated series It was a very regimented. It’s nice to see a plot applied to this particular cast in this particular setting that doesn’t necessarily need to fall in line in between commercial brakes. The various elements of the story have more room to breathe in a comic book format like the current Dynamit Comics series. Once again: it’s nice to life in the old cats.
